I spent Christmas in Samarinda with friends, we made dinner, watched "A Christmas Story," and made lots of phone calls home - I also watched and rewatched an amazing video of all my friends singing "Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer" for me.

The next day I took a flight to Makassar to meet up with a friend who was flying all the way from Germany to spend a week traveling around Indonesia with me.

It was a bit of a Christmas miracle that my friend was able to come, and that I found her at the airport, because we didn't really do a very good job of planning our travels, but sometimes things work out anyways. We spent a day together in Makassar, eating the famous local soup and wandering around the harbor.

It seems like I end up taking hundreds of pictures of boats every time my camera and I get close to water. This time we had great lighting, colorful boats, and boisterous children.

Little hoodlums. They just wanted to all be in the photo.

Really wanted to be in the photo.

But it was still a lovely place and a peaceful evening.

That night we went out to a nice dinner and almost missed the night bus we were taking up to Toraja because I sometimes forget how military time works. Luckily, the night bus left late, so we made it with a bit of time to spare.

Next post: Muddy, Bloody Tana Toraja!