Day 1: Semarang, Bandungan, Ambarawa, Salatiga I
jotted down some weekend travel choices on a Tuesday with Lonely Planet
Indonesia book besides me. The options were Solo, Togian Islands and
Balliem Valey. Of course, Solo was the most sensible option for a
weekend excursion. It seems that I have planted in my mind to have an
excursion once in a month.
So, I penciled in the schedule to Solo
on 26-27 February. And when the day came, I and friends went to
Semarang instead. The tentative part was the destination instead of the
date. I didn't mind since I never visit both town. I went there with my
very reliable travel friend, Rita, and Yana.
We
had our dinner in a brief to catch up our 19:30 Sembrani train from
Jakarta to Surabaya via Semarang. Getting used to delayed schedule of
public transportation here, we didn't get fretful when the train finally
departed at 20:00 (6 hours, first class Rp250,000).
The
train guards awake everyone with Semarang destination at 02:00. So, you
don't have to worry to fall asleep during the trip because the guards
have a list of passengers' destination. My friend who grew up in
Semarang had advised me to go straight outside Tawangan train station where I could find taxis with fare-meter plying for hire.
We
headed to Candi Baru Hotel (Jl. Rinjani 21, 024-8315273, standard room
Rp200,000). I chose the hotel because it is relatively cheap as we'll
only spend a couple hours there. Also, it seems quaint according to the
erstwhile guests as written at triadvisor. The room is quite huge and it
has a nice bathroom especially at its price. We arrived there at 02.30
and went to bed peacefully.
(Later,
my other friend who had spent some years in Semarang was very surprised
when she found out that we stayed in the hotel. It seems that for
locals, the hotel is famous for being spooky because it is an old
building from the Dutch-colonial era. Well, I was too sleepy to feel
anything else when I arrived and too excited to start the journey when I
awoke). Our
driver during the trip, Harkoso picked us up at 07.00 (Puspa Indah car
rental, Rp275,000/12 hours). We started at 07:30 heading to Gedong Songo
Hindu Temples (Rp5,000 for local, Rp25,000 for foreigner) in Bandungan
area, about one hour from Semarang. Gedong Songo means nine buildings in
Javanesse. The temples are spreadingly located on the foothills around
Mount Ungaran. I am not a big fans of temples. Instead, I am more
interested on the trekking path or the journey on the way to the
temples. Some locals offered horse riding to go up to the temples. I
felt sorry though that I can't give any contribution to them by renting
their horses. But, I'd like to do the trekking.
The view at Gedong Songo Temples area is impressive. At first, there was a bit of disappointment in me seeing two rest areas within the sites. Fortunately, the forest still dominates the area. Hopefully, the regional
government will be cannier in deciding further rest area/resort
development here as the nature itself is the precious virtue here.
After reaching the third temple
above, we had to go down and took the pathway to go up again to be on
the fourth temple. There's a ravine belching the sulfur steam in between
the third and the fourth temples location.
The fourth temple is my
favorite one. It has a unique candle shape on its edges. And the temple
is surrounded by a clean broad green field where I can lay down. I was
taking a rest on the green field while watching Rita and Yana taking
pictures with different kind of styles. Meanwhile, a farmer were
collecting trees branch to be used as fuel in his kitchen and some
horses were grazing while their riders had snacks. It's very quite
there.
A woman in a food stall told
and the farmer told us that there is only one more temple above: the
ninth temple. We're confused as we only found four temples. Then, we
found the ninth temple aka the fifth temple according to the information
boards in front of the temple. It turned out the other temples had been
damaged. I don't know since when it happened. At
first, I couldn’t believe this is the last temple. So, I thought there
must be another route to go to the other temples. If a fisherman looks
at the stars to find direction, we looked at the horse filth left by the
horses used by the visitors with guides. Rita even took some pictures
of the fresh filth (I’m not sure if she’s going to upload it on her
multiply page). But, it is the last temple.
On our
way down, we found cabbage vegetable plantation which also planted with
roses. A farmer seemed busy working at the plantation ignoring us taking
pictures of his vegetable plants. Being located in a cool area, the
farmer here combined their vegetable plants and rice field with flower
plants. There are also pansy here with various colors of flowers: white,
red and even orange. We also found not-too-vast rubber plantation. The
wind blowing the colorful leaves helped to remove the sweat away from us
due to walking on the area. We spent
around two hours inside Gedong Songo temple areas. It is recommended to
enjoy every step you’ve made here and the view along the way where
economically human activities blended with the nature. I am not sure
about the boundaries when human activities will give destructive effects
to the preserved nature. I just feel that it is still acceptable here
than it is in Dieng. Trees still dominate the area instead of the
plantation plants. As
we reached back the entrance area, we saw a lot of people were starting
to go to the sites. It was a very good choice to start the day earlier
when not many people have come yet. Hence, you are still able to hear
the silence above.
Harkoso
droved us to a tofu factory: Om Shin tofu. The buyers can see the tofu
making process while having the tofu and the soy milk. We found out
later that the place is more crowded on Sunday than Saturday. There were
not many people when we were there. As far as I remember and taste, it
was the first time I drank a glass of soy milk. It is lighter that cow
milk.
Having
got some extra energy from the tofu and the milk, we continued to
Ambarawa train station museum (Rp5,000) that supposed to be Koening
Willem I station opened in 1873. We arrived there at 12 pm, while the
next Lori Wisata schedule only started at 1 pm. Lori Wisata is a cheaper
version (Rp10,000/person) of having one hour Ambarawa train experience
compared to the pricey one (>Rp2,000,000/group) which used an antique
locomotive to pull the wagon train. We spent the time by seeing the
antique locomotives, antique train equipments, antique pictures, antique
“prohibited from selling here” sign, etc. It’s a museum, so actually I
don’t have to explicitly write that the things here are antique, except
for the sign: prohibited from selling here. I categorized it as an
antique one since I found some sellers selling snacks, toys, and
souvenirs. Nevertheless, they keep their surrounding clean and
well-organized. Why not? They are some locals trying to benefit from the
tourism industry. It would be better that the museum management gets
rid off the sign as it’s not a credible sign. Nevertheless, please do
not displace the pushcart men just to make the sign becomes credible.
Finally..1
pm came and we were on the train carriage heading to Toentang station
via the housing next to the railways, rice field, highway, and Rawa
Pening. Rawa Pening is a lake and one of the travel destinations
especially for photographer. It is said that the best time to be there
are on sunrise and sunset. We didn’t allocate specific schedule on the
lake. So, it’s great to be able seeing it while having the Ambarawa
train station experience. It was just rather difficult for me taking the
lake’s picture with the train keep moving. Another great thing was when
I saw the train conductor had to get off the train to stop the traffic
while the train crossing the highway. We finished the trip and arrived
back at Ambarawa train station at 2 pm.
Then, we
had our late lunch at Kampoeng Kopi Banaran. After the late lunch, we
went to the coffee plantation still inside Kampoen Kopi Banaran. The
light rain still followed us giving us the great smell of wet land and
mist enveloping the mountain’s and the lake’s views. Our guide told us
that the coffee beans planted here is Robusta type that can reach 30
years old.
I ended
the day by having massages for three hours at Laras Asri resort and Spa –
Salatiga (standard room Rp525,000) where we stayed the night.
Meanwhile, Rita and Yana chose to wander around Salatiga to find some
interesting objects to be photographed. I saw some old buildings on the
way to the hotel. But those old buildings are mostly used for military
offices/barracks. There’s no way I would take the pictures in front of
the military personnel, especially at night!!@%&:^ It sounds worth
trying now.
Day 2: Mount Telemoyo, Umbul Sidomukti, Semarang We
started our second day at 8 am heading to Mount Telemoyo. It is more
like a hill as it is not that hight and it can be reached by a car. It
took around 40-50 minutes by car from the foot-mountain to the top. The
road is already made from asphalt, but it is a small road which has some
part broken. It is understandable that most people going up to Mount
Telemoyo prefer using motorcycles than cars.
We
didn’t know where the road will end. Is it on the top? And we reached a
point. After we took a right, we found some series of towers on the top
on the mount. The towers are owned by a telecommunication company,
army, and police. We met the guards and had a small talk with them. Once
in a week, the guard will be off from the mountain to take some ransom.
The rest of the conversation was between the guards and our driver, Mr.
Harkoso, in Javanese. It’s too bad that we didn’t speak Javanese.
It
was wonderful to see the village from above with the mist covering it.
Sometime the wind let us taking a peek of the view below. But then the
mist will come again. We even tried to blow the mist off. It was a silly
idea. Well, there’s nothing wrong with trying something silly.
On
the way down, we saw some couples enjoying the mountain also. Of course
they were not hanging around us. They will find their own spot on the
edge of the ravine. Dude, I don’t think it’s not that romantic to sit
together with your boy/girlfriend on the edge of the ravine in the
middle of the forest. I imagined if they had a fight. Hmmmm….I think
this is the effect of too much watching Criminal Minds and CSI. We even
met a meatball seller using a motorcycle. He surely had found his niche
market on the mount. There’s no competitor here. There are no malls,
coffee shop, or cinema in a village. So, it’s natural to see the
teenagers hanging around in the nature. On the
foothills, we spotted some farmers harvesting the cabbages, tomatoes,
and mustards vegetables. One of the farmers even invited us to have a
snack with them. We couldn’t stop by too long. It was soothing to see
their activities. It was my favorite moment on this trip.
We had a
short visit at Umbul Sidomukti. It is a very crowded commercial area. We
only spend some minutes here to let the driver taking a rest. I do not
recommend this place, except if you can enjoy seeing a lot of people
with a lot of styles having their family vacation. There were some
teenagers also. But I appreciate more the teenagers whom I met on Mount
Telemoyo than at Umbul Sidomukti :)
We
stopped by in front of PT. Nissin factory in Ungaran to take some
pictures of biscuit canes that we have familiar with since we were still
a child. As we were in Semarang, we went to Blenduk church, Tay Kak Sie
temple with its admiral Cheng Ho’s ship replica and lumpia foodstall on
Gang Lombok.
Hey, it’s
Sunday and tomorrow is Monday. We should have our night flight back to
Jakarta. So we could be at the office on Monday morning. I love
Monday!!! Yay….what a liar!
Pics at http://perennialsteps.blogspot.com/
