Our guide told a rather vague story of the erotic mountains but somehow it reminded me of the Chinese folktale of the cowherd and the weaver girl. While in the Sulawesi tale, a deva married a girl from the human race, in the Chinese tale, it was the other way round - it was a fairy from heaven who married a man from earth. In the former, the lovers were both turned to mountains that looked like human genitals and both were separated forever by a river but in the latter, the lovers stayed in the sky as stars only to be separated by the Milky way. They could however meet once a year on the seventh day of the seventh month when magpies fly to form a bridge so that the lovers could cross to meet each other. Now, if you are waiting to catch a glimpse of the Most Sacred Holy Penis of the Celebes Highland in this post, you'd be dissapointed. It is not that the mountain is not there in the highlands. It was raining when we were traveling to Tana Toraja and just when we were passing the said mountain, there was a mist that covered it. The same thing happened when we were on our journey back to Makassar and now, I am wondering if the mountain is one long structure that juts into the sky or is it like the Penis rock in Koh Samui, Thailand (inset). It would be interesting to note that there is a Grandfather and a Grandmother rock there that look like a penis and a vagina in Koh Samui. God really knows how to make this world tick, don't you think? 15Traveling Tip: Listen to local stories.
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