Malino, peaceful and magnificent tea plantation

I was stunned arriving in Hasanudin airport - Makassar when I went for business trip on Sep 08, because the building was very modern and sophisticated, the scenery was good either surrounded by mountains. It’s just operated a month ago, so some facilities are not available at that time, such as lobby lounge for credit card holder. Anyway there were some restaurants and shops opened already, so if you don’t have a chance to eat, or you forget to buy souvenirs, you still can get them there.


Makassar formerly was recognized as Ujung Pandang (1971-1999) is a capital city of South Sulawesi; a big city at the south west of Sulawesi island. It’s a cosmopolitan city which has many tribes e.g. Makassar, Bugis, Toraja and Mandar. Chinese population is quite big too here. The area covers 175.77 km square with 1.25 million people. Most of the houses still keep the traditional architecture with its wood columns supporting the house, they could look after their cattle under the house, currently most of them utilize it for small store selling daily needs. Seafood is famous here, such as grill fish, crabs, shrimps, etc. In Makassar, people love chili, so the restaurant always gives various ingredient for creating your own chili sauce including slices of young mango. Unfortunately I could not spicy food, so I only eat the non hot and spicy one :-)

We had lunch at Apong Seafood restaurant is fairly new seafood restaurant in Makassar, compare to the other seafood restaurant, but the restaurant has good popularity among people in Makassar. The reason is that it always has very fresh fish and you can find a lot of weird and delicious fish here as well. Its salty egg lobster are very delicious, and also the grill gindara fish. People say that gindara fish which lives below 250 meters under the water, is good to clean your stomach. We also tried “tuing-tuing” egg of flying fish, it’s a very rare food, not provided everyday, only seasonal. Pa’torani is the nickname for sailor who searches for egg of the flying fish. The fish will be spawned at evening or night, the sailor will sail in the morning, so they could reach the destination when the flying fish spawned. Tuing-tuing is what Bugis-Makassar people called the flying fish (Dactylopus dactylopus). If they are lucky, only six hours sailing, they could find tuing-tuing, but they also could find it after a day sailing. The closer tuing-tuing colony is in Makassar bay, the furthest up to Kalimantan or even Papua. It’s quite expensive costs Rp. 150.000,- to Rp. 300.000,- per kg. The people from Japan, Korea, Hongkong and Taiwan love it. The other popular traditional food in Makassar are coto Makassar, Roti Maros, Kue Tori, Palabutung Pisang Ijo and Sop Konro.

The scenery from our hotel room’s window was very magnificent facing the view of popular and beautiful Losari waterfront, it’s like a painting. We stayed in Imperial Aryaduta, modern and elegance hotel on Jl Somba Opu 297 Makassar South Sulawesi Indonesia 90111. Visitors wanting to take in some history will appreciate the hotel’s proximity to Fort Rotterdam – 15 minutes away on foot at most – while the Jalan Somba Opu shops are also close for those looking to buy some gold. Of course, at night the popular destination is Losari Beach promenade, always full of people and ambience and located right in front of the hotel. Unfortunately there is no sand for walking and playing the wave along the beach, the coast is very steep, so we only could enjoy the sea breeze.

Our colleague brought us to a beautiful tea plantation on the top of the mountain in Malino area. The tea plantation is on Bulutan village, around 9 kms from Malino city. To go there needed to struggle with winding and bumpy road around 2 hours from Makassar. Reaching the place made all of us relief and we keep admiring the majesty of the God who could create a very beautiful landscape. Of course we didn’t forget to take some pictures, although we felt freezing (it’s very cold and windy), we kept smiling and taking action whenever the camera shot pictures. There was a hut that we could sit while enjoying the gorgeous scenery. The tea is produced for export, it’s a cooperation of Mitsui Norin Co. Ltd and PT. Dharma Incharcop Coy with PT. Nittoh Malino Tea as the share holder. It’s a good alternative for relaxation, especially for escaping from noisy and chaotic city. Alas we could not stay too long there, because we had to catch the night flight to Manado.