March 1st
After 4am after journey of around 38 hours and half-slept night in the airplane we finally arrived at hotel Miko. We sort out the formalities for the hotel and around 5am can already go to bed. Just need to listen to the morning prayer and the dream can start. What a pity that less than 4 hours are left for this lovely activity.
At 9am we arrive for breakfast. Everyone is enthusiastic, just from time to time someone tries to fall asleep. The hotel is ok. For the breakfast we have tender rice and rice with spices, some fluffy, white, supposedly meat, also something like liver and a spicy soup. Everything is well. Some are complaining that they don’t have windows in their room, some others do have a window but it is looking to a chute. The eclipse t-shirts are distributed.
The day is dedicated to exploration of Makassar. But foremost the business. The sorting of car rental and currency exchange. The conversation with the hotel staff are long. Finally we get a minibus with driver and a guide. We had been thinking that the rental of the car will take the most time, but that’s not so. We finish that surprisingly fast.
Now the currency exchange. We walk in several banks and decide for the one where we started. The process takes time. We understand then that in this country nothing is happening quickly. The rate such that for 10’000 rupees one needs to pay 66 eurocents. And so – hurray, we become owners of several millions. We are millionaires, there are no problems.
Now to the city. We go to the port where there should be the old wooden ships. But it’s not so, they are not there or our guide did not know how to find them. Instead we find a fish restaurant. The entrance doesn’t look trustable but here they don’t care about the outside look yet. At the entrance there are several boxes with different fish, We choose the one which is called Dorada in Europe and another one, a bit fatter. The fish here cost 3.5 to 4.2 Eur for a fish. I imagine how much would it cost in Europe, uhh. And then they start to bring us all kinds of starters, spicy gherkins etc. Another bonus of the restaurant is that there is live music being performed here. The people are happy, take photos, also gladly sing themselves. Also our guys sang ” ja es būtu to zinājis, ka tik labi šai vietā…” [Latvian folk song]. The response was average, the Indonesians need to develop to understand us.
And then to the city sightseeing. We proceed to Hollanders’ fort [Fort Rotterdam]. Many local youths are hanging out here. Many want to take photos with us. We meet an interesting man who teaches English to the young sailors. He promises to show us the wooden ships. Then we walk to the sea coast. No effective sunset as there are clouds. However the clouds give a nice background. Just need to walk some 2km and we are back in the hotel. Just one more procedure left – the distribution of money. There are lots of banknotes, many jokes and a millionaire status for everyone. Can sleep peacefully. Only thoughts on how to keep that fortune are bothering.