About an hour and a half drive from Ruteng, you will come across the village of Todo. It is located up in the mountains and the road there is twisty. The scenery along the way is beautiful with valleys on one side and villages perched on the sides of mountains.
Todo used to have all its' homes built in the traditional manggaraian style with a circular structure where the roof reached right to the ground. There is a low entrance way where you have to bend down to enter the building. The roof is made from thatch. Eventually over time though, the villagers began to use other types of materials and resorted to building houses more similar to modern houses.
There was a villager at the entrance office who gave us some beautiful traditional cloth to wear and he took us on a tour through the village. The traditional house was very impressive, very big with a diameter of 25 metres. The roof stretches up much higher than I was expecting and the carvings inside the doorway and house were charming. You might be lucky to get some blue skies when you visit Todo but generally with it's position up in the mountains chances are it will be misty and that just seems to add to the mystical feel of the village. Don't forget to buy one of the traditional weavings hand made in the village. Todo cloth is known for it's linear patterns and they an array of scarves for sale.
Todo traditional village
Weaver at work
A rainbow of scarves
Carvings in the doorway
Inside the traditional house
Todo traditional house
Low entrance ways
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