When I woke up it was raining. Hard. Great. 3 weeks in Sulawesi and I want to go on a tour on the only rainy day. At 7 AM someone called and said that Cass wanted to know if I really wanted to go in the rain. Yes, I wanted. 5 minutes later a knock on my door 'Do you really want to go?' Yes, I want to go. To be honest... I didn't really think it would rain all day. In the tropics it always rains every now and then but it stops after some time.
So at 8 AM we were ready to go. It was the driver (Mohamed, a muslim), Regina from reception and myself. As soon as we left the resort the rain stopped and we didn't have any more until we came back (it did rain on the coast most of the day... *tehe*
).Here are some impressions along the road that are typical.
A typical house
Not sure what they did in those caves...
Seling coconuts
These houses with red and white roofs were in front of a lot of houses. Regina told me that they would put lights in them in the evening so you find the house when it is dark.
Somehow I find rice fields soothing for the nerves...
In the Minahasa highlands each village seems to specialize in something. This village was building typical houses.
America is never far away...
This is something that I learned along the road as well. I always look for cemetery pics for my diashows on my Andiline-website. In Minahasa there are two types of 'cemeteries'. One of them are public cemeteries. The other one are not really cemeteries but private graves. You find them in a lot of places along the road. This is one of the private graves.
Our first stop was on a local market. Bananas...
The sweets to the right were really good! *yumm*
Smoked fish
Instant food - in Asia there is not place where I didn't see that...
And then we got in the meat department. If you have a weak stomach skip the next pics...
Snake
This one is obvious but requires some more explanations. In Sulawesi they don't only eat rats and bats and snakes but they eat dogs as well. This one was dead but there was a cage from which you could choose a dog as well. They probably kill it for you. Regina told me that there are dogs in every house. When they have puppies, the kids are their friends - until they are grown up. When they are they and up cooked... I accept that (but don't ask me to eat dog - I wouldn't want to try
) and I find this different eating habit quite interesting.
Honda-ad
Another typical house along the road. At some point I had realized that most houses on Sulawesi are not built on the ground but a little bit higher. I asked Regina if there was a reason for it and she said that they do it because they believe that the gods don't want the houses to be built on the ground. Btw. the families live all together in the houses, several generations in the same hous.
Next stop. It looks nice but it stank...
This was a sulfur lake and the smoke does not really smell good... 
This was another village that had specialized in wood furniture.
In one village we saw all those carriages. Looked like taxis to me...
One more church
And private graves
This village specialized in ceramics
Not sure what 'mama' is supposed with this. Go inside????
Kiosk
Ceramics oven
In this village I think they didn't have water tubes as each house had a fountain.
Lunch at Tondano lake, Regina making music.
Bamboo stairs
Not sure I would trust that boat. But it sure looks interesting.
Soon it is christmas again...
Part of our lunch. It was really good. But the indonesian way of eating is with the fingers and first putting LOTS of rice on your plate.
Have learned in Indonesia that they leave the eyes in the fish when they cook it because they want to proof that it is fresh. Only when fish is still fresh they eye is white after it has been cooked...
Rice fields again
That was the moment when I learned that the artificial flowers are being used when someone died. This sign is the announcement of someone`s death. These signs afterwards sometimes are being thrown on the grave.
This village was specialized in flowers.
Viiiiiikings..... (not sure what the connection is to Sulawesi but...
).
And another interesting house in the fields.