Lake Poso Durian Road Trip – How to Circumnavigate the Lake

“The road might be okay,” Pian said, nodding as he thought about it. “But not really recommendable.”

We were asking about taking the Western road because Richard was excited to circumnavigate the lake hunting Lake Poso Durian. While Google Maps “said” there was a road, we already know that in Indonesia Google Maps can be very, very, very wrong.

There was that time I drove 3 hours into the mountains to be turned back by a swinging bridge only wide enough for motorbikes. There was that time the road had actually been washed away 2 years previously by floods and landslides. There was that time we found out the road included fording several rivers. I can tell you – this is not a recommended activity in a rental car.

Pian thought about that. “No, it’s passable.”

So with that optimism we waved goodbye to our new friends Pian and Lian at Dodosa Mosintuwu and promised we would be back in 3 days, having gone all the way around Indonesia’s third deepest lake scouting durians.

Heading out of Tentena

Only 8km west of Tentena we stopped in the village of Mayakeli to peruse some durians on the side of the road in front of a convenience shop.

The table also held a pile of dark red, slightly dried out looking rambutans. They were the first rambutans I’d seen in Central Sulawesi, which seemed odd. Where there is durian, there is usually also rambutan. I asked the seller if they were local and he said no, they’d come from South Sulawesi – around 5 hours drive away.

The rambutan hairs were turning black and they looked pretty dried out, so we decided to focus on trying a durian. These, he said had come just nearby.

But the durians were also not that fresh. Dried out stems, some starting to split. We found one decent one and bought it for 10,000 IDR just for curiosity’s sake. It was sweet, it was fine, and we decided to keep moving.

Then I stepped up onto the shop’s cement platform to hand the shop owner the money. Low and behold – he was literally sitting on a treasure trove of durians!

These ones aren’t ready yet, he said. They just arrived, they’re too fresh. They need to wait until tomorrow.

But our noses said differently.

We convinced him to let us buy two fruits of the choicest, gassiest, most effervescent smelling durians.

It was one of the most fantastic durians we had eaten so far in Sulawesi. Deeply alcoholic but still fresh and sticky, surprisingly fleshy, this was like a White Russian ice cream. Passerby chuckled as we tucked in with delight, and by the number of people who stopped to buy durian I think we might have helped boost durian sales that day.

It was good to know that in this region, there is a practice of keeping the durian for a day to let it “forget the tree.” It might mean that durians are often falling too early in this area, or that people prefer the sweeter, more oniony flavor of durians that are a day old.

Either way, the durian was excitingly delicious and we felt fueled and ready to tackle the West Road around Lake Poso.

The Western Road Around Lake Poso

We passed the turn-off to Saluopa Waterfall, one of the region’s most well-known attractions. But having left late in the day, we didn’t have time to stop.

Fingers of mountain ridges pointed towards the lake, and we crossed a hill into a protected valley, up over another hill into another protected valley, and onwards, the hills rippling and the scenery gorgeous.

The road swept along the rim of the lake, the views broken only by durian farms along the way.

There was durian on every hill side, usually on both sides of the road.

This region was definitely a durian hotspot.

Kecamatan Meko

After bumping along at 20km an hour for more than an hour, we crossed a bridge and arrived at a small town with decidedly different architecture.

A wheel-barrow on the side of the road stacked with durians caught our attention, so we parked on the side of the road and got out of the car. We then caught the attention of everyone on the street.

As the lady of the house emerged from the shade to help us with our purchase, we heard flip-flops pounding the compacted gravel as kids and adults appeared from nowhere.

Where were we from? Where were we going? Were we going to Toraja?

I was not sure where Toraja was, but they said it was around 8 hours to the south and was full of tourism spots.

This village, in fact, had several families who had migrated here from Toraja. You could tell Toraja families by their house, they said, pointing back at the ornately blue, red and white two-level house behind the durian wheelbarrow. I had never seen a house painted like this. It was beautiful, and they agreed with that opinion.

They had a pile of Durian Lokal for 10,000 IDR each, or one tree-ripened Monthong for 50,000 IDR.

I asked which one was more delicious.

The Lokal, of course, they said.

This one came from a huge tree. A really huge tree – a tree so huge – they opened their arms wide and pointed to the sky. Maybe only 3 people could wrap their arms around this tree, that’s how big it was.

Where was this tree? I asked. “Oh, really far,” the lady answered. “About 3km away.”

I smiled. We were traveling over 80km that day. I wondered how often she leaves Meko.

I asked how many Lokal trees they had. Just the one, she said. The rest were Monthong.

A buyer had come to cut and collect the Monthong yesterday. She didn’t know where he took it – but she knew that her Monthong would end up in China.

She just had this one left, it had fallen from the tree.

We are often cautious about buying Montong, because the fruits are large and it’s hard to eat the whole thing. If it’s really tree-ripe, it can be so soft it doesn’t last long.

But this one – this Monthong was fabulous. On the side it had fallen it was super super soft and slurpy, while the other side still had a slightly rigid skin but felt like play-dough to the touch. That meant we could keep half of it for dinner.

We slurped up half the Monthong and washed our fingers with the hose. We exchanged WhatsApp numbers and Instagram accounts, and I promised to send the photos and tag them.

That’s probably not what you expected, dear reader, but even here we still had 4G reception.

The West Way to Pendolo

Leaving Meko Village, we weren’t even half way. We still had 45km ahead of us to get to Pendolo. It was starting to get late in the day, and I wondered if we would still be bumping over potholes and gashes in the road after dark.

Motorbike after motorbike after motorbike passed us, each loaded with a handful of durians. We saw no other cars on the road, and only passed one small lorry loading timber and durians at the same time.

We passed over another finger of mountains into a tiny village of 3 houses. I waved through the open window to a lady nestled on her verandah who was so startled she dropped her tea cup. I hoped it wasn’t hot.

We headed up a very steep hill. The road when up, and up, and up.

And then, only 15km after our stop in Meko, the road suddenly became paved. And not just paved, beautifully paved. Newly paved – a smooth, velvet black asphalt that appeared in the middle of nowhere.

Pada Marari Poso Viewpoint

We looked down at the lake and the little village below with it’s church spires and red roofs.

The view was so beautiful. We were glad we had taken the west way, and also relieved that it seemed we would make it to Pendolo before dark. We were only 30km away from our hotel for the night. On this quality of road, we’d be there in 40 minutes.

The road headed away from the lake along a green ridge.

Now that the road was paved, we passed no houses at all. This appeared to be actual forest.

We stopped the car to take in the view. And also for an impromptu bathroom break – having seen no gas station or other places to stop, we figured a deserted road between villages was our best bet.

This gave us time to look at the rocks around us, and realize that this mountain pass was full of Nepenthes – pitcher plants.

These are carnivorous plants that eat trap bugs. The ones you usually see on nature shows because they are able to move.

The rock face was full of them, more Nepenthes in one place than I’d ever seen. I know people who pay hundreds of dollars to climb Mt. Kinabalu in Sabah to see one cluster of Nepenthes, and here we had an entire wall of them.

We continued driving down, and down, and more down until we arrived in the village of Panjo.

I was driving, but I still noticed a weird fruit hanging from a tree on the side of the road. It was like a giant avocado with psoriasis, all scaly. I stopped to snap a photo.

Mystery Fruit in Desa Panjo

A motorbike driver stopped to ask what we were looking at. We pointed at the tree.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Just a jungle fruit,” he said. “Don’t eat it.”

Then he said. “Do you want to see the ancestor cave? Just 100 meters, I’ll show you.”

It was starting to get dark, but we followed him around a bend in the road and pulled over at a flag snapping loudly in the breeze. We were just steps from the lake and waves lapped hard against the shore.

From the road we followed the young man down a beaten path to several large boulders leaning together to form a shelter. Here, in the darkness, was an unmistakeable pile of human bones and skulls.

These are our ancestors, he said. They are the old warriors, from before we had Christianity.

Can I take a picture? I asked.

If you want to, he said. But I wouldn’t dare.

So I didn’t dare too. But I’ve pinned the location on the Google Map, so if you would like to see the old ancestor bones yourself, you can find them.

Pendolo City

We arrived to Pendolo City in the dark, the sunlight disappearing completely just minutes after we said goodbye to the young man and the ancestor bones. It was a slightly creepy way to arrive to a new place.

But the next morning dawned with clear blue skies. We woke up and waved to Pian and Lian from our patio view across the lake. Somewhere in the blue haze was Tentena City and the Dodosa Mosintuwu Homestay, where we would be returning when we headed north on the East Road.

We stayed at at the Hotel Mulia, a somewhat rustic cottage with an awesome view north along a pebble beach. The cottage was large and comfortable, but full of black ants on missions to various parts of the building and we rarely had running water.

But we were not in Pendolo for the lake – we were there for the durian. And here was clearly the epicenter of commercial durian farms.

Everywhere we looked were fields planted with new durians.

You can read about our 2 days in Pendolo – before we turned back north and headed up the East Side of Lake Poso.

The East Road of Lake Poso

On Tuesday morning we breakfasted at the Pendolo Morning Market and then headed East out of town.

Within 15 minutes were stopped on the side of the road near Korobono Village. There were about 5 durian sellers with their wares stretched out along the side of the road.

Everyone was busy building durian pyramids, wrapping 5 durians together with palm leaves. We stopped, chatted, took some photos and selfies. Maybe everyone had just had their morning coffee, because they were blaring the radio and seemed to be in a good mood.

So we also bought one durian for 10,000 IDR.

It was absolutely nothing special.

Yes, it was super fresh with a sticky stem, having dropped in the wee hours of the morning. But not all durians are fab.

This one had thin meat, was kind of dry-sticky, and was milky sweet without much flavor. It tasted fine – we ate it all. But if all durian tasted like this, would I be a crazed durian hunter? Probably not.

A motorbike stopped to unload at another seller’s piles. Together with the first durian seller we’d been chatting with, we walked over to the pile where he was unloading to have a look-see.

This man said he had ridden over 30km to bring the durians from his village to this specific spot.

Honestly, this place seemed kind of random. There was nothing nearby. No houses. No convenience shops. Why here?

There’s a lot of traffic on this road, he said.

To prove his point, a huge 40-passenger bus rushed by, followed by a small lorry stuffed with durians.

Who stops here to buy durian? I asked.

Tourists, he said. People driving to Poso. A lot of buyers headed for Morawali, where there’s lots of Chinese living.

Why are there Chinese people in Morawali? I asked him.

For the mines, he said. They’re rich, and they like durian.

Apparently he thought we were rich too, because when I asked to buy one of his durians he quoted me at 50,000 IDR. The durian seller from the first pile winced and breathed out quickly through his teeth.

At this point, we were accustomed to buying bundles of 3 durians for 25-35,000 IDR, depending on the size of the durians. We looked at the motorcycle man skeptically.

It’s a good one, he said. Our Mentega (“butter”). The best tree in our village.

We suggested 25,000 IDR, which he accepted, and we let him choose the one that we should try. He nonchalantly picked through the pile, tossed it a couple of times, and then cracked it with one blow of his machete.

It opened cleanly, exposing a very soft, very wrinkled durian with cream seeping through cracks in the skin. It was amazing – super smooth, super creamy, slightly alocholic, and even numb.

The motorbike man sat down in the shade to nap, and not wanting to disturb him by asking for another durian, we exchanged WhatsApp numbers with the first durian seller and then headed on our way. We still had 75km of unknown road to cover.

Desa Masewe

Pian had mentioned that there is a lot of durian in Masewe, so as we approached the district we slowed down and scanned the roads.

Yes! There were bundles of durian hanging and ready for sale in front of a convenience store.

We stopped and Richard began sniffing through the bundles. They were all fresh from the morning, with sticky stems – but nothing smelled really strong and alcoholic.

The shop owner was excited we had stopped. We posed for selfies and we bought a bundle.

Then we asked to open one of the durians – mostly as a way to delay needing to drive away. If we paused here, we had more opportunities to chat with people.

And quickly we attracted people.

A mom hustled her 12-year-old girl in school uniform across the street so the girl could sheepishly repeat English phrases she had learned in school while avoiding eye contact.

My name is…what is your name?

Having completed her phrases, the girl looked up at her mom for further instructions, but her mom was now distracted by the durian being opened.

The mom wanted to know which person had sol them the durian, and how much we had paid for it, and how much longer the season would last.

It was very convenient having someone else ask the questions I also wanted to know.

The durian had a sweet simple buttery flavor. It was pleasant, but again not exciting. We ate the one fruit, said goodbye to everyone, and continued on our way.

We still had 55km to go, but it seemed on this road our journey would not be too long.

Pasar Buah Taripa “TIGA PUTRI”

At the Taripa junction we turned left toward Tentena Poso. We were just 35km away from returning to our start point, and it was only noon. The East Road was definitely faster than the West.

Just a few hundred meters from the junction, we passed a long stretch of fruit sellers. I saw a few sad durians, but mostly wrinkled apples hanging in bags.

We stopped and bought some snakefruits, which the seller said were grown in South Sulawesi, to snack on our final descent into Tentena.

Returning back to Dodosa Mosintuwu

In the early afternoon we bumped down the dirt driveway to Dodosa Mosintuwu Homestay. We were arriving earlier than planned, despite rain suddenly dumping in the last 20km.

It was still raining and we scurried under the cover of the large bamboo structure. Richard ordered a coffee, and we sat down to lunch on the durians we had collected from the Pendolo Morning Market, the Korobono Durian Sellers, and in Desa Masewe.

When you have to buy durian in bundles, you might accidentally end up with a lot!

“How was your trip?” Pian asked. We gestured to the durian pile on the table. Pian chuckled.

It was fabulous.

Driving Around Lake Poso Durian Road Trip

Driving around Lake Poso was a highlight of our durian trip to Central Sulawesi – and particularly the west side.

The views on the West Road were incredible as we hugged the lake shore, bobbing up and down the mountain ridges into charming little hamlets with their church spires and red and blue roofs. It was all too picturesque. The roads were quiet except for motorbikes hauling durians down from the hills. It was an epic way to taste Lake Poso Durian.

The East Road was decidedly more boring. Yes, the road was paved the whole way, but because it turns inland there are no views of the lake and nowhere really worth stopping. We shared the road with lorries and large buses, which made driving more stressful. And although this way is the main highway from South Sulawesi to North Sulawesi, there was actually more durian for sale on the West Road.

If I was doing a Lake Poso Durian Road Trip again, I would take the West Road any day – except for maybe a rainy day.