Bira pink

We stayed in Bira for about a week and loved every second of it. In the absence of photographs, let me describe some scenes and people I will never forget.

Mr. Achmed

Pimps of the world, beware! No matter how badass you think you are, there is a man in Bira who outshines you all. Mr. Achmed is his name and he makes Kool Keith look like a school girl. Sitting comfortably on the terrace of his boat-shaped restaurant with his crew, his luxurious hair almost reaching the ground, this former captain of the seas would drop truth bombs non-stop. For your benefit and education, I will share a couple of his more memorable phrases:

On karaoke ladies
“I don't pay for girls. If they find me attractive, I will sleep with them. But not pay. I'm sorry! I would be shy for myself.”

On his beautiful wife “
I love my wife only 60 percent. How can you love someone 100 percent? You wouldn't be able to love yourself. First, I love myself. I'm sorry!”

On his career as a captain
“I once took a German to the Banda islands on his small boat. Thousands of miles away. When I get there, they ask me for my captain's license. I don't have it. They told me I couldn't sail this boat to their port. I told them: 'I just did, I'm sorry!'”

Bira blue

In my previous post, I mentioned that our camera got stolen on the night bus from Rantepao to Macassar, the capital of Sulawesi. The thing hardly rated as a high-tech gadget and was easily replaced, but its memory card carried all the photos we took during the first month of our travels.

This could have been avoided if we had made a back-up. In fact, a few days before the theft we were about to commit ourselves to some serious archiving, when someone said “Let's do something else” and we forgot all about it.

But in travel, as in wife swapping, your luck can change. To illustrate, let me tell you about the day after that unfortunate nocturnal journey.

Tana Toraja

When I was a kid, my father worked for the marketing department of a German car company. This meant that my sister and I spent an inordinate amount of time at motor shows and race circuits. Unfortunately, we found most of those events rather boring. Too young to drive or drink champagne, we routinely resorted to a savage pillage of the various promo stalls that accompany any car function.