It's been a while. Finally, I got my free time for writing some stories in this blog again. In spending my long weekend in Yogyakarta with family, I think it would be great if I choose it as recent main story.
As almost every Indonesian knows that Yogyakarta is the second most famous destination in Indonesia, no wonder if my parents chose it as our long weekend destination. We took an executive class train from Bandung to Yogyakarta. Please don't think too much when I said "executive class train" here. It's just IDR 230.000 or approximetaly AUD 23. That's quite cheap when you compare it to 388 km journey from Bandung to Yogyakarta.
Executive class train.
We arrived at 02.55 and we got nothing to do but waiting. After 3.5 hours of waiting, we finaly decided to go out of the station and get a rental car for a whole day. Our first destination was Merapi Mountain Museum in Sleman, Yogyakarta which spent almost an hour from the station.
Gifts from guests at Merapi Mountain Museum.
Staring at Merapi summit from far away (?)
Traditional costume of Java.
One of many victims of Merapi eruption in 2010 which killed almost 500 people including Mbah Marijan, caretaker of the mountain.
One of the most famous myth at Merapi mountain, Nyai Gadung Melati.
When we were exploring the Merapi Mountain Museum, someone offered us a package of "Lava tour" which is famous in there. So, We took one package spontaneously even though we had no idea how we could deal with a real offroad experience.
Off road-ing to spots of attractions around Merapi mountain.
Enjoying our ride !
Dealing with this was blowing up my mind. Haha..
"Contemplate life with seeing the damage of Merapi eruption"
Handwritings of this house owner.
"Merapi never break its promise"
Pose with these livestocks bones, victims of 2010 Merapi eruption at Sisa Hartaku mini museum.
Off road cars that took us for this Lava tour.
This bunker was made to protect people from eruption. Merapi eruption has killed 3 volunteer at this spot.
After we satisfied having this Lava tour, we went to Parangtritis beach. We planned to have a lunch there at first but we had to cancel it due to an event that be held at the place. We just had water of coconut to fulfill our thirst and go away from there. However, we still had a second plan for our lunch. There is a seafood restaurant that looks famous enough 12 km away from the beach. It's a fortunate that we could have a lunch there because we were starving to death at that time.
The last destination for our day one of our holiday was my mom desire, buying a bag made from animal skin, in this case is made from cow skin. We went directly to the supplier so, we got a low price for the bag. Beside that, we also bought some Gudegs, Yogyakarta traditional food at Wijilan street, the most famous street for Gudeg in Yogyakarta.
That's our day one story. I am going to come back soon with day two story. See ya, have a nice long weekend, everyone !
Once again (or many times later) I am going to take you to my hiking trip back to October 2012. In this trip, me
and COTAS (my community in Subang) were hiking to the mount Canggah,
located in Cibogo, Subang, Indonesia. It is about 1600-1800 meters high
(I'm not pretty sure about the exact number). The reason why I put
"small but challenging” as the title of this post is because mount Canggah
itself is relatively tiny (There are many other higher mountains in
Java island) and but we passed it through a non-human way until reaching
its summit. What I mean by the 'non-human way' is because this is not a common hiking track for people. There are only few of them have passed through this track. Therefore it was very challenging for us as we have to clear out the way. It took around 5 hours to get to the top of it (including
couple minutes of rest).
View from Canggah summit.
Our backpack.
A real jungle. hahah..
Jodi, Wilandika, and our guide, mr.Darman
First time seeing clouds from upper summit.
With my friend, Wilandika. (we chose him as the leader of COTAS)
Jodi was seeing Cileat waterfall near the mountain.
Having snacks after 5-hours journey.
A man-made hovel at the summit.
Here is a video I made at the summit.
Going back as well as going into the jungle.
Taking a rest for a while.
An insect I don't know the name.
Cleaning our body at the river as a substitution of our lack of time of going to Cileat waterfall.
I had never thought that mount Canggah, a mountain near my hometown,
could give me an outstanding experience. I have been living in Subang
for couple years but I didn't know it could give me such
amazing experiences through doing some challenging activities around
this place (in this case is a hiking).
Indonesia has a lot of attractions, the famous one just like Bali, Lombok, Raja ampat,
and so on; or the not-very-famous ones just like some places that We as
Indonesians just found out about them. That's why 'Wonderful Indonesia'
is titled to promote it to the world.
Having a lot of amazing places doesn't mean that Indonesia just have
to wait for tourists to come. Indonesia has a problem in building good
infrastructures. I don't know about the real problem is but from what I
saw on TVs and from my own experience, that issue is real. Bad infrastructure prevents tourists come to Indonesia which
results in the decline of tourist number each year in some provinces.
Another problematic factor which I saw on TVs too is that, many local
citizens have limited knowledge about?? which very often destructs the
Indonesia's attraction. Learning from these problems, as an Indonesian
we must preserve Indonesia's nature. Giving an education to locals is
one way to do that. More importantly, the government must build good
infrastructures evenly and seriously in all areas for the sake of
Indonesian's future investment. I wonder if less money were corrupted,
how far Indonesia has progressed to this present days?! It’s just so
much to think about and to in this country, isn’t it?
Well, It just my thoughts. I don’t mean to stress
everyone out with this kind of discussion! The point is that I just want
to urge people to preserve and protect our country with all assets and
resources in it. In addition, I hope you can try exploring the not so
famous places and make it more famous, at least for the local tourist
first. I think that’s the easiest way on how we can help to promote
Indonesia’s tourism.
Hola again ! How's everything going? Haha.. Here I am (again), an amateur blogger who likes to share whatever I feel I want to share. The previous AOE posting was about my travel experience to Singapore, different from the first two AOEs which described about India. I tried to distinguish every story sequentially even though I still have many stories about India that I haven't posted yet. It's kinda boring if you post same things (in this case is the same country) sequentially, isn't it? Currently, it's mount Tampomas turn.
Mount Tampomas is located in North Sumedang, Indonesia. It has about 1684 meters height. This Stravolcano has hot springs that came out in the area around the foot of the mountain. Its forest has some floras (jamuju, rasamala, and saninten) and faunas (mouse deer, lutung, wild boar, and some kind of birds). Tampomas summit is called "Sangiang Taraje". You can see the whole of Sumedang city from there. 200 meters to the north of "Sangiang Taraje", can be found a shrine named "Pasarean". Legend says that it was a place of Prabu Siliwangi and Dalam Samaji in old Padjajaran kingdom era. (http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunung_Tampomas). I went to mount Tampomas with my friends (Deden, Wilan, Dhery, and Jodi) on December 2010.
Map of Mount Tampomas in West Java, Indonesia.
Went there by bikes from Subang to Sumedang city, we stayed one night at our friend's flat (D-1). In the morning, we used angkot (public transportation) and rode a truck to mountain's feet. Here is the video that we made when we were riding a truck (My first exeperience haha).
"Truck"-ing
On our way to Tampomas summit
Tampomas trip with COTAS (our community)
Releasing a leech from Jodi's feet
Hikers !!
Tampomas summit with fog
Had a rest and got some foods
Trying to be photogenic LOL
Tampomas summit
We got through some hilarious experience that could have never been forgotten. Here they are:
Jodi got a leech on his feet. Leech is known as a bloodsucker which means that if we pull it, it's going to suck your blood much more stronger. So, we decided to release it with a knife by dragging it out.
We thought that we could get some fresh water to drink from its headwaters. So, we just brought 2 1,5L-bottles of water for 5 persons. But the fact is we didn't find the headwaters, if we did, it's difficult to be reached. Fortunately, Dhery brought his own 600mL-bottle of water without told us. It saved us LOL.
Once we reached the summit, we couldn't enjoy the view over there because of the fog.
It's an unfortunate we got all wet on our way down to the city because it rained torrential. We tried to protect our important stuffs from getting wet and we did it.
So, that's all of my Tampomas experience. Maybe Tampomas was just like my media to get those experience. It could happen in every mountains. I hope you'all enjoy it. And hopefully it gives you who are planning to hike a mountain some lessons.
Prepare a multi-tool and find some information about the area.(flora, fauna, weather, track, and so on)
Bring a 1,5L-bottle of water each person. (Don't bring to many because it'll be a heavy load)
Check the weather first before you hike.
Bring a raincoat and prepare to face the rain like put your important stuffs to plastic and find something to help you get through a slippery field.
