Carlina Teteris Photography » Travel and Lifestyle Photographer

Anand and Layla | Kota Bahru Wedding Dinner

I’m back in action! My abscence from posting has not only been due to months of laziness, but also that when I actually went to make this post weeks ago WordPress and/or prophoto was giving me all sorts of problems and wouldn’t let my post images as I like them. It would let me post them in all sorts of other ways, but I’m stubborn. Turns out I’m so stubborn that I didn’t read the instructions it was giving me to make some updates. Think it’s all settled and I should be good to go now!

I’ve got about a year worth of posting to do, but I’ll start it off with Anand and Layla’s wedding from Kota Bahru a few months back. Super fun evening (the guys from Koh Lanta are always fun), except poor Anand got dengue and had to make an escape from the hospital to attend his own wedding dinner!

Tana Toraja | Sulawesi Selatan

I also considered naming this post “how I developed a phobia of water buffalos.”

Anyways, the point is – Toraja is a weird and wonderful place. Seriously weird. But it’s super beautiful and the people are amazingly nice, so we’ll go with wonderful as well just weird. Torajan lifestyle seems to be based around the nexus between baffalos and funerals. Fascinating stuff. The answer to almost every question we had was something to do with buffalos, except when I asked why houses are shaped the way they are. The answer to that one is that they’re boat-shaped. Naturally. Why wouldn’t people living super high in the mountains live in boat-shaped houses?

Torajan funerals are amazing. We definitely crashed one, which seems to be a fairly acceptable thing to do, as long as you bring along a gift of cigarettes and sugar. I’m dead serious. Not making up ANY of this. The part of the funeral we went to included being fed lots of cookies and syrupy sweet coffee and tea and watching buffalos and pigs being slaughtered. Of course I got right in as close as possible, which was a lot closer to buffalo slaughtering than should be allowed. I was charged by a mortally wounded buffalo – twice. Now they just freak me out in general, even if they are the world’s second most mellow animal (next to sloths, of course). If you care for a better explanation of their funerals, go ahead and wiki it. I have no intention of explaining the whole process, and not being able to do it justice.

Their burials are equally as serious. We went and saw a whole bunch of burial sites too, some of which involved some serious Indian Jones action in caves full of skeletons, or hollowing out boulders to use as tombs. Amazing.

Now for the important disclaimer – if you find any of the following things offensive, just leave this page now, or don’t say I didn’t warn you: Death, Animal Sacrifices, Blood, Guts, Buffalos.

But if you’re awesome and can handle a little bit of blood, go ahead and enjoy the photos.

Magalie - AMAZING photos!!! Now I need to add this to my dream travel list!

Grace - Beautiful pictures, as usual, like in a travel magazine. The animal killing pictures are hard to see, but it’s just because they are so vivid. Great job!

Carlina - Uh oh… not even finished your dream trip, and you’re already making a new travel list! You’re a lost cause, my friend! :P

Pepy | Indonesia Eats - Oooo my Lord! I know I envy you for all your traveling thingies here.

Great travel photos here!!!!!

Anyway, I saw your favourite object “dead fish” while I saw one of my have chili peppers, “lada katokkon” or we call it scotch bonnet peppers in Canada :)

Akanksha and Roy | Fort Canning Wedding

Akanksha and Roy’s solomnization and reception at Fort Canning Park.

I had no choice but to split their wedding in to two parts. Even if it was a “small” wedding, and fully planned in twenty days, it was still three days long! The prewedding events are in the last post here.

Kurien - yay!! my pic is here.. i look hot! thanks :)
P.S. Terribly beautiful photos! I wanna cry.

alain - I love the atmosphere of the daily life of people every day.

PADI Open Water Diver Course | Anti Gravity Divers

I finally did my Open Water course! A HUGE thanks to my friends at Anti Gravity Divers – especially Anand, and Sara (who drew the short straw, and had to be my instructor). I’m so glad I finally stopped making all the excuses I could think of to avoid diving. Unfotuntately I love it as much as I thought I would, and now I’m being pressured into buying underwater housing. I’m going to make up more excuses, so I can keep on avoiding doing that.

*disclaimer – A couple of the photos in this post were shot by Pao, of Wetlense.com, who has an unfortunate habit of leaving my camera on all day and draining the battery. He also doesn’t know how to spell “Lens.” I’ve already had some words with him about it; he chooses to ignore my linguistic advice.

Thomas Hjorth - Awesome pictures.. Likey.!

zaim - you compiled the “puke” picture! shame on you. haha. by the way great photos! it was nice to have the last dive at koh haa with you.

Carlina - shhhhhhhhhhhhhh! that was supposed to be a secret! I didn’t think anyone would look close enouogh to spot it!

Lim Yan Hwea - The photos are great!!! Oh…I just miss the great time having fun at Koh Haa and Koh Lanta!!!

harish - I simply love your photos. I saw the water mark on Akansha’s wedding picture and looked up on search. I have been hooked to your pictures since then. I like the way you have presented it on your website. The overall theme and presentation little text followed by all photos. The small description is suffice for the photos tell the story completely. Great work. Hope I could learn somethings from you. If you ever make a trip to USA do let me know :)
your new fan…!

Yungs - I love your photos…simply the best!