An island with dog on the menu
Trip Start
Aug 04, 2010
1
21
26
Trip End
Aug 29, 2010
Manado, Sulawesi, Indonesia
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Manado is located in the far north-eastern corner of the island of Sulawesi, an impossibly shaped island south of the Philippines. The journey here involved a two hour flight to Jakarta to connect with a three hour flight to my final destination, so the entire day has once again been consumed by travelling. In a country that is as huge as this one, that is often an unavoidable necessity. From Manado, I intend to make the short hop to the island of Bunaken, where the underwater life is said to be breathtaking. My arrival here, however, was too late to make the crossing on the seemingly infrequent public boats that travel there from Manado.
For the first time since Yogyakarta, I had trouble finding accommodation when arriving in the city from the airport. The hotel I'd earmarked was full, so I had to lug my belongings down the street to find an alternative option. Even there the reservation process was not straightforward - the check-in person looked at me blankly when I asked for a room, as if this was a surprising request to make of someone working at the front desk of a hotel. Fortunately his colleague spoke better English and I was able to secure a room.
Being so far removed from the other parts of Indonesia I've visited, this region has a unique cuisine that is a bit less reliant on rice (much to my relief). Seafood is, of course, an integral part of the Minahasan diet but other animals feature on restaurant menus too, most notably dog, which for some reason appears under the code letters RW. I will look out for it, but given the choice between dog, rat or cockroach I really don't know which sounds the most appealing...
