The hotel we stayed at in Kolaka was decent…meaning it had a proper shower and a western style toilet. The included breakfast consisted of fried rice and…well, that’s it. Fried rice. The room was about 40′ x 40′ with the bed and TV (with satellite thankfully) in opposite corners. Surprisingly, the remote and the volume had enough range. The seafood in Kolaka was pretty good. Fresh fish, squid, and lobster, all for about $3-$5 USD. The lobster was actually a bit more expensive. It was $50 for 4.5 pounds of live lobster, still a bargain!

In Soroako, there are lots of expats on site from Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, so English is spoken by many, even the locals. In Kolaka, there are no expats, so VERY little English is spoken. So basically for a week, the only communication I had was with my 1 co-worker who speaks some English. Needless to say, I was very pleased to get into Jakarta and Hong Kong where English is more widely spoken. It almost sounded like a foreign language by then;)

So after spending 4 days or so in Kolaka, the driver took us to Kendari so I could catch my flight back to Makassar to start my journey home. This drive had much better roads, but we had about an hour of driving in the dark, which is always scary there. On our way there, we stopped at this area that had about 20 tents lining the road. Apparently, all of them sell steamed corn. Seems a bit like market saturation, but what do I know…I’m the foreigner. Well they bring you a bucket of sweet (yellow) corn and a bucket of white corn. You eat what you want, throw the shucks and cobs into another bucket, and pay for what you ate. Pretty tasty, but white corn on the cob is not nearly as good! We finished the drive to Kendari and I checked in at my hotel. Since Kendari is the capital of Southeast Sulawesi, the accommodations are a bit better. We hit up another seafood place for my last night and went back to the hotel since my flight was at 6:45 am the next day. The poor driver and my coworker had to start their 3-4 hour drive back to Kolaka at almost 10pm…uggghhh!!!