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.

What you actually see

• 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.

Honest expectations

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.