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| Happy Rabbit New Year 2023 (Pic source: Google.com) |
First of all, let me wish everyone a very happy New Year!!! At the same time, happy Lunar New Year to those who celebrate!!! Wish everyone be blessed with good health, happiness, good luck and prosper all throughout the year!!!
This is my first post for the year 2023. I had just come back from Indonesia few days ago and only now I have time to update this blog.
My families and I had great time together, especially for the two weeks spent in Indonesia - one week in Manado and one week in Jakarta. We had fulfilled our wishes to travel together as family.
Why Manado?
We had been wanting to visit Manado since long time ago because it was a birth place of our dear Mom. She was born and spent her childhood there before moving to Jakarta.
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| Manado, Indonesia (Pic: Google map) |
Where is Manado?
Open the google map and type 'Manado'and you will find the image like the above. It is the capital city of the Indonesian province of North Sulawesi, the second largest city in Sulawesi after Makassar. See the island that looks like letter 'k', and Manado is at the right upper side.
How to get there?
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| View of Manado Tua, Bunaken, and Siladen islands from the plane window |
Currently, there are two countries that have direct flight to Manado. One is from Singapore (by Scoot) - 3h45m and another is from Fuzhou, China (by Lion Air) - 4h30m. There are 8 places you can fly from domestically within Indonesia, such as: Jakarta, Makassar, Ternate, Surabaya, Sorong, Kau, Tahuna, and Luwuk.
My hubby, my brother, sister-in-law and my self took a direct flight from Singapore to Sam Ratulangi Airport in Manado by Scoot. There was a promotional fare when we booked and it cost us only SGD244 for 2 pax including one 20-kg luggage allowance - for one way journey (as we flew to Jakarta afterwards). It was really a steal!!!
What Manado is famous for?
Bunaken National Park is one of the city's most famous tourist attractions. The city is also known for its Christian-majority population (63%), and holds the country's biggest Christmas celebration annually. It is also recognized as one of the most tolerant and peaceful cities in Indonesia.
If you want to know more about the history of Manado, you can click here.
There you could find many mountains - some even volcanic (Manado Tua, Tondano, Lokon, etc.), lakes (Lake Tondano, Linow Lake, etc.), rivers, islands with beaches (Bunaken, Siladen, Naeng, Lihaga, Bangka, Malalayang, Paal, etc.), waterfalls (Tunan, Sapa, etc.), hills (Hill of Love or Bukit Kasih, Astound Hill, etc.), hot spring (Po'opo, , and so on.
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| One of the exotic animals sold at Traditional Extreme market in Tomohon, North Sulawesi |
Not forgetting that it was a heaven especially for pork, fish, seafood, and exotic animals lovers (there is an extreme traditional market in Tomohon that is famous amongst tourists).
North Sulawesi is also a region famous for producing coffee, and there are many cafes around selling not only coffee products, but also snacks and light meals with it. Manado is also one of the places in Indonesia that worth visiting for the culinary travel journey (all of us gained at least 3 kg after a week there as most of the time we had five meals per day in order to maximize our chance to taste the delicious local food :P).
When to go?
Manado has a tropical rainforest climate. The wettest month is in January while driest month is in September. At some areas, you had to bring and wear sweater or light jacket as the weather was cool and there was even fogs.
We came without realizing that January was the wettest season, but we were indeed very lucky. There was heavy rain when we had lunch just after landed, and the wind blew heavily at night (as we slept and our hotel facing directly towards the sea).
Thanks to the above for hearing our prayers, we were really blessed with very good weather towards our stay there so that we could go rafting (despite cold weather and rain the night before) and boating plus snorkeling in Bunaken and Naeng islands.
Fyi, there was heavy flood (up to 3 meter high) going on in Manado since last Friday due to incessant rain and there was even landslide that destroyed houses and killed people. It affected the livelihood of many families there.
If possible, try not to go during raining season. Other than flood and landslide, the ocean waves tend to be big too, which can affect your plans to go rafting and islands-hopping.
To find out more about Manado, I will bring you through next few upcoming posts, the journeys that my families had gone to, as per planned by my cousin.
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| Our rented van up to 14 passengers |
P.S. We were a group of 9 adults and 2 children (not including my aunt, uncle, cousins and cousin's children). Therefore, we rented a Toyota Hiace van 14 seater with a driver throughout our 7 days and 6 nights there) to go around from morning until night.