Baubau: a fortress town on Buton

Baubau is a small city on the south coast of Buton island, built around a hill, and on top of that hill is a fortress. Not a ruin or a token wall: Benteng Keraton Buton is a walled town of some twenty-three hectares, with houses, a mosque and the graves of sultans inside it, and a rampart of coral limestone running for two and a half kilometres around the edge.

The fort is the reason to come, and the town below is the reason to stay a night. Baubau is a working port, with ferries to the Wakatobi islands and to Muna, a market that smells of dried fish and cloves, and a history as the seat of the Wolio sultanate that still shapes how people here describe themselves.

The wall on the hill

The first thing that strikes you about Benteng Keraton Buton is the scale. The outer wall runs for something like two and a half kilometres, built of coral and limestone blocks without mortar, and encloses about twenty-three hectares, which makes it a walled town rather than a castle. It is often described as the largest fort in the world by area, a claim that depends on how you define a fort, but the size itself is not in doubt.

The walls were begun in the sixteenth century and strengthened over generations, in the age when Buton was a trading sultanate with ties to Ternate, the Dutch and the English. You enter through a few gateways, climb stone steps worn smooth by centuries of feet, and come out on a plateau of grass, old trees and houses where people still live.

Inside the walls

Inside the fort there is a village: lanes, timber houses, a small market, and the great mosque, which stands at the heart of the old palace compound. The mosque is timber, with a tiered roof and a drum rather than a loudspeaker for the call to prayer, and it is still in use. Visitors can look from the outside; ask before going further, dress conservatively and remove your shoes if you are invited in.

Also inside are the remains of the palace, a small museum and the graves of sultans, some wrapped in cloth and tended daily. The compound is quiet in the middle of the day and busy in the late afternoon, when the light comes across the bay and the children come out to play. Allow two hours, more if you fall into conversation, which is likely.

The sultanate, the Dutch and the asphalt

Buton's history is a long exercise in staying independent. The Wolio sultanate controlled the island and its trade for centuries, signed treaties with the Dutch East India Company and kept a system of law and government that outlasted most of its neighbours. The last sultan abdicated in 1960, after Indonesian independence, and the keraton remains the symbol of the island's identity.

The island's other distinction is geological. Buton holds substantial deposits of natural asphalt, which the Dutch began quarrying in the early twentieth century and which is still mined and mixed into road surfaces. It is an odd thing for a beautiful island to be known for, and the quarries are not a sight, but it explains the trucks on the ferry and a chapter of the economy that has little to do with fishing.

The town below the walls

Baubau itself is a busy little city spread around the foot of the fort and along the harbour. The market is the place to see it: dried fish, cashews, woven sarongs and the blue-and-white cloth the island is known for. The waterfront, with the ferry terminal and the fishing boats, is scruffy and full of life, and best at sunrise when the catch comes in.

Food is seafood, grilled or in soup, with rice and cassava. There is not much nightlife; evenings are for the market, the mosque and the promenade. Two nights is enough for the fort, the town and a look at the coast, and it makes a natural stop between Kendari and the Wakatobi islands.

• Give the fort a morning, when the light is soft.
• Wear shoes with grip; the stone steps are worn and steep.
• Ask before entering the mosque or photographing graves.
• Eat grilled fish at the harbour rather than at the hotel.
• Check ferry times at the port on the day you arrive.

Ferries and onward travel

Baubau's port is the reason many travellers stop at all. Ferries run to Wanci in the Wakatobi islands and to Raha on Muna, and larger ships call on their way along the coast; schedules are posted at the harbour and change with the weather. The crossing to Wanci takes several hours and can be bumpy, and the fast boats are quicker but more weather-dependent.

The airport, about half an hour out of town, has flights to Kendari and Makassar, which is the easiest way in or out. Roads on Buton are slow but scenic, and the trip across the island to the north coast takes the best part of a day. Bring cash: ATMs exist in town but are not everywhere, and the smaller islands have none at all.

Questions people actually ask

What is Benteng Keraton Buton?

The walled palace town of the Wolio sultans, on the hill above Baubau. The coral-limestone wall runs for about two and a half kilometres and encloses roughly twenty-three hectares, with a mosque, a museum and sultan's graves inside.

Can you get from Baubau to Wakatobi?

Yes. Ferries run from Baubau's port to Wanci in the Wakatobi islands, a crossing of several hours. Schedules change with the weather, so check at the harbour when you arrive rather than planning a tight connection.