Endless Journey at Central Sulawesi (1)

Dear bloggers..

This is a note from my unforgettable story on a journey to Central Sulawesi. As it is my first duty, I was very happy and also flustered. I’ve never go to other island before, and surprisingly I rarely go out from Solo. But there was no time for thinking, besides I’ll be took care with free cost and numerous reasons that every young researcher would not prevent at all. So, with no hesitancy I nodded to agreement, and that was where my journey begin.

Research's site, river Salato, Kabupaten Morowali
Central Sulawesi

Thus, on July 4th 2006 early morning, we were only in two with my senior partner Mr. Chris went to Palu. According to plan, we must go trough this route: Solo – Surabaya – Palu (transition via Makassar). Trip to Surabaya was about 5 hours by bus, as we checked off flight schedule to Palu at Juanda Airport that will departed at 12.30 pm. As soon as we got off in Surabaya Bus Terminal, we moved to airport bus and enjoyed our one hour trip to the airport. I feel comfortable in this city, because may be the weather is hot as my birth place town, Cirebon. The language used here also usual, Javanese dialect with some pressures on pronounciation.

After that, we headed to departure lobby for checking in, and about a half hour later we already sat in Boeing Lion Air. Wow, it’s fantastic! I’ve never flight by plane before, moreover never dreamt about it anyway. I really enjoyed the flight, ignored my dizzy sensation when the plane took off and landed easily on Hassanudin Airport, Makassar at 7.00 pm for transition. Here I was, walked emotionally inside the airport and proudly sniffed out the sulawesi’s air. Uhh, that was a beautiful moment.

Unfortunately, the transition plane had come late. Well, is our bad habit applied on the flight schedule too? Seems everybody didn’t give a care, and left me with a huge astonishment. Followed the announcement, we must wait till a couple hours for next trip. I had nothing to do except reading local newsletter, and still grumbling of course. At last, at 9.00 pm we got our plane and brought us to Palu.

It’s about 11 pm when we arrived at Palu airport. Cold and windy, I tighted up my jacket. We took a taxi and headed to middle-class hotel in this strange city.

We spent 4-5 hours for sleeping cause we had to find transportation to the research's site early. We didn’t have much time to accomplish this research. So we woke up early morning and luckily there was a travel biro near our motel. Finally, after the price is right, we packed up all our stuffs and moved out from Palu.

From this point, some awfuls moment waited for me…

(to be continued)