The Little Late New Year’s Vacation

Living a life in a big city like Jakarta is extremely boring without leaving it a while for a vacation. Year end period can be very exhausting time for co-worker with an abundant workload and tightly insane deadline. No doubt, I really need a vacation in to close the year 2014. Going overseas at this moment is not recommended since the ticket fair will overcharge me because of the peak season which people will travel a lot and spend their money to celebrate the New Year’s Evening. I chose local destination that won’t cost me a lot but a lil fancy. I won’t tell you about booking private room in Bali with sunset view and coctail in your hand. NO, I am not that sort of traveller. I went to Pangandaran Beach in West Java, but rather than go to it on New Year’s Eve, I went three days after the New Year. Just tips for you, a newbie, the hotel fair will be discount at this moment.  Why not, I don’t like being in a crowd and noisy situation, this vacation is made to make me away from the hustle and bustle life in Jakarta.

I can’t suggest you can copy this travel style, due to my lucky for having a girlfriend who comes near from Pangandaran Beach – Ciamis, it only takes approximately 3 hours from Ciamis to Pangandaran, in a smooth traffic situation. It’s good to find a place to stay before you come here. Don’t worry, there are a lot of hotel booking websites that you can choose to find your desirable hotel, I choose the one that don’t require any payment before you stay. It helps a lot, and I find a very good guset house named Panorama a la Plague which only cost me $10 a night, a double bed room with free extra bed, extra space and breakfast. Just so you know, we shared the room for 5 people! Luckily the room space is so large, you can ask extra bed for free. The guest house is so comfortable, the owner is very friendly, she keeps the house very clean, no wonder if each time you meet her in the house there will be napkin in her shoulder to wipe things out or at least she is holding a broom the wipe out the floor, she can speak English very fluently, there are some good books you can read in the living room, cute cats and what makes it really good is you just need to walk for a minute to reach the beach.

Actually it’s my third time visiting Pangandaran beach, but I can’t never get enough of beach when it deals with the sunset or sunrise, there is a peaceful nuance in there, I wish I can have a house near the beach someday J. There are some bicycles you can rent near the beach but make sure you do bargain with the owner to get a good price, mostly for a big bicycle which shaped like a car, or local call it odong-odong will charge you about $3 for an hour. It’s so nice cycling around the beach to spend the day before the night comes while waiting for the sunset or hunting for some souvenirs, my girlfriend did the second one. After watching an exquisite sunset in the beach and taking picture like there’s no tomorrow with the sunset as the background (then my body is captured as a shillouette –backlight), we came back to the guest house with a leg shaped like a bagel after walking along the beach bragging for souvenirs and jumping around while taking pictures for a levitation pose (don’t wanna left behind with all the teens, I do levitation too folks! Haha). We come to the house and the light out! Everything is black, the electricity is out of order, we were looking out for candles but no one sold it now only hoping for a fortune that the electricity is back in function soon. All these, it made us have a very good sleep that night. Thank God! And the electricity was on when we realize it’s already morning.

Panorama A La Plague Guesthouse

Sunset from Pangandaran

Time passes by; the moon has gone and switched in to a sun which coming shyly in the sky this morning. I ran through the beach line in the morning for a jogging and I saw a lot of people, from baby to granny, already set up their camera in their monopod and posing at their best for a picture with sunrise as the background. We brought our food from home, so we don’t need to spend some more money to buy food in the local seller whom will overcarge you if you can’t speak sundanese, learning local language/dialect will help you a lot in many times especially when dealing with price. After having our breakfast, we were heading to Pasir Putih beach for snorkling; this is my top list agenda because it was my first time. There are many boats that can take you to pasir putih or you can buy a ticket and walk through a sanctuary to reach the beach. We took a boath which cost us $10, as a budget traveler I do bargain with the rider to get a logical price. Be careful that sometimes, they do fake offering to you by saying that the boat ticket is included with free entrance to the sanctuary. If they do, make sure you ask for the sanctuary ticket, if not the guard will ask you for another ticket fare to enter the sanctuary. I was fooled at that time, poor me L

Unfortunately, the waves moved a little bit harder on that day so the visibility of the water is low but there are some beautiful fishes and anemons still you can see in the water, since it was my first snokling experience I felt like drowning my self in a fish tank, try to touch the fishes with my hand but they swam faster than I did. There are some googles and life jacket you can rent near by the beach if you want to snorkle, it’ll cost you $5, but I suggest you to bring your own googles if you have it. The owner never seems have a desire to clean the googles after it’s used by the user, there are some black spots/marks around the googles, a fungus sign eeeuuuuwwww. I got flu for a week after I used it.

So excited about snorkling for the first time - ignore the belly part

Green Canyon from my view

Our next agenda is going to Green Canyon, local calls it Cukang Taneuh. Basically it’s a river with many caves in the upstream, just like Grand Canyon in US but filled with many waters and some tropical bushes around the canyon. You can enjoy body rafting adventure in Green Canyon, it costs you around $50. You can sign up for this tour in some tour agent in Pangandaran Beach. Unfortunately, it’s only me who desperately want to join the adventure but my girlfriend and her sister don’t have the guts to try it, don’t ask her parents whether they want to join or no, too senior man!. So with a deep regret and condolescence, I didn’t sign up for the body rafting, may be next time. It took 2 hours from Pangandaran to Green Canyon by car. When we arrived, there were hundreds of people lining up waiting for the boat to take us for a tour in Green Canyon. The boat can only take 5 people in it and it’ll costs you $10, you need to pay extra $10 if you want to swim in the river and ask the boat driver to wait for you. for me, it’s a No Way! I can swim in the river whenever I want back in my hometown in Pagaralam, there are a lot of river with crystal clear water for FREEEEEEEEE…. It costs too much for me to swim just an hour in a river with many boats comes back and forth. That’s why I don’t really like touristy places which someitmes will charge me a lot for no reason. Overall, it’s a memorable quality time I had with my future family in law. This escapism save me from a hustle life in Jakarta and recharge me with new energy to face a new challenge in 2015. Welcome 2015, see what you can do to me in this year!

Me in Maung waterfall - i'll share the story later