2nd Training Session, Hamberang to Cisadon, Sentul

Set the GPS ON

Last Saturday we walked around Hamberang & Cisadon area. Its about 30 minutes drive from Sentul City. We met Edie, our local guide from last week @ Taman Budaya Sentul. From there we went north and further up on the way to Gadog. This time, there were 5 of us; Frieda, Dewi, Edie, Yusuf (Edie's brother) and myself.

Supposedly the trekking start from the hunting hut, but since the road on the way up was not that friendly for Frieda's car, we decided to walk to the hunting hut. It took about 1 hour for Frieda to arrive the hunting hut, and a bit longer for us (Dewi and myself) :-). At the hut, a traditional house but very nice and clean, we met some hunters and their catch, a boar hang in on the tree, pretty sad!

We continued to walk to Hamberang hill and slowly but sure we arrived at Cisadon hill! Eventhough we did not manage to the lake (on the top of the hill). The area is more greener compare to Gunung Pancar, lots of wild flowers, wild coffee plantation and wild animals. Besides the boars (well, we did not meet any of them during the trek), Frieda saw a monkey, but I missed it :-(

Besides the hunters, the poor thing we heard was the annoying sounds from the illegal lumberjack. They cut the trees!! Please help, how we safe the trees there? Soon or later it will be like Gunung Pancar, 'Gundul'!!

At 2pm we went down the hill, on the way down we saw a small house with beautiful garden! Its Pak RT's house. We stop by and chit chat with them for awhile. I think its not a bad idea to camp on their backyard during the weekend, escape from poluted Jakarta and try to slow down our pace of life. These family are farmers, even the little boy and girl, spent their time with their parents on the 'ladang'. They have big pond in front of their house and their own irigation system. They have a very green house!

Interesting walked! This time we walked 12km, 5 hours up to the 1200m (but we start at 100m), not bad :-)

Yes Dewi, you did it! :-)

coffee coffe coffee

Kina's trees - traditional medicine for malaria

1st Training, Gunung Pancar, Sentul

This morning, me and Frieda, my travel buddy to Nepal did some walked around Gunung Pancar, Sentul as part of our training. Gunung Pancar is about 30 minutes drive from Jakarta. We hired local guide and tried a new and longer trek (2 years ago, we walked around Gunung Pancar by ourselves every Saturday morning for 2 months before trekking to Sikkim, North India).

We started the trekking at 10am and finished 5 hours later, walked for 10km, up and down the hills. I found this very tough! Definitely need to boost my fitness level. Dont skip gym anymore Adri!!

Some pictures from the trekking;

Wild flower along the walk

Keep walking....

Sunny day!

Paddy filed



My buddy, Frieda



Coffee Bean wanna be

Coffee flower

Diving Komodo



The dragon

 Komodo is one of my favorite dive destination, and this was very memorable trip for me! It was for the first time we arranged our live-aboard trip. We booked MV Tarata for only Rp84mio for 8d/7n trip. MV Tarata is a decent boat with 6 aircon cabin for 12 persons, each cabin has ensuite bathrooms complete with hot shower. Yup, Grand Komodo give us a very special rate during Deep Indonesia on March 08. We dove to Komodo on mid of June 08.

  

Manta ray


We thought it was easy for us to find 12 divers for this trip, but until 2 weeks before the trip we still tried hard to find another 2 divers. And there was a bad news, 5 experience divers missed while diving in Komodo due to strong current. But well, they found alive in the south of Rinca island 48 hours later. We're lucky though, one week before the trip 2 of our friends confirmed to join the trip.

8d/7n definitely was not enough to dive around Komodo National Park, so many dive sites to cover. At that time we only dove in north area. Weather was not allowed us to sail to the south area, but we dove at Manta Alley before the captain decided to sail back to the north area.

The dive sites were GREAT! You can find both pelagic (mantas, sharks, bumpheads, jacks, tunas) and macro stuff (pygmy sehorse, lots of nudibranch, etc). Yup Komodo has everything! Castle rock and Pink Beach, both were my favorite site!

Castle rock was awesome! We descended to the 20m and just stayed there for about 10 or 15 minutes to watch the shark playing around in front of us. Think its about 10 sharks. What an experienced! Safety stop also was wonderful with school of surgeon, jack fish , pyramid butterfly and also colorful anthias.

Pink Beach. Am not a fan of night dive, but at this trip, as my guide told me, don’t missed the night dive at Pink Beach or you will regret! Yup, I had twice night dive in this site and its so cool! Lots of stuff but the special one was watching the spanish dancer, so cool!! Wait till I post the video :-)

Above water also beautiful. The beach, the savanna, the trekking in Rinca island where we can see komodo the dragon and of course the sunset (I always missed the sunrise :-))

The easiest way to go to Komodo is flying to Labuan Bajo from Denpasar. Merpati, Indonesia Air Transport and Trans Nusa Airlines fly from Denpasar to Labuan Bajo every day. And the best way to explore komodo is by live-aboard, well that’s my opinion :-)


Here are some pictures from the trip;

View from Rinca Island



Add caption





Fish Fish Fish



Shark napping below the table coral





Colorful anthias at the safety stop



Catch the sunrays

One of my favorite time during the dive is catching the sunrays from underwater. Its so bright and somehow give me hope! Usually we can see at the end of the first dive in the morning and at the third dive in the afternoon.

Taken in Komodo, June 08

One of my favorite moment in Alor Trip, Oct 08

Gili Trawangan, Jul 09