Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Tana Toraja, The Beautiful Culture from South Sulawesi

Tana Toraja is one of regency in South Sulawesi; it’s located around 350 km from North Makassar. Tana Toraja is known with the traditional houses that called Tongkonan. The shapes from this house is unique, it has a huge roof, like buffalo horns. Beside the traditional houses, Tana Toraja is also known for the culture. If in Bali we know about Ngaben for funeral ritual, in Toraja funeral is known with Rambu Solo.

Picture 1.
Rambu Solo ceremony

Rambu Solo is a big ceremony in Toraja, it’s like a party but for the dead. Every family must slaughtering buffalo, and the number of buffalo is different depending of the class of community. Tana Toraja is inhabited by ethnic Toraja, in there we can see many sacred places, like Londa, Lemo, Batu Tumonga, Kete’Kesu etc.

Picture 2.
Londa

Many interesting event in Toraja like Rambu Solo (funeral) and Rambu Tuka (is like thanks giving), both of them is the annual event in there. Besides that, visitors are also can see the storage bodies in holding of corpse. This place is like containers in a big size with 3 meters of the width and 10 meters for the height. And also there are tongkongan with 600 years old in Londa, Rantepao. Tana Toraja is offering culture and history education for tourist.

Picture 3.
Tongkonan, traditional house of tana toraja




Image Resoureces :
Picture 1 and 2 : tongkonanku.blogspot.com
Picture 3 : rudydewanto.com

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Raja Ampat, A Paradise of Underwater Tours

Raja Ampat or Four of King is one of the regency in West Papua, Indonesia. This regency has 610 islands; four of the islands are the biggest island (only 35 islands that been inhabited). The named of Raja Ampat is taken from four biggest island, they are Misool, Salawati, Batanta and Waigeo Island. Raja Ampat is famous with the underwater tours; there are more than 540 kinds of coral, 1.511 species of fish and 700 kinds of molluscs. According to the report of The Nature Conservancy and Conservation International, there are 75% marine species of the world live in this island.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Hanacaraka; One of the nation's wealth of Java that’s still preserved

If in Japan we know Hiragana or Kanji, in Korean there is Hangeul, and in Middle East we know about Arabic, in Indonesia is also has a symbol or language that be used by Javanese ethnic, it’s known with Hanacaraka or Aksara Jawa (Javanese Script). We can see the form of Hanacaraka from the picture, which is general form of Ha Na Ca Ra Ka.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Taman Sari; One of the most historical buildings in Yogyakarta

Taman Sari or known as Taman Sari Water Castle is one of the cultural heritages from Imperial Palace of Yogyakarta (Keraton Yogyakarta) that still standing until now. Taman Sari is a site of a former royal garden of the Sultanate of Yogyakarta. Tamansari is located about 2 km south of Yogyakarta Palace. It built by Portuguese architect in European aquatic construction adorned with Javanese Symbolize ornaments. Tamansari was built in the Sultan Hamengku Buwono I period in the end of XVII Century. Tamansari not only just a recreation, but it's also a compound of bathing pool, canals, rooms and extremely large swimming pool (if the canals opened).

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Bunaken Island; Heaven from Manado

Bunaken is an island with 8 km², part of the Bunaken National Marine Park. Bunaken is located at the northern tip of the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia. It belongs administratively to the municipality of Manado. Scuba diving attracts many visitors to the island. The Bunaken National Marine Park was formally established in 1991 and is among the first of Indonesia's growing system of marine parks. The park covers a total surface area of 89,065 hectares, 97% of which is overlain by sparkling clear, warm tropical water. Bunaken National Park extends over an area of 890.65 km² of which only 3% is terrestrial, including Bunaken Island, as well as the islands of Manado Tua, Mantehage, Nain and Siladen. Although each of these islands has a special character, it is the aquatic ecosystem that attracts most naturalists.