It all started when my uni which is Trisakti Institute of Tourism offered me to be a participant in the International Maritime Youth Program (IMYP) 2015 hosted by Sulawesi Barat University. I accepted the offer, of course lah ;)
The event took place in Majene, a city located in West Sulawesi province
There were total 55 participants from 7 countries, out of 1800 people who applied to join this event
The event started in November 29th and ended in December 9th. I went there with my senior, Welly
We both got our tickets, allowance, expenses for meals and entertaiment from our uni, LONG LIVE TRISAKTI! hahahaYEP we didnt spend a single penny ;)
Without taking too much time, lets just jump in right into the story..
DAY 1 (29 Nov 15)
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Me and Welly decided to meet in the airport. Welly arrived wayyy earlier than me, so he got in first. In the other hand, I was stuck in traffic for about 45 minutes and I arrived in the airport just 20 minutes away from the boarding time. The check in time was already closed T.T thankfuly the flight was also delayed (for the first time I support delay on flights!lol) so I managed to got in and took my flight with Citilink to Ujung Pandang, a city located in South Sulawesi.
The flight took about 2 hours and 10 minutes and it wasnt a very pleasant flight due to the weather :|
We finally arrived in Ujung Pandang at about 7 PM and as soon as we arrived, we had to wait for the last 2 participants from Yogyakarta and their flight got delayed until 10.30 PM *sigh*. We finally continued our journey to Majene by bus at about 11.30 PM. The bus was nice and it took us 6 hours to reach Majene. Oh dear, day 1 was rough hahaha
DAY 2 (30 Nov 15)
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The second day was the actual first day of the event. I woke up pretty early and got ready to get to the opening ceremony of IMYP. The venue was in Agung Mosque and we went there by a cart pulled by a horse (Bahasa Indonesia : delman). Then we arrived and yaowoh we had to watch a graduation ceremony first -__- took about 3 hours then finally the opening of IMYP which only took like 40 minutes *2nd sigh*
After done with all dat, we went back to the hotel and got free time. I was starving and the dinner was ready at 8 PM, I was sooooooooooo starved. After that the event in the 2nd day finished.
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| Welly and me |
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| With the rector of Sulawesi Barat University |
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The day I've been waiting for. On this day we all went to another disctrict to see the making of Sandeq Boat. Sandeq is the world's fastest traditional sailing boat! It was really fascinating to hear about Sandeq. But, the village which we visited was super dirty *3rd sigh*. Trashes spread everywhere and the locals said that the beach of West Sulawesi are mostly dirty, what a heartbreaking news :( After seeing the boat, we moved to seeing a traditional weaving process . So here how it works in the village ; while the husband is gone for fishing, the wife do weaving to gain income.
After we finished seeing the making of Sandeq and weaving. We proceed to a traditional living house for lunch and a little Q&A session with the locals about Mandar ethnic. We also learned to play the traditional music instrument, which I also forgot what the name was hehe.
After quite sometime, we went back to our hotel and get changed. We were excited because the committee were taking us to the beach. With our high expectations, we went to the first location. I forgot the name of the beach, but as soon as I arrived, my jaw dropped and my expectations went from sky high to flat low. The beach was not even swimmable (does this word even exist?hehe). Yep, the beach was dirty. So we asked the committee to take us to a better beach. Then we arrived at the second location called Dato Beach and it was um...okay la. There was some trashes but still swimmable and it has a great view. Me and Welly did snorkeling for a while but there wasnt much to see hmm. So we went to somekind of a cliff to take pictures instead. Then we went back to the hotel and had dinner (which was very late again). Day 3 was okay la..
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| Dato Beach | Skin suit from F21 |
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| Me and Welly |
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| Still in Dato Beach |
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The day of SANDEQ RACE! Sandeq Race is an annual event done by Mandarese (Mandar people). Usually the race starts from Majene to Makassar and it can take days to finish the race. But for today, the race only lasted maximum 4 hours, started from Majene and ended in Polewali. The distance was about 50 km. So in the race, the committee only chose 9 people and there were 16 of us who registered to join. Instant chaos happened when they were choosing people haha. Luckily me and Welly were chosen ;) There was one participant in each boat and we didnt take the actual Sandeq boat for racing, we took the one for fishing. Because the racing boat was dangerous and super fast.
So the race finally started, I was busy recording on my gopro. As soon as the gun was fired, the sails were starting to stand firmly. I was placed 6th out of 9 boats. Maybe because my boat crew consisted of 4 people and only 3 people rowed (1 was an old man) plus they had to row even harder because I was on the boat and didnt really helped anything. I tried to row but after like 10 minutes, they asked me to stop. Dont know whether they were afraid I was getting tired or I wasnt really helping and added even more weight hmm..
After we finally reach the finish shore, we were invited to get onto the stage and got interviewed with the mayor of Polewali, we were also interviewed by TVRI (a national TV channel). Then we had lunch and ran for our lives to the car because it suddenly rained hard. We were drenched in rain and we were freezing for 2 hours in the car before we finally reach our hotel. Fyi : the car was a Pete Pete (or in Bahasa Indonesia "angkot") so it was really cold! When we reached our hotel, we were all tired and slept for a bit before the sharing night. Then event of Day 4 ended with our sharing sessions about the Sandeq Race for the others who didnt join. Day 4 was gewd!
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| Sandeq Boat |
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We had seminars and presentations from 3 guest lectures. It was pretty eye opening about Indonesia's maritime issues. After the session finished, we had lunch and preparing to do Live-in. So we were all devided into 3 villages ; Bonde Utara, Labuang and Bonde Utara. I was chosen to be in Tammangalle Village located in Polewali. We went there with high expectation because we asked the locals and they said that the beach in the village is clean. So with our high hopes, we finally arrived in Tammangalle. We were welcomed by the head of the village. We went around the village and finally reach the beach, and true! The beach was clean. There were kids playing around happily. After a walk around the village, we went back to the head of the village house and had a yummy dinner (better food than usual! hehe) After that we got devided into 4 groups to 4 different houses, but still located right next to each other.
Our host family was really nice and kind. She is a wife of a fisherman with 2 daughters. We ended our night sleeping in the traditional house that was really nice. And we got electric fan too! While the other houses didnt have fan :p
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| Kids in Tammangalle Village having their best childhood times |
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I planned to woke up early at 6 AM but I ended up waking up at 7 AM hehe. Then I had breakfast and went to the beach to do snorkeling (yep, I bought my own mask and fin). I found an empty shelled lobster and it was huge! At first I thought it was real and I was really scared to pick it up and get it to the shore. After that I enjoyed more times at the beach until noon before I finally go back to the house and took a nap. In the afternoon, the committee woke me up and took all of us in the village to see the locals making a fishing boat. It was fascinating, it took them 7 months to finished one boat with the size of 3 meters wide and 7 meters long. After that we continued to see the making of Mandar coconut oil which is super popular in Indonesia. But we didnt see the step-by-step process from the first stage. We only saw the process from mid way. After that we went back to the village and took rest.
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| Snorkeling timeee |
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| With the other participants that stayed in Tammangalle |
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| Empty shelled lobster! |
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We woke up early today, we went to a mangrove planting site located not far from the village. We met the other participants from the Labuang Village. I reunited with Welly here!
So we went to the planting site and it was my first time seeing the seed of mangrove. We plant all the mangrove excitedly after a little information on how to plant the mangrove. After that we did snorkeling! Only 8 people can fit on the boat so they made 2 trips. I joined the first one with the other Indonesians and 1 Malaysian. As soon as I jumped into the water, I was in awe. It was beautifullllll. This was the only time that the reality reached my expectation. I enjoyed my time snorkeling and took some pictures with my gopro. Until the boat finally left us behind and let us swam to the shore because we were taking too much time hahaha. It was gewddd! Then we had lunch and we had beef this time! Plus a very refreshing coconut yumm. After that we went back to the village and bid farewell to the ones staying in Labuang. After that we got ready and went to see the making of Mandar coconut oil from the very first step. I will upload a video about the coconut oil soon! Then we went back to the village, had BBQ because it was our last night and took rest. Day 7 was the best!
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| Planting mangroves |
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| Tabulate corals garden <3 |
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| Hi there! |
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| Me trying to help the local making coconut oil. Video soon! |
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We woke up early and bid farewell to our host family :( My host was really shy to take pictures, we had to force her to finally take pictures with us. Oh ya, I havent officially introduce my host mom. Her name is Samalia (46 years old) and her husband's name is Muklis (50 years old), they have 2 daughters Primayanti and Ardawati. Mrs Samalia is a housewife and her husband is a fisherman. Her husband is gone for fishing for 6 months out in the sea. Every week the husband goes to land to sell the fish. After 6 months the husband goes back to the village and spend 2 months together with his family before finally goes back to the sea.
After we bid our farewell to the host, we went back to our hotel and have seminar sessions from 5 speakers. I was so tired and the presentation was kinda off. So after 2 speakers I left and took a nap (I was super tired). Then we enjoyed a nice fresh coconut and had a presentation night talking about our experiences during the stay in the village. We also had a birthday surprise for Nurzi, a participant from Malaysia.
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| Our host mama <3 |
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Our last day in Majene. We had free time until night. Me and Welly went to have our lunch in a restaurant which served really good food!
All countries had to prepare a perfomance for the cultural night. Indonesia was devided into 2 teams performing different shows. My group practiced Saman Dance (originated in Aceh) and it was tiring to practice and it wasnt much too. After about 2 hours practicing, we went back to our rooms. Then the night arrived. It was the time for us to present what we have been practicing. Hmm our performance was really quick and it wasnt much haha, an additional awkward silence at the end made me cringe and still cant forget the awkwardness until now hahaha. Then we bid farewell and took pictures with each other. We were very sad, we only got to know each other :( Here are some of our last pictures. Only took pictures with half of the participants :(
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| Cultural Night performing Saman Dance |
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| Group pictures with new friends!! |
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| 1st row (left to right) : Kris (Thailand), Urwah, Wayan, Latief (Indonesia), Ki (Thailand) 2nd row (left to right ) : Emily (Malaysia), Eve (Thailand), Hong (Singapore), Saloman (Malaysia) 3rd row (left to right) : Thao (Vietnam), Vien (Vietnam), Winda (Indonesia), Jojo (Malaysia), Faiqah (Malaysia), Fanta (Thailand), Ridzwan (Malaysia) |
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| 1st row (left to right) : Iqbal (Indonesia), Cho (Vietnam), Thanh (Vietnam) 2nd row (left to right) : Aswar (Indonesia), Jhon (Indonesia), Luhur (Indonesia) 3rd row (left to right) : Yuki (Vietnam), Pang Yue (China), Momoka (Japan) |
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| Trisakti Intitute of Tourism Diving Club |
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Last day in Majene. We woke up eraly and took the bus back to Ujung Pandang. Took us 7 hours including the lunch time. After we arrived we put our luggages in our rooms and went to Sumbo Opu street, famous for its souvenir shops. After that we went to Trans Studio Mall to have dinner. I had bonchon chicken (FINALLY!!) and milk tea from ShareTea. A great meal after 10 days eating food that didnt really match my taste. After that we went back to the hotel and took a rest.
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| Merry Christmasssss from us! at Trans Studio Mall (left to right : Welly, Salomon, Luhur, Emily and me) |
DAY 11 (9 Dec 15)
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Some of us already left to the airport. The others who havent left yet, we went to meet the mayor of Makassar and had lunch there. Then we continued the journey to the airport and finally bid farewell..
THANK YOU ;
Sulawesi Barat University for the opportunity, long live prosper and be the best univesity!
All participants for giving me experiences and new friends beyond my country, we shall meet again soon!
Youtube video coming up soon (my SD card is having a problem at the moment) please stay tune and thank you for reading :)
