Hotel Gran Puri Manado

... we have met. Someday we hope to return, both to reconnect with the friends we've made and to explore the many places we haven't seen yet--there are an infinite number of things to see and do here; an entire lifetime might not be long enough to experience them all!

... on kyseisenlaisesta hulluudesta aivan tuoreitakin verisia esimerkkeja. Uskonnoista puheen ollen. Nyt on Indonesiassakin paasiainen ja se nakyy erityisen komeasti Pohjois-Sulawesilla, joka on lahes sataprosenttisesti kristittya aluetta. Siella ja taalla on isoja risteja, joissa lukee paasiaistoivotus eli "Selamat Paskah". Kevennyksena todettakoon, etta varsinkin suomalaisia kakkahuumorin ystavia tama indonesialainen paasiainen jaksaa aina vahan hymyilyttaa ...

... us from one side of the jeep to the other. Tired and a little nauseated we arrived in Gorontalo at the middle of the night. Got a hotel, fell on our bed like stones and slept (that is, after killing a fist big spider which seemed comfortable at the end of my bed).

Today we went to a 30 meter waterfall outside the city. With only flip flops on our feet we were not really prepared for the sharp rocks that were our path, but somehow ...

... the same ratio of guys working to guys standing around watching as their US counterparts! The primary means of making a living here is farming. Families own and tend plots of land on very rich volcanic soil, and easily grow their own fruits and vegetables. More successful families (the ones with the nicer houses) tend to be the land barons who own and lease out more land ...

... what we think were Jacks swimming right below. Sweet! The current was a bit stronger on this wall than it was on the first dive, so it was a little harder to stop when taking pictures or checking out a critter. Soon all of us got the hang of it though. After just a few minutes, we found a beautiful nudibranch and I think a large pregnant puffer fish or parrot fish that measured ...

... to take a boat ride to the House Reef. It is a sandy slope. Everywhere was a patch of black sand and I expected to see nothing but sand, but i was so wrong because the marine life was better than that at Tioman. A great eye opener. First marine creature i saw when i descended.

... I looked at my air gauge, 0 bar, I got to the surface ok on whatever was left in the tank, but another minute or even less and I'd have been in a bit of trouble. When we surface we saw the other groups, all of whom were a 100m down stream of us, having gone with the current rather than swimming into. I lost trust in my guide after that dive. We also did a wreck dive, which was OK, not too sure about wreck dives. To get to the ...

... with the birds, especielly the beautiful Mollucan and Papuan species of cockatoo, parrot and lory. My favorite was the black capped lorys which were soo nice! After seeing all the animals we went down to the beach, and got a rude awakening. What was going to be a short snorkeling trip turned into a somewhat major conflict, with some local peopel there (from Manado and Jakarta) disaproving of white americans visiting a bech that they were at. After about 30-40 minutes of ...

... v teh voznjah in ce ne trajajo dosti dlje, kot je predvideno, sploh ni tako hudo. No, po tej voznji sva prispela v Tenteno (osrednji Sulawesi), kjer so se se pred kakim letom ali dvema pridno pobijali v cerkvah in mosejah. Muslimanska in krscanska skupnost sta bili v mestih Tentena in Poso precej izenaceni in se nekako niso mogli sporazumeti kako in kaj. Sedaj so se baje zgodile manjse migracije in je Tentena postala vecinsko krscanska, Poso pa muslimanski. V Tenteni ...

... most of the pots were painted garish, fluorescent colors - not exactly my taste. I had been hoping to score a unique souvenir. We spent our last day on Bunaken doing a couple more dives and snorkel trips. I was enjoying the snorkeling more in the end because I could take some nice photos in the more natural light at shallower depths, and it seemed that Cha Cha were repeating the same dive sites. After getting packed up on our last day, we ...