Lore Lindu and the Bada Valley

Highland Valleys Scattered With Hundreds Of Megalithic Stone Figures And Vats Whose Age Is Disputed And Whose Makers Are Unknown; A UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Of Sulawesi Endemics · Palu, Central Sulawesi

In highland valleys in the middle of Sulawesi stand HUNDREDS OF MEGALITHIC STONE FIGURES - blunt human forms with wide eyes and no legs, some over four metres tall, standing alone in grass and rice fields - along with KALAMBA, enormous stone vats with lids, and carved discs. NOBODY KNOWS WHO MADE THEM. Estimates of their age range across two thousand years and none is secure; the people who live in these valleys now have no tradition explaining them, and there is no settlement layer, no tooling debris and no burial context to work from. PALINDO, THE LARGEST, LEANS IN A FIELD IN THE BADA VALLEY AND LOOKS SIDEWAYS AT YOU. The surrounding LORE LINDU NATIONAL PARK is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve holding anoa, babirusa and tarsiers. GETTING THERE IS GENUINELY HARD - eight to twelve hours of rough mountain road from Palu, longer in the wet - which is why almost nobody comes and why the valleys feel the way they do.

Lore Lindu, Bada and Besoa valleys, Central Sulawesi, Palu, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia

THERE IS NO GATE AND NO ADMISSION - the statues stand in fields and grassland, on land people farm, and a local contribution is customary. GETTING THERE IS THE WHOLE PROBLEM. THE BADA VALLEY IS REACHED FROM PALU by a long rough mountain road - commonly eight to twelve hours and longer in the wet - or on foot over several days from the north; THE BESOA AND NAPU VALLEYS are similarly remote. FOUR-WHEEL-DRIVE IS ESSENTIAL and the road condition changes constantly. GUIDES AND HOMESTAYS ARE ARRANGED IN THE VILLAGES, particularly at BOMBA AND GINTU; there is no booking system. A PARK PERMIT IS NEEDED FOR LORE LINDU ITSELF and is arranged in Palu. THE 2018 PALU EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI killed around four thousand three hundred people and damaged roads and infrastructure across the region; check current conditions.

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