Guide to Bira

a small local village on the coast that made a great home for us for a week

Bira is a small, local village on the south coast of South Sulawesi and while we made home there for a week and loved our time there, it’s not necessarily a place I would say is for everybody. For our purposes, Bira was perfect. We found a place to stay that we loved, and we spent our days there working on our laptops for most of the day, taking beach walks, eating at our favorite warungs, and having movie nights in our AC room that we loved. We found it a perfect place to base out of while we wanted to get some work done on our computers - it was a small town with not much to do but everything that we needed was easily accessible and it was right on the water with beautiful views everyday. For those that are only looking to vacation or explore, and not looking for a place to hunker down in for a while, Bira might not have enough to do to keep you busy, and might not be beautiful enough to just sit on a beach and relax.

Contents

How to get to Bira

Where to stay in Bira

What to do in Bira

Where to eat in Bira

How to get to Bira

To get to Bira from Makassar, there are 3 options:

1. Shared public car

2. Bus

3. Private taxi

Both the shared public car and bus depart from Terminal Mallengkeri. We honestly couldn’t find information about the bus so we decided to just arrive at the terminal in the morning and figure it out from there. There were no more buses by the time we arrived around 8:30am and we were approached by a guy with a public car, which we decided to take. We paid 250K ($15) for 2 people and it took around 5-6 hours. The way the public cars work, is they either wait until there are enough people to depart, and/or they stop to pick up people along the way. We left Makassar as just us two, and on the way, we stopped to pick up one other person. We also made a stop at a warung along the way for lunch. All in all, it was a smooth and easy ride and we felt almost too affordable for how much the driver needed to drive! Here’s our YouTube video about our public car ride!

There are plenty of private taxis company that can pick you up at your accommodation or airport in Makassar and drive you to Bira. It costs around 900K IDR ($50). Your accommodation in Makassar or Bira can help you arrange a private taxi.

Where to stay in Bira

There are two main sides of Bira - the south coast and the east coast.

South Coast

The south coast is more touristy with local tourists, and considered the more beautiful side. You can also watch the sunset from here. It feels more like a typical beach that people go to, and there you’ll find many lodging and food options, and stands selling drinks on the beach. Note that there’s also an entrance fee to the south side of 85K per person ($5).

We stayed 2 nights here and while we enjoyed walking around the small village, we actually didn’t love the vibe here. Something about it felt weirdly empty. It was like everything was setup for tourists, there just weren’t actually that many people there.

East Coast

We decided to move to the east coast, and it was here that we unexpectedly found somewhere we loved and would make home in for a week. We stayed at Phinisi Hostel and absolutely loved it. We found most accommodations in Bira to be somewhat empty, leaving an eerie feeling, and Phinisi was the first place we found that actually gave us a homey feeling!

Phinisi Hostel is more like a guesthouse, rather than hostel. There are a couple dorms, many private rooms, and a lot of common space. It’s located right on the water and we got to look out onto the beach everyday while we worked. We found a really nice routine of having breakfast there (included), working at the common tables, taking beach walks, and finding food throughout the day. It’s perfect if you’ve been traveling for a while and are looking for a little home base for a bit to take a break.

What to do in Bira

Sooo there’s honestly not a lot to do in Bira! Bira is a great place to rest, have slow days, and catch up on life. But if you’re looking for things to really do, limit your stay here to just 1-2 days. Things I would recommend doing are just to walk around and explore the south and east coast of Bira. They are both very local without too many tourists, and both have their own distinct feel. I enjoyed walking down the beach along the east coast of Bira the most, and often locals would come to say hello to us, as they don’t see many foreigners there!

There are also many boat rentals on the beach, typically a speed boat that tows around a big floaty raft. We saw many locals doing this but didn’t try ourselves. It looked like it was fun though!

On the south coast, you can also enjoy a nice sunset. There are a few stands on the beach selling drinks, so you can enjoy a nice cold beer on the beach for sunset.

Where to eat in Bira

South Coast

The south coast has more of a town feeling, and there are several local warungs around. Warung Bamboo came recommended by our homestay host, though we didn’t end up trying it ourselves. We wandered into Rumah Makan Melati, and actually really liked it! They had the best nasi goreng we had eaten in a while.

East Coast

On the east coast, there are several warungs next to each other near the harbor. They all specialize in fresh seafood in addition to the typical nasi gorengs. We tried a few of the warungs and our favorite one was Warung Kayu Pelabuhan.

There’s also one very small, local warung on the beach called Warung Syamsi. It’s hardly recognizable as a warung and looks like a snack shop if you’re not specifically looking for it! But we had nasi goreng here and it was very fresh tasting and unexpectedly good. Not a bad place to eat if you’re looking for a place along the beach.