Tanatoraja (Sulawesi)

Advantages: Amazing culture
Disadvantages: Remote location

houses, Christian Animists who celebrate funerals by prayers and the ritual slaughter of water buffalo, then bury their dead in cliffs and decorate them with lifesize models of the deceased, the people of tana toraja are a strange and wonderful lot. As is the region itself , a mountainous area in central sulawesi filled with mountains sculpted with padi fields, elaborate houses built on stilts and covered with elaborate carvings, quite astonishingly ...
...one knows who the mysterious torajans are, their ethnicity is completely unknown as are the origins of their christianity. Their mix n'match attitude to religion is especially appealing, tho whoever converted them must have despaired at their ability to take the bits they liked and just jumble them up with their ancient animist beliefs. It's a bugger to get to, which (un)fortunately means lots of people don't bother, but if you do I promise you'll ... Read review