The trip to Ujung Kulon (part 1)....

First of all, this is definitely not the best time to write about the trip to Ujung Kulon. Because I'm home now, sitting on a chair, surrounded by walls of my room. Because the past time will never come again as it is now gone and will never return, the best time (and way) would be to partially write as I experience each part of the trip. So I hope this can be the 2nd best time and way to write about the trip:

My best friend since day 1 in high school, Baba, his "real nick name" is Aji, from his real name, Samiaji.
My friend Piotr whom I met in Hostel Mostel in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria, who did a perfect job to watch out for the guards in The National Art Museum in Veliko Tarnovo so I can do the mega important task of taking some pictures of the paintings.
Me.

So after picking up Baba and Piotr and their places, we started the trip at 3 p.m. through the high way until we reached the city of Serang, and then to Pandeglang, Labuan, Sumur, and finally to Taman Jaya, where we will take a boat from there to reach the island. We were told before that the road from Sumur to Taman Jaya is really bad. So we prepared ourselves for a rocky roads.

Even though there were so many curves, up hills, down hills, up hill curves and down hill curves, I can say that the road until half way between Labuan and Sumur was pretty smooth. Then , after half way to Sumur the road started to get bad.

"They're wrong! It's not from Sumur, but even half way before Sumur. But it's ok, it's not as bad as we thought"


There's been no street lights since we reached Labuan. With the landscape of the road and the blinding (fog) light of cars coming on our opposite direction, it became a little bit dangerous to drive through this road, especially when you've been driving for quite sometimes. That's why Baba took over me to drive around 7 p.m. when we're somewhere in Pandeglang.

The distance between Sumur and Taman Jaya is not too far, around 15km. And we reached Sumur at 8:40 p.m. The time we finally reached Taman Jaya was at 10:15 p.m.


What we thought as a misexplanation to us about the road from Sumur to Taman Jaya was actually true. We thought that the bad road didn't actually start from Sumur but even half way before Sumur. But looking the road from Sumur to Taman Jaya, we realized what they were talking about. It was dark, extremely quiet, incredibly many sharp rocks, and doesn't seem to have an end. We were shaked up and down, left and right. It was the longest ugly road I've ever passed with a car, looked like waves in the sea, but with big and sharp rocks every where...What an interesting beginning =)


But 10:15 p.m....
10:15 p.m. we finally got there. We arrived at Sunda Jaya Home Stay, owned by really nice guy, Mr. Komang. It's also a cheap and decent place to stay over night, only 75,000 Rupiah (around 6 Euro) per night per room for 2 people. So that's like 3 Euro per person.

Mr. Komang had prepared us dinner before we got there. So it was the right time to say "shut up!" to our noisy stomachs.

After dinner, Mr. Komar offered us if we want to get a massage. There's an old man in the village who can give us a traditional massage.

"It costs only 20,000 Rupiah (around 1.5 Euro)"
"Yesssss....we want the massage!!"

Piotr was really tired and ready to sleep. So it was me, and then Baba who took the massage.

It's already passed midnight, we needed to get some rest because we're going to travel a lot the next morning. Mr. Komar already prepared his boat for us to go to the island from the pier which is only 3 minutes away by foot from his place. We're going to leave at 7 a.m.....and it is now very late as well as I'm writing, so I will continue writing tomorrow...

with smile,
ali