Things have been looking up since we fled India and hit the streets of Malaysia. A month later, after zipping through modern Kuala Lumpur, lovely beachside Langkawi, culturally awesome Penang, and the amazing landscapes of Borneo (both Sabah and Sarawak), we've now arrived in Indonesia. North Sulawesi, to be exact. Not a place where they see many Western tourists, but we like it that way. We get a lot of stares, which, when we throw back a smile and "hello," turn into more smiles and big "hellos." We like that, too.I celebrated my birthday this year as an affair to truly remember. It arrived with much anticipation after a crazy two days of travel from Kuching, Malaysian Borneo, to Johar Bahru, Malaysia and on to Singapore, which is just across the causeway and supposedly a quick drive. Using public transportation, however, makes it a three+-hour ordeal. Luckily we were crashing in the spare room at David's second cousin once removed (or something like that), who lives in Singapore with his adorable family (which includes a brand-new baby). Nonetheless, the family charm was soon dispelled by our over-four hour delay to Jakarta, which was besieged by floods.
Thanks to a cool immigration control dude who let us use the Diplomats lane for passport control (thus shaving some 30 minutes off our wait), and some quick-thinking parking control guys at the Jakarta airport, who radioed for a patrol car to whisk us over to the domestic terminal when the shuttle bus didn't arrive, we arrived just in time to make our flight to Manado in North Sulawesi, although we did have to throw too many U.S. dollars for departure tax at the ticket agent (no time to argue a fair conversion price), not to mention perform the 1,000-meter dash through the airport with four backpacks on in sweltering humidity, while every Indonesian on Java appeared to be screaming "Manado, Manado" back at us when they saw us running pell-mell asking, "Manado? Manado?" We were the last people to board and caused quite a ruckus when the flight attendants couldn't figure out how to offload our large backpacks at the last minute to the cargo hold and ended up cramming them in with their own bags in the special wardrobe.
We arrived very late at 1:30am the next day, found a good guesthouse, and slept like babies. We wasted no time in leaving the city, heading up to a little hill village called Tomohon in the Minahasa Highlands, about one hour south of Manado. Tomohon is lush, green, known for flowers/nurseries, and sits in a valley beneath two stunning volcanoes, both of them recently active in the 20th century I believe. It's really lovely.
We found refuge at this great little home stay called "Happy Flower," run by a neat Indonesian family. There are only three bungalows, four mangy dogs, tons of flowers, and tons of frogs croaking at the tops of their lungs all night long. It was pretty clean and neat, despite mildewy pillows and a few bugs in the partially open-air bathroom. It did have hot water, which is a bonus here, and a great balcony where we read and just watched the rain fall while the butterflies flit by.
Yoce, who greeted us on arrival, does tours around town. A cool Canadian girl named Jolene was with us the last two days at the home stay; she also happened to be one of only two other Westerners on our flight that crazy night, and greeted us with a, "Oh, so you're the guys making all that commotion on the plane the other night." Luckily she said it with a smile. As we quickly bonded with a fellow North American, the three of us hired Yoce for a half-day tour of the market and then a hike up to the crater of Mt. Mahawu. The price (about $25 for the three of us) included transportation and fruit, in addition to guide services. Not shabby
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So the transportation: This area is filled with little turquoise minivans called "mikrolets" that take you everywhere. So we hop in one of those from the rice field we were strolling along, and arrive at the main market about seven minutes later. We toured around and they sell some really gruesome things: fried bats, rats on sticks, and the most disturbing of all: dogs! We saw complete whole dogs charred and sitting on tables, some cut open to show their guts, not to mention LIVE dogs crammed in cages waiting to be...um...fried. So that was funky, but the people and stuff were amazing to see...probably the weirdest market in all our travels. That says a lot, given where we've been.
So then the next challenge...local scooter riding up to the volcano trailhead (don't tell our insurance agent). We'd heard from two cool Aussies that stayed with us the first night that this is how you really get around to the cool places here. I really didn't want to get on the back of a motorbike with an Indonesian dude smoking and driving on village backroads, as our insurance doesn't cover us, and you always hear horror stories (and see banged up people) in Asia. But as they say, when in Rome...
So by the time I'm done snapping photos, David, Jolene, and Yoce are already on the backs of their scooters, so I hop on mine. My helmet doesn't snap in, but then again...when in Rome. As David put it later, it would suffice for the initial impact but probably flop off after that. Lovely thought. Despite my initial anxiety, we never went that fast and ended up having this really serene, beautiful ride up the volcano through amazing farms and fields. 
The hike was pretty easy, the crater really cool. We hiked through a ton of long grasses above our heads along the rim for about 10 minutes and then Yoce cut fresh mangoes for us up there and we took in the sulfur smell. The views were out of this world, although much of the sea beyond was clouded over. Then we hiked down through the jungle, and it wasn't too buggy. We alit on a local road, hiked through the village for a bit, and then since it started sprinkling...back on another posse of motorbikes. The ride was fast, and we made it back to the home stay in one piece. It was just really fun, and a great way to spend my 39th birthday.
David gave me a cute little cotton pouch he'd bought in Malaysia, stuffed with hand-drawn coupons for massage, ice cream, and the like. It was really cute and thoughtful, especially given the resources of where we are (read: unless you want to buy a scooter or a charred dog, limited). We had a nice dinner with Jolene and the mangy dogs at the home stay, then chilled out afterwards. It poured all night and we had rats eating/nesting in our ceiling, but other than that, a peaceful sleep.
It's a birthday I'll never forget, and just another really amazing day on this wild adventure of ours. I feel really alive here and so relaxed, and it's great. People are SO friendly and the area is really beautiful. I wonder how I can top that for my 40th...any suggestions are welcome.
