Garut? What do I know about the city? I only know the city is famous
for its "dodol", a sweet traditional food that I don't like. It turned
out that the city has more than that. For example, the city is also
famous for its "batik". Mostly the seller sell the batik at their home.
When I said this is a home industry, the batik is really sold at a
house. But, for people who do not like to shop on holiday, what else
can the city offer? This time I went to Garut with my senior colleagus.
Kamojang Crater
The steam from the
crater is used as geothermal energy source run by Pertamina, a state
owned company that works in oil and gas industry. Some of the wells are
also used as tourist attraction. Particularly, I like doing the walking
to the craters and wells. The fresh air and the serenity are great. The
view to Kamojang crater area is also stunning. I can be so impressed
seeing pine and casuarina trees along the way. It is great that both
the local people and the oil and gas company that operates here still
conserve the trees.
Bagendit Lake
At
first, I am not interested seeing the lake. My opinion definitely
changed when I was on the bamboo raft in the middle of the lake.
Sitting on the bamboo raft and enjoying the lake's view with the
mountain as the background was remarkable. The rower offered me to go
further to the lotus park in the lake. And it is even more beautiful
there. The lotus plant grow there interchangeably with the "eceng
gondok" plant. Most people won't interested seeing "eceng gondok" :) I
went there in the morning around 10 am. I thought the lake will be more
stunning on the afternoon. The rower also sells fresh fish and shrimp.
The lake is not big, but I can see a lot of people depend on it for
living. There are rowers, fishermen, street seller, and also a canoe
athlete practicing on the lake. The rower also told me that most of the
men from Garut working in Jakarta work as a barber. Some of barbers in
Indonesia work under the tree, not inside a shop.
Cangkuang Temple
On
the way to Cangkuang temple, the bus that I and my colleagues used
cannot enter the area. So, we continued by "andong/delman", a
horse-drawn carriage. The delman driver told us that actually the bus
can enter the site. It is only forbidden if the bus carried foreigner.
I was surprised because I and my colleagues are not foreigner. But the
good thing was we can enjoy having a paddy field with its coconut trees
view from the delman instead of from behind the bus window. Then, we
need to take a bamboo raft ride to reach the Cangkuang temple. The raft
fare here is far more expensive than the fare in Bagendit lake. In
Bagendit lake, we only pay Rp30,000, meanwhile in Cangkuang temple we
pay Rp60,000-Rp75,000 for a raft. It can be cheaper if your group
consist of 25 people, so you can share the fare with other people. But,
it'll be too long to wait if there are not many people there. So, we
hired the raft privately and paid Rp60,000. The fare applies to and
from Cangkuang temple. The temple is a small and simple one, and it
becomes smaller if you compared with the visitor numbers.
One of Garut’s bussiness center area in Jl. Ciledug
When
I was in one of the business center area in Garut waiting for my senior
colleague do the "batik" shopping, I had some interesting scene. Well
at first, it is annoying, like:
- The street singers and beggars do
approach their "prospective customers" who are about to enter their
car. On our case, they hopped in into our bus. I was shocked seeing
stranger just got into your private bus just like that. In Jakarta,
there are differences between street singers and thugs. The street
singers in Jakarta will not do that on private bus. But then, I think
because there are different points of view on people's personal space.
-
The batik shops here are spreading among the alleys that not everyone
knows where the location are. It would be better if the regional
government give the batik sellers specific location. It would make the
customers easier to find the location with broader option and it would
help the sellers increase their sales.
Garut must have a lot
of great places to share that I haven't visited yet. My favorite
activity on my first visit in Garut is having a bamboo raft trip on
Bagendit lake. I used to think that this kind of bamboo raft only
available in Yangshuo - China :)
(I did this trip on Saturday and Sunday...off from Jakarta on Saturday morning, back in Jakarta om Sunday night.)
