Sengkang: a lake town that moves with the water

Sengkang is a small town in Wajo, at the southern end of Lake Tempe, and it has two things that bring visitors: a lake with houses built on stilts over the water, and a silk-weaving trade that goes back generations. Neither is staged for tourists, which is the point. The lake is the reason the town exists; the silk is the reason some people stay a second day.

The town itself is unremarkable, a grid of streets with a market, a fine old mosque and a lot of motorbikes, but the lake and the workshops are within a few kilometres, and the flat country around it, all paddies and fish ponds, is quietly beautiful in the early morning. The mosque, with its tiered roof, is worth a look on the way to the jetty.

Lake Tempe and the stilt villages

Lake Tempe is shallow and large, and its edges are lined with villages built on stilts: wooden houses on posts a metre or two above the water, reached by plank walks or by boat. Some of them float and can be towed to a new spot when the water shifts, and most have a boat tied to the veranda.

The classic trip is a couple of hours by boat from the jetty in Sengkang, out past the stilt houses and the fish traps, stopping at a village or two. Boats are small, with a canopy and an outboard; agree the price first, and expect to pay for the boat rather than per person. Early morning is when the lake is flat and the light is soft. The boats are open to the weather, so carry a hat and a light waterproof even on a bright morning.

The Sabannang boatmen

The Sabannang are the lake people, families who have lived on and from Lake Tempe for generations, fishing and farming the water. Their houses are the ones on stilts; their boats are the small wooden craft you see poled along the shallows, and in the wet season they move with the water level.

A visit is a visit to someone's home, not a museum. Ask before stepping onto a veranda, take a guide from the jetty if you want to understand what you are looking at, and buy something, whether dried fish, a snack or a coffee, rather than treating the place as a photo opportunity. Photography is usually welcome once you have asked.

Silk, and the weavers of Wajo

Sengkang is one of the centres of Bugis silk, and the showrooms along the main road sell sarongs, selendang and bolts of cloth in strong colours and traditional motifs. Some are woven locally, some come from nearby villages and some are synthetic; ask which is which, and the price will tell you as well.

To see the work, go to one of the weaving workshops at the edge of town, where women sit at floor looms in a back room and the shuttles move at a surprising speed. A short visit is usually fine if you ask; a scarf or a length of cloth is the polite purchase. Prices run from about Rp 150,000 for a simple scarf to several million for a hand-woven silk sarong.

Getting to Sengkang

Sengkang is about 240 km from Makassar, four to five hours by road through Bone and Watampone, on a good if busy highway. Buses run from the city terminal to Sengkang and on to Palopo, and a car with a driver is the comfortable option; the drive is a decent introduction to the Bugis heartland. Watampone, the old capital of Bone, is a reasonable place to break the journey for lunch.

From Palopo in the north it is two to three hours on a reasonable road, which makes Sengkang a sensible stop between Tana Toraja and the south coast. There is no useful air link, so most visitors arrive by road, usually as a break in a longer journey rather than as a destination on its own.

• Take the lake boat early, before the wind picks up at mid-morning.
• Ask at the jetty whether the water is high or low; it changes the route.
• Visit a weaving workshop in the morning, when the light is better.
• One night is enough, two if you want a slow day on the lake.

When the lake rises and falls

Lake Tempe does something unusual: in the wet season it rises and spreads, flooding the fields and swallowing the lower houses, and in the dry season it shrinks and exposes the lake bed. Farmers then plant rice and corn on the exposed ground, and the stilt houses stand on dry land with their posts in the mud. The houses are built for this: the posts are tall enough for the highest water, and the living rooms sit above the mark.

That means the trip changes with the calendar. High water, roughly December to April, is when the floating villages look their best and the boat trips run longest. Low water, July to October, is better for seeing the lake-bed farms but limits where a boat can go. Ask at the jetty what the water is doing before you commit.

Questions people actually ask

What is the best time to see Lake Tempe?

The wet season, roughly December to April, when the lake is high and the stilt and floating villages are surrounded by water. In the dry months the lake shrinks and farmers plant on the exposed bed, which is interesting in its own way but a different trip.

Can you buy silk directly from the weavers?

Often, yes. The workshops at the edge of town usually welcome a short visit if you ask, and you can buy a scarf or a length of cloth there. Showrooms on the main road have more choice but a wider range of quality, including synthetic mixes.