Tomohon

Tomohon sits at around seven hundred metres in the Minahasa highlands between the volcanoes Lokon and Mahawu, with cool air, volcanic soil and a flower-growing industry that supplies much of eastern Indonesia and gives the town its Flower City name and a biennial festival. Lokon is active and has erupted repeatedly, evacuating villages. Mahawu can be driven up and its crater walked round. The town's other fame is its market: the Beriman market sells bushmeat and dog and cat meat openly alongside ordinary produce, a Minahasa culinary tradition that has drawn sustained international campaigning, and in 2023 the traders and local government agreed to end the dog and cat trade there - reporting since has been mixed on how completely that has held. Visitors are frequently unprepared for what is on the tables.

History

Tomohon appears in the ethnographic writings of the Reverend Nicolaas Graafland, who in a work dated 14 January 1864 described the highland country he had visited in 1850 (Wikipedia, Tomohon).

What you'll find

• Two volcanoes - active Lokon and the drive-up crater of Mahawu.
• Flower nurseries - the growing industry that supplies eastern Indonesia.
• The Beriman market - the bushmeat trade and the 2023 agreement to end dog and cat sales.
• Cool highland air - a relief from the coastal heat at Manado.

When to go

All year; drier August to October. A day.

Practical notes

The market sells butchered bushmeat and, historically, dogs and cats; the 2023 ban's effect is reported inconsistently, and visitors who go unprepared find it genuinely distressing. Lokon closes on alerts.

Nearby

Manado and Bunaken are north; Lake Tondano is east.

Key facts