A Steep Rocky Paradise in Alor, NTT

The view from a kitchen window

East Nusa Tenggara province, or in Indonesian we call Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT) is surprisingly huge! I’ve just probably noticed that since my recent travel to Pulau Alor (Alor Island) on the 10-12 December 2016. Alor, along with other big islands and regencies in the East Nusa Tenggara (Sumba, Flores, Lembata, Ende, Maumere, Kupang — Yes, I finally know that they are still part of NTT) are home to many dive sites and beautiful marine wildlife with locals who may look and talk like nothing you’d find in large cities of Indonesia. They are the people of East Indonesia who many are descendants of the neighboring Papua, that inherits dark skin, curly hair in many ways. Different, I thought, and much to my surprise, I fell in love with this paradise.

After all the traveling I’ve done, this was my first time going on a trip to do a mission. Social traveling you may say. It was a mission to help expose the less-explored beautiful island in East Nusa Tenggara, Alor Island. Not many of you know, but Alor Island have actually been rewarded recently for having the most popular dive spots from Anugerah Pesona Indonesia Award 2016. So my curiosity was challenged when a friend posted about this social trip organized by Thank You Indonesia movement with a tagline,  “Jelajah Alor. Mewarnai Pulau,” which basically means to explore Alor Island and paint them in colors!  If that does not sound promisingly fun, I don’t know what else is.

Bright colorful houses of Pura Island now can be seen from across the ocean. Photo: Ina Ocktarina

The mission was done in a small island off the coast of Alor, called Pura Island. There are about over 140 houses in a steep rocky hills with village locals who has deep intimacies with their culture and are very open for innovation. This social project is done to fully raise the awareness of this island to many Indonesians and obviously to the world. We helped paint bright colors to the houses in this island, starting in Harilolong Village, since they are the most visible from the ocean. The goal was one: to help many diver boats and sailing ships to notice this multicolored houses in order to pay a visit to Pura Island. So tourists won’t only visit to explore the underwater heaven Alor has to offer, but also to meet many promising new friends and exposure to culture that are so rich, it will leave you in so much awe.

Lego Lego Dance to welcome guests

The friendly and hospitable Pura Island locals who cherishes their culture will welcome guests in the coolest tradition. Dancing! Lego Lego dance, is a traditional dance where locals will gather hand in hand (pinky in pinky, actually) in circle, moving in specified steps, while singing and chanting followed by the traditional gongs and drums. Lego Lego dance is part of their way to enunciate gratitude for the guests that comes by. I was lucky to experience this awesome dance, being one with the locals who chants loudly and move with steps that are hard to process by the brain. (Even I who dances on a regular basis still got lost in their steps).

Joined in the circle to dance Lego Lego

I was in so much envy from where these people live. I mean, climbing those steep rocks everyday, only to find endless panoramic beauty by the window of your house is definitely an eye pleaser. The view of neighboring island in full lush, the ocean in the middle with the knowledge of fresh resources underneath the surface of the ocean only made this island so precious.

Painting Papa Max Namaboling’s house

Okay, so the mission started as for us to paint the villagers’ houses in bright colors. My friends and I was set out in groups to do one local’s house. We were assigned to do a house of Mr. Max Namaboling, a name very unfamiliar for many of us who lives in the capital. It was a tough yet cool name to remember. Papa Max (as many people here would call in familiarity) lives uphill almost in the steepest top of the island. We were climbing those rocks and steep trails drenched in sweat to get to his house. But alas, the scenery we saw after we got there, left us…speechless.

The view from Papa Max’s house

I was already picturing myself on the set of a movie based in Greece, Mammamia when I got there! Bougainvillea flowers bright atop his roof, overlooking the sea and the neighboring island. Gorgeous! Lucky man. But it was not only him, almost all of the houses in this island have the same exact view. Aren’t you envious? After spending time painting bright blue color on the side of his house, we were offered delicious bunch of mangoes, fresh from the trees! Villagers of Pura Island are all-rounded farmers, fishermen, agriculturist of many. So no wonder they’d have supplies of fresh fish, veggies, fruits, even their own traditional gin made fresh from the Lontar tree. Late afternoon talks with the locals only made us fall in love over and over with their tranquility of innocence and willingness to exchange life stories. Their heavy Eastern Indonesia accents and language is very unusual, but that doesn’t stop the fact that we’d still be able to communicate. Still, with those heavy accents, the beauty of Bahasa Indonesia that unites our conversation as one is what made me proud of being an Indonesian.

Papa Max Namaboling with his niece

There are so many places to explore in Alor, not only in Pura Island itself, but the beaches and other wonderful adventure-filled sites in Alor that is waiting for you to notice. I myself would also love going back here, not only to see how the locals’ been treating their island, but also to dive all the way underneath their beautiful ocean! I want to write so much more about this beautiful place, because what I experience through out doesn’t seem enough to put in writings. Go and explore it yourself, I dare you. Again, thanks to Thank You Indonesia movement for organizing such wonderful social trip and leaving us all mesmerized by the beautiful Alor.

Sunrise from the house window

Local Mamas of Pura Island

Photo: Ina Ocktarina

Under the sea

Sebanjar Beach, Alor

Finding Peace at Warwick IBAH, Ubud

During my #workcation back in December 2015, I was very pleased to have the chance to stay at one of the most luxurious and beautiful villas. Warwick IBAH in Ubud, Bali have captured my heart like no other, really. Beside it being a duty to be staying there to review the place for work, it has given me a personal memory as well.

Located in the most exotic and peaceful place on earth, Ubud, near the beautiful hill and river of Campuhan, to be precise, Warwick IBAH is one of a kind resort! It was a place I can exactly identify myself staying in for a long time. Picture this: huge room with wooden floors, bed linens so fuzzy accessorized in white curtains, infinity pool so big and fresh, and nature. Yes, NATURE. Surrounded with over hundreds of different plants and trees, flowers also grow naturally in this beautiful hotel.

The very generous and humble General Manager, Mr. Yanni Claassen

Architectural background of the place itself dated back to over 25 years ago, since it was built inside the royal ground and territory.  The General Manager, Mr. Yanni Claassen, a South African who have traveled the world to basically managed hotels everywhere, from the busiest of cities to one in a secluded island. Oh, how lucky! He was a very humble man with so much interest of traveling and luxurious experiences, he said that Warwick IBAH is the only perfect place to “switch off and relax,” and I couldn’t agree more!

Another most memorable moment I had here was trekking the Campuhan hills. Crossing over a river in a rock-made bridge and basically just breathe fresh air on top of the hills. Pictures does not do justice. It was such a prestige feeling, and I couldn’t be more thankful!

Read my writing about this beautiful experience more on STYLE.COM Indonesia

STYLE.COM Indonesia duty 

 

Pahawang Island & Kiluan Bay of Lampung, Indonesia

In the beginning of April, over the Easter weekend I had a chance to experience my first ever being a Trip Leader! After all of my traveling experience, this was by far one of the greatest achievement I had!

I thank Wuki Traveller for the opportunity and their trust to have me guiding a pack of awesome and fun gang of travelers.

It was not my first time traveling to Lampung by ferry through Bakaheuni port. I had gone there when I was young traveling with my family, when I went to Krakatau with Michelle on my 21st birthday and to Kiluan Bay last year. However it was my first time to go Pahawang Island. I have heard many great stories about its underwater life and islands from my friends and photos, but I was excited to finally witness it myself with this group.

The trip was a 3 days 2 nights trip, where one night spent in the ferry and another night at Kelapa Island in Kiluan Bay. The journey was to go to Pahawang Island first, then off to Kiluan Bay in the afternoon. The distance between the two areas are only 3-4 hours away. However let me assure you that the road condition heading to Kiluan Bay is one of the worst I had experience. Gladly, our Elf driver Mr. Bambang was so brave and patient through out the journey that we felt safe. I am also glad my group of 14 folks was still enjoying the journey despite of being hungry and couldn’t sleep due to the time-taking road condition.

Pahawang Island

We started our journey to Pahawang Island first, which was on the southwest slightly outskirts of Bandar Lampung, the capital town of Lampung. Getting there took about 3-4 hours drive from Bakaheuni port to Ketapang Jetty where we crossed by boat to island hop. We arrived at Ketapang jetty at around 10 am, had breakfast at Pak Udin’s warung, change into our wet clothes and go island hopping. I was introduced to our boat crew, Mas Holani who took us onto his boat that was marked Doa Jablay (direct translation: Slut’s Prayer – HAHA, contradicting much?) and showed us around to four island hopping destination and snorkling activities to see Pahawang’s underwater paradise.

First stop was Kelagian Kecil (small Kelagian island) which we went down to snorkle from the boat. It was surrounded by huge corals and small colorful fish swarming around it. Then we head out to Pahawang Kecil, where we stopped by the white-sand island and took a bunch of photos

Group photo at Pahawang Kecil

After that, we continued to another 2 destinations which was Kelagian Besar and another nearby island. The third stop was my favorite! Guess where the boatmen anchored at? Just on top of a gangfull of clown fish’ anemones! I was super in shock and excited to see the beautiful gang of fish, I suddenly was able to go down free diving for a good few seconds and took what a surprisingly pretty picture with “Nemo” and his family! I suddenly forgot about my bad ashtmatic cough and allergies that i had a day before once I went down there.

Selfie with Nemo and family

The final island stop was just as beautiful as I remember it has a deep wall of corals with colorful fish, including parrot fish.

Febee with Nemo’s family

Kiluan Bay
After the long and winding road *Beatles lyrics intended* to Kiluan Bay, we finally arrived after close to 4.5 hours. It was super dark when we arrived at the bay, and we had to cross the sea to our homestay which was 10 minutes away at Kelapa Island. We had dinner and finally rested in our platform homestay.

The next morning was when it got fun! Kiluan Bay is famous for its dolphin sightings. And this is where we started our journey at 6:30 am with a Jukung (a small fishermen wooden boat) to the vast sea in search of a group of dolphin sightings. My group of 3 in the Jukung was fortunate to see beautiful dolphins playing around jumping and spinning around on top of the water. They were very cheeky! Its too adorable! (Of course my photography reflect wasn’t able to capture such awesome sight, mainly due to the distance between our Jukung and the dolphins too :'()

But we witness amazing sights along the way though!

Beautiful vast sky and sea

In search of dolphins

Jukung, traditional Lampung fishermen boat

All in all, I was so happy to be able to become a trip leader, being trusted to bring along a group of amazingly fun travelers and the way that I got to experience more parts of Indonesia that I have never been to. Thank you again Mba Wuri and Eki from Wuki Travellers for your trust, I am looking forward to more traveling with them!

Pahawang Island & Kiluan Bay, 2-4 April 2015

Mini Meat Loaf

Since over the Eid break I spend most of my time at home, and since I still have that left over minced beef from the Meat Pie I made, I browsed for more useful recipes to create one of a kind dish. My colleague once showed me this blog, and I fell in love with its contents. Especially the recipes categories.

One that I found particularly interesting was titled “30-minute Mini Meat Loaves – Quick, Delicious & Easy on the Wallet“. It got me by the first few words: 30-minutes. How I LOOVVEE quick and easy cooking! And not forgetting the reminisces of how IHOP had the best meatloaf my sister love so much, I thought I would make it. Checked out the ingredients, and boom! I got it all in the kitchen. With a few twists.

• 2 pounds ground beef
• 1 cup dried breadcrumbs
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup diced onion
• 1 pcs lime juice
• 2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper (I used my grandfather’s ground black pepper, one that I need to grind with pestle and mortar because when I stupidly asked “do I use a blender to grind?” he got cranky and wanted to take the stone pestle to crush my head. He’s the chef type)

(Once in a while, I got artsy and puts all the ingredients to bare and took photo of ’em)

I did all the things the blog told me, put all the ingredients in a large bowl, mix well with your bare hands, shape them up in small balls and press. It will start to look like raw beef burger patties. But that’s okay. Put them in a flat oven pan and bake for 15 minutes inside a 180 degrees heated oven.

While waiting for that 15 minutes, it was just a perfect time to make the Glaze. I took a slight turn of the recipe and made my own glaze sauce. Again with the rich spice-loving Asian person that I am, I added chili sauce to the original ketchup and barbecue glaze sauce mix. Also, some sugar so it would have the perfect blend of savory-sweet normal meatloaf would have. I would really love to add some mustard and spices it asks in the recipe, but I don’t have them at home at the time, so I skipped it. Still tasted preferably my own.

Took out the meat out of the oven after 15 minutes, glazed them with the sauce, put them back in and keep it in for the last 15 minutes. If you found your meat still raw, just leave it a little longer. I had mine a few minutes longer- maybe 5, and it has a sweet dark crusts at the bottom. It taste great.

End result. Moist, glazy, sweet-spicy. Perfect for my first time.

#Fidamade

 

 

 

 

Mini Meat Pies

One day I was wandering around the net and found an interesting local recipes archives, it was http://www.lezat.com. Funny, when the one I got my eyes glued on was actually an international recipe: MEAT PIE! well, International meaning, it may be Australian.

My thought rushes back to the famous Vili’s meatpie and its cozy cafe back in Adelaide. It really got me almost teary-eyed remembering, so I gots to write the recipes down and try it out!

The recipe was simple.

Fillings was made from olive oil-stirred minced beef with chopped garlic and sauces. As an Asian that I am -Indonesian Padangese to be exact- I love my food spicy. So chilli sauce and flakes were added to taste.

For the crust/pastry, the recipe told me to make it from scratch, so no instant supermarket puff pastry here people!

In brief, this is what they told me to prepare and do:

– all purpose flour

– unsalted butter

– salt

– 1 egg

– 3 tbsp of cold water

Mix them all up together using a mixture and add the water last. Put the now sticky dough on a cling wrap and place it in the fridge for up to 20 minutes or until hardened. Then prepare the muffin pan. Butter it up and brush some flour so the batter won’t stick.

The recipe initially said I would make up to 12 muffin-sized meatpie, but due to the error I made, I manage to force 6 cups in my first batch.

Here’s my error:

I didn’t check from other sources how I can make a perfect puff pastry from scratch. I suppose to roll the hardened dough with a rolling pin and make 2 flat circles in different sizes. One for the base and a smaller one for the top covering the filling. My dough turned out to be really wet and sticky, I wasn’t able to roll it flat because it was sticking to the rolling pin instead. Turns out the egg made it that way. Some pastry recipes I found didn’t have egg as one of the ingredient. Anyway, I didn’t want to fail so I started take small balls of dough and just stuck and flattened them on the muffin pan, put the cooked meat, and closed them off with left over doughs.

Bake in 180 degrees oven for about 20-30 minutes. In my case, bake until bubbles appear on the pan, took it out from the oven and leave until ready to serve.

This is how the result turned out. My sister called it “deconstructed meatpie” and approved . All is well when it actually taste really good. I also added some cheese slices in or even better, Quick Melt cheese from KRAFT, and it taste even more perfect!

Have a try 🙂

#Fidamade

Borneo, Indonesia Paradise

I am speechless. The trip had happened almost 4 weeks ago and I am still in awe in the amazing sight that I experience.

Derawan Islands, East Borneo (Kalimantan) of Indonesia is by far the most beautiful place I have ever been to in all my life. Well, I understand how I am easily amused at breathtaking views, and every trip has its own perks, but this one. This one, I fell in love. The whole Derawan trip consist of traveling to places and islands such as: Tarakan, Maratua, Kakaban, Sangalaki, and Derawan. Derawan Islands, located among 2°15’36.9″N 118°34’22.4″E of the Celebes Sea, has the most amazing eye-relaxing treatment of traveling ever! I started this journey feeling very excited knowing that this is going to be my first time stepping on the infamous Borneo Island. The largest island in Asia that’s divided among three different countries; Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia and 73% territory of Indonesia. This time I landed on Juwata International Airport in Tarakan, one of the major oil-producing city in East Kalimantan. With their famous rainforest and wildlife (orang utans and proboscis monkey to name a few), landing in this small city we were welcomed by quite a different aerial sight: greens divided by veins of flowing river. My breath was taken away.

Tarakan

In Tarakan, we started our tour to Proboscis Monkey (Bekantan) and Mangrove Conservation Park as well as Pantai Amal. It was a different experience to check out “Dufan’s” icon in real life; a pot-bellied monkey with a huge nose. What was that about?! God is amazing, mashaAllah. Pantai Amal was also something because I get to see such vast wide blue sky that I have not seen in a long time. Topped it off by gulping devotedly on young coconut fruit (kelapa muda) by the seaside. Awesome! By night we were taken to eat the well-known seafood Kepiting Kenari at Mr. Crab. Two plates of large black pepper and butter sauce crabs and one plate of sweet and sour prawns later, our tummy were numb but happy. Best dinner yet!

 

Stayed one night in a motel in Tarakan, the next morning we headed out to Pelabuhan Tengkayu (Tengkayu Jetty) which was only three blocks away from the motel. The jetty was busy with travelers and workers roaming around scattered, trying to start their day at sea. Speed boats, small ships and fancy yachts were in sight. Leaving with our backpacks in towed, we took the speedboat for 3 hours to the island. Maratua were dropped-anchor first.

Maratua

Maratua, what can I say about this one. PRECIOUS. This beautiful island made up my most God seeking sense. I couldn’t stop saying Subhanallah for its beauty. We stopped at Maratua Dive Resort first and explored the resort by taking photos, watching how crystal clear the water were and for me personally, I was checking out the Dive Center with one of the other divers on the trip, Mas Fanto. We wanted to know how we could explore the beautiful island in depth. From the top of the wooden platform where we stood, clearly seen a lion fish roaming freely, swimming slowly in the water as if it was trying to show off its veil-like fins. It was like watching straight from a fish pond, except this was an open sea. IMAGINE IT!

After having lunch, we were out to explore the island in much detail. Snorkeling! The speedboad took us to a few sites to snorkel, including Reef and Turtle point. This is where I was so mesmerized. TURTLES! I saw them live in the ocean! How often does one sees that kind of sight? Definitely very rare for me! I used to always see turtles in the aquarium like Sea World and out of the ocean like in their conservations, but this. Watching them swimming slowly around like flying in the middle of the deep ocean freely? It was amazing.

After snorkeling, we went back to Maratua Dive Resort to watch the sunset. Once again it was magical. Watching the orange light sinking deep through the sky surrounded by clear swimming pool-like water, it was surreal. I can’t remember that happening beautifully anywhere else.

 

Headed for shelter in Maratua Island, Bohe Silian village was chosen as our rest area. A vast village with quite well-off residents of fishermen became our host for the night. Scattered with 100 or more houses, Bohe Silian has the most friendliest residents I have ever met. Each house could occupy about two to four people at a time, so our group were scattered along a few houses in the area to stay the night with the locals. Men in the village are mostly fishermen, while wife stays home to nurture kids and children goes to school in the nearby village of Payung Payung.

Morning risen, Bohe Silian village was lighten by sunrise that was up super early. By 6 am that we woke up, it was bright already. At this day, we have a plan to hike to Goa Simbat — a lake-filled cave inside a jungle. After having breakfast at one of the local’s house, we headed up to start our hike. It was about a 20 minute hike up and down the coral pebbled jungle from the back of the village’s houses. Interesting thing about this hike was we were taken by the younger locals. Talk about 8-12 year olds leading us up the jungle towards a cave. WOW? They are amazingly brave. What was even braver was when we saw the cave’s deep walls, locating the dark blue (even deeper) lake in the middle, and with no fear they started to climb down and a few JUMP down the over 10 meters deep cave cliffs. I was frightened to see them! But they were so gnarly that I was tempted to try going down to the lake. By then there was over 10 local kids jumping and climbing back and forth swimming into the lake. They came up saying “It’s really cold!” but with smiles and grins on their faces. I was shaking but challenged! Amanda burst the fears out of everyone and told that she wants to go down..so did I. So we went down (the wooden stairs-not cliff jumping) with a few of the guys. The lake was chilling and amazingly deep, I was told it was around 12 meters deep (whoott?!). Great experience ever!

Kakaban

After saying goodbyes to the amazingly humble locals of Bohe Silian we headed out again to Kakaban Island. This one, I really can’t wait. NON-STING JELLYFISH LAKE YOW! The thought of me being stung by a jellyfish when I was 8 years old in Aceh challenged me to enjoy every bit of experience here, because they don’t sting! Evolution over the years in Kakaban waters made them lose their defense mechanism and survives solely through the sun rays that blast into the lake, subhannallah. We snorkel here and play around with the jellyfish, touching it, holding it in our hands, watching it dance around through the sun rays, it was like a show. It was amazing.

Sangalaki

Next stop after Kakaban was we will have lunch at Sangalaki island. This is one stunning island too. There were resorts and dive resorts here too. When we arrive towards noon, our boat couldn’t move all the way to the shore because of the low tide, so we had to walk up to the shore for about 30 meters. However the view was stunning! The walk was only 30 meters short, but the photos we took in those 30 meters were hundreds! Imagine being on low tide where you only see sand and water, here you can see a Nemo and Patrick (clown fish and starfish) sitting around in the corals nearby and we were able to take their pictures from the top of the surface! Whatt! We didn’t forget the clear blue sky surrounding us too, so that was overwhelming with amazement.

After having lunch by the shore and resort in Sangalaki, we went back to the boat (that some of the guys unfortunately needs to help push because of the lowest tide) and head off to Manta Point which are still in Sangalaki area. Manta Point is a snorkeling point where one could see Manta rays flying by through the surface, and I mean GIANT manta rays. Unfortunately, when we got there the current in the middle of the ocean was surprisingly so strong that when the boat stopped, it rocked really hard, most of the people in the boat were starting to felt seasick (ironically, including the boat crewman!). Some of us stayed in the boat and some went to the ocean to hunt for the Manta sightings. We weren’t able to find any. However when we were still in the boat, we saw a large shadow of it from the top. It was ginormous! So that was still freakishly awesome!

Before heading back to our final island stop of the trip, Derawan, we went to a Gusung. A Gusung is a large sand island that was formed as the waters went on a low tide, but everything else surrounding it was deep water. Of course we stopped by here for photos!

 

Derawan

Arriving at our last destination, we stayed at Danakan Losmen in Derawan Island. This was by far the fanciest sort of resort-y accommodation we stayed in. Well, minus the stolen pricey items we find out in the morning, this resort was quite fancy with colorful blocks of rooms on top of wooden platform that goes down straight to pool-like sea water. At the back of the resort, there lived a whole other life of the island, the local houses and business district. Business districts consist of mostly diving center, warungs, souvenir shops and the locals’ houses that turned into homestays for travelers alike. The village was lively at night. After dinner some of the gangs went to see the night life in the village, we saw children mobile mary go-rounds (odong odong), souvenir shops that sell overpriced items (due to the fact that Borneo is just solely expensive with difficult logistics reasons), tourists and travelers roaming around shopping, eating as well seafood tents. It was lively and beautiful.

The next day, I booked a log of scuba diving down the Derawan waters with some of the brave people in the gang. Luckily, Danakan Losmen has its own diving center with skilled dive master named Putu. He was very knowledgable and calming through out the trip. Being the only licensed diver, I had to pay Rp. 300.000,- for 1 log (about 1 hour in the water), as my other friends who are brand new to diving and went for a recreational dive had to pay Rp. 450.000,- per log. The price was worth it as we explored such amazing underwater with far visibility due to the crystal clear ocean. We saw turtles, cuttlefish, scorpion fish, eel, clown fish and parrot fish were everywhere. There were hydraulics, corals, fan-like seaweeds and most of other underwater creatures I’ve yet to figure out. I was in awe. Mostly I was amazed at how incredible my diving partner was, a fit strong young 53 year old woman, Mba Anita. She was the best.

The whole trip ended that day after lunch as we head back to Tarakan. A few people head back to Jakarta that night and the rest of us stayed another night in Tarakan. Let me just conclude that last night was the total highlight and I had a blast. We karaoke-d until 1:30 AM and walked back to the hotel for a bout 1 hour, not forgetting to stop by to eat some grilled chicken. It was a great finish to our trip. We felt closer like a family and we spent a really good amount of time just getting to know each other really well.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE TRIP:

– Dangdut House Remix Boat

– Feet wounded by corals and rash from hydraulics

– Woke up for sunrise at Derawan

– Photoshoped family pictures in local houses at Bohe Silian

– Spicy sambal in Bohe Silian made from lime (nom, I’m drooling)

 

Derawan, East Kalimantan 17 – 21 April 2014

A cup coffee on top of Mount Cikuray

I don’t know what I was thinking when I agreed to my cousin’s invitation to “travel” to a mountain. It was not so much as a “travel” yet it was better to be called “hiking” or worst, “climbing”. Yes, climbing a mountain. High. Mountain. 2,821 meters. High.

One night before going to bed, my cousin decided to pop me a chat and revealed her invitation “let’s go to Mount Cikuray!”, she said. After reading the itinerary and list she gave me that was described Menikmati seteguk kopi diatas Gunung Cikuray, Jawa Barat (Enjoy a gulp of coffee on top of Cikuray mountain, West Java). I went and said, “Oh my gosh, yes let’s go!”. Then we slept.

2 months later
I found my self all packed with a carrier mountain-y typed backpack wandering around a mall to meet my cousin. When I finally found her and her friends, we ate as we discussed how the trip was going to be. We had no clue.We left the mall at 8pm, it was Friday night after work, the road was a tad okay then the usual Friday night traffic. We got to the group meeting place in Kampung Rambutan. A bus station. We met with our hiking guide and the rest of the “backpacker” mount hikers -seriously they actually look like real climbers and advanced at it- and left at around 11:30pm headed to Garut, West Java.

4 am
After a few stops down the dark and wet highway to Garut, we made it to our last “real food” energy charger stop of the day. We ate at a small warung nasi slash owned house to grab our super early breakfast before the big hike. *at this time I still thought it was only a hike*

6 am
Our cars arrived at the bottom a few mountains, including Mount Papandayan. After stopping at a post for permission to hike, we drove up, up to Cikuray’s finest kaki gunung while we are served with these beauty of a sight:

7 am
On the bottom of Cikuray, we found a bunch of campers as well as climbers ready to take the challenge to hike up the beautiful mountain. Note that this was already a Saturday morning and there were a bunch of people here. The group I was in was busy setting up equipments and of course picture taking.

From here you could already predict the view was awesome. No more comment about it.

8 am
10 of us in the group made a circle, prayed and double check our gears and carriers. We were ready for a hike. We got so excited when we started walking through the tea garden, until this was the track:

Steep soil track. Okay. I thought, this is okay, push yourself, up there is gonna be less steep up there. I was wrong.

More of those and these

But what kills the pain was this amazing view

As we walked up and into the forest, I realized then it wasn’t meant to be easy. It sure is challenging. In the middle of the hike i thought to myself, “what the hell am I doing here? Carrying this load on my back, climbing tree roots?!” Then I just remembered how far along I was already and imagine what it would be on the top of the mountain. Watching God’s handworks to the maximum. I carried on.
After 8 hours of hiking, climbing by the roots of trees, stop and drink, chew gum, ate chocolates and energy bars, conquered the fogs, light rain, hard rain, we finally made it to Post 6 where we are to camp in.
Our guide already made it there earlier so the camp was almost set. We had 2 tents set up one for the girls and another one for the guys. Around 5:30 pm the girls couldn’t resist to get into their sleeping bag and rest warmthfully. We snoozed for 2 hours.

7 pm
we woke up to find some of the guys were cooking with a tiny stove. Cooking rice, chicken nuggets and noodles. We got to help them barely with our eyes open. While eating those food in simplicity we talked about going to the summit at 3am. So not long after having dinner, we all went back to sleep again and rest until before dawn. Everyone was still dozed, we ended up getting ready and start the hike at 4am.

The sky was still extremely dark when we started hiking up again. We all brought our torch light to see. Slowly going up, we got to see the city of Garut shimmers with lights from above. It was beautiful.

Few hours after the hike, the sky turned lighter, sun has risen and we are so close to the top of the summit. About 200 meters to the the top, soil ground becomes rocky with pebbles and we knew we are close by to the summit.

6 am
Summit is reached. 2821 meters above sea levels were climbed. Breathtaking sceneries. Happiness overloaded. The group took pictures and congratulate each other on making it to the top without a single complain. Coffee was made, and yes it was the best instant coffee I have ever tasted in my life. It just taste so much better on top of a mountain. All tireness fades as we see the beautiful skies below our eyes. Amazing. I couldn’t stop saying “Subhannallah, alhamdulillah”. God is amazing. My group is amazing.

I love my Indonesia

Now the hike back down…let’s just say it was.. fantastically fun sliding down with legs almost left on the top.

It was an amazing journey. My chance in a lifetime. Topped with knowing a bunch of new awesome travelers. I will not stop here, dreams of more challenging travels to see the world awaits.

Cikuray Mountain 13-15 December 2013