Tana Toraja
Beautiful village nestled within the countryside of Sulawesi, known for its extremely unique funeral culture
Rice fields and traditional Tongkonans surrounding Tana Toraja
Getting to and around Tana Toraja
Getting to Tana Toraja From Makassar
There’s a bus from Makassar that will take you directly to Tana Toraja. It departs twice a day and is a 9-10 hour long journey. The day bus leaves at 9am and arrives at 7pm, and the night bus leaves at 9pm and arrives at 6am. Bus tickets cost 250K per person ($15).
If you stayed the night at Rammang Rammang, you can also get on the bus from there at around 10pm. Once you arrive in Rantepao, the main city of Tana Toraja, check with your host for the best way to get from the bus stop to your accommodation. Our host so kindly came and picked us up (at 5:30 in the morning!).
There are a handful of bus companies, but we took the night bus from Metro Permai. The bus had very comfortable sleeper seats, but try and get a seat towards the front of the bus, where it’s cooler and less shaky. There’s no bathroom aboard the bus, but the driver will make stops if you request.
Getting to Tana Toraja from Tentena
There’s a 14 hour bus from Tentena to Tana Toraja. We took the bus from Tana Toraja to Tentena and I honestly can’t find much information about the reverse direction, so unfortunately can’t provide too much detailed information. Contact your homestay host in Tentena and Tana Toraja, and they should be able to help you arrange bus tickets.
Getting around Tana Toraja
You’ll need to rent a scooter to get around Tana Toraja. There’s so much to explore beyond the main town of Rantepao that if you want to be able to experience the countryside and attend funerals, you’ll need a scooter. There are a few rental shops in town that you can rent from, or your homestay may have scooter rentals as well. We rented a scooter from our homestay for 100K/day ($6), which seemed to be the standard going price.
How long to stay in Tana Toraja
Tana Toraja is known for its extremely unique funeral practices, and is also a beautiful village set amidst the countryside. Many people come for only 2-3 days to see the funeral practices, but we ended up staying a full week there exploring the region, as it was beautiful with much to see! We stayed in our homestay for a couple of days just reading and working on our laptops, so I would recommend around 5 days for fully exploring. In 5 days, you’ll be attend 1 or 2 funeral events, explore the beautiful surrounding countryside and mountains, and visit traditional villages surrounding Rantepao.
Where to stay in Tana Toraja
The main city of Tana Toraja is Rantepao. We stayed at Villa Luna, a homestay a bit outside of the main town. We absolutely loved our stay and would highly recommend it! It was affordable (150K per night for a nice private room) and very nice! The rooms and common areas are very comfortable, and the house feels a bit like a retreat in nature. The best part is the extremely kind owner, Lynda, who went out of her way to help us with everything we needed! It really felt like home there. To book, you can contact Lynda directly on WhatsApp +62 813-4210-2690.
Another guesthouse we were recommended is Mama Tia Homestay. While we didn’t stay here ourselves, we heard good things from other travelers!
What to do in Tana Toraja
Attend a funeral
The most common reason people visit Tana Toraja is to experience their extremely unique funeral practices. The lives of Torajan people are centered around funerals. Funerals are a multi-day event (more on the structure later) and designed to be a grand celebration of life for the dead person. They are designed to bring as much luck as possible, with buffalo sacrifice being central to the funeral, as they believe buffalo guide the deceased person to heaven. In fact, from a young age, they are taught to start earning and saving money so they can eventually buy buffalo for when their parents and elders pass away. These buffalo cost tens of thousands of dollars, and depending on the family’s wealth, there can be anywhere from 6 buffalo, to hundreds of buffalo, sacrificed. Further, if the family doesn’t have enough money to buy buffalo and put on a proper funeral when someone passes away, they will keep their dead in the house for as long as it takes to buy the buffalo and hold the funeral, some times even for years.
While the funeral practice can be a bit difficult to watch with the large amount of animal sacrifice involved, it’s an extremely unique culture to witness and should be a part of your Toraja visit.
Visit burial sites
Torajans don’t believe in burying their dead underground. Instead their graveyards are built into sides of cliffs and in caves. There are many burial sites featuring different styles of graves you can visit.
Ke’te Kesu – Traditional tongkanans, tau-tau, and hanging graves
Lemo – Famous cliff graves and tau-tau
Londa – Cliff, cave, and tau-tau
Lo’ko Mata – Rock grace with great mountain views on the way
Kambira Sangalla – baby graves in a tree
Kote – Baby graves in a tree
Visit Bolu Market to see buffalo being sold
Bolu Market is a big traditional market. But what makes this market particularly special, is that buffalo are sold here for the Torajan funeral practices! Buffalo can cost anywhere between a few thousand USD to tens of thousands of USD.
Drive around and explore the countryside by scooter
The area around Tana Toraja is beautiful. There’s countryside, rice fields, and mountains all around. It’s definitely worth taking one or two days to simply drive around and experience it, stopping through viewpoints and local villages.
Batutumonga Village – Traditional village in the mountains with beautiful views. Definitely recommend!
Lolai – Nice, scenic viewpoint at the top of a mountain. Supposed to be a good place for sunrise.
Palawa Village – Traditional village featuring many tongkonan.
Balusu Village – Traditional village with beautiful rice fields all around.
View from Lolai viewpoint
Rice fields in the highlands of Batutumonga Village
Visit the warung street food market
There’s a street food market surrounding a park in Rantepao here. There’s dozens of cheap, local Indonesian food options!
Take a day trip, or a multi-day trip, to the surrounding mountains
Tebing Romantis Ollon is a beautiful mountain area 2 hours away from Rantepao. There’s great hiking and it’s a beautiful place to stay for a couple days or make a day trip to.
How do the funerals work?
Funerals are a 4-5 day affair in Torajan culture, and each day of the funeral is different.
First, there is a greeting day where the family welcomes the community to the festivities to come.
Bringing the body to the ceremony.
Funeral ceremonies & acceptance of gifts
Buffalo sacrifice
Burial
If visitors are interested in seeing a funeral, they are invited to attend Day 3, the main reception day. While you may think it’s strange to attend a stranger’s funeral, visitors are all happily welcomed to attend these funerals, as it’s believed that the more people attending, the better luck you’ll bring to the deceased person in the afterlife. Expect to spend a few hours at the reception where you’ll see various traditional ceremonies, singing, dancing, some animal sacrifice (they sacrifice a few buffalo and pigs for lunch), and you’ll even be fed by the family!
You can also attend Day 4, the buffalo sacrifice day, but be aware that you’ll be witnessing up to dozens of buffalo being sacrificed. We attended this and while it was very interesting to experience, it was too much for us and we left after the sacrifice of just a few buffalo.
Here’s our YouTube video with an inside look on the Funeral Day and the Buffalo Sacrifice Day.
What to eat in Tana Toraja
Eating over rice fields at Randan Uma Coffee Roastery!
Salebayu Restaurant – Restaurant attached to a large bungalow accommodation with beautiful views over rice fields. Large Indonesian food menu with slightly higher prices for the ambience.
Randan Uma Coffee Roastery – Part coffee shop and part traditional Indonesian restaurant with extremely cute individual dining huts over rice fields. Good food and good prices, especially for the ambience.
Rumah Makan Soponyono – Local warung with cheap, good Indonesian food. The best nasi goreng!
Kaana Toraya Coffee – Very cute cafe with some Western food options like sandwiches and toast, Indonesian food, and coffee. Good food and good price.
Street food area – This area around a park has dozens of local street food stalls. A good place to get good and cheap food amongst locals.