PANGANDARAN 24-26 november 2023

 

PANGANDARAN 24-26 November 2023

For this trip, actually I didn’t plan to write it, I just wanted to play and enjoy myself, eventually when I decided to write it, I missed so much information.😅

We depart from Jakarta on Friday night on 24 November, it was 3 days trip. After 7 hours car ride and 2 hours for toilets, a little snacking and breakfast, eventually we arrived at Citumang Pangandaran and prepared to do body rafting.

There are a few activities here, from foot therapy (the fish will eat the dead skin on your foot and make it smooth again), jumping from the cliff (8 m and 3 m), hanging like a tarzan, making human train (need a group of people), unfortunately not many pics in this activity, so just use your imagination (sorry, as I said I didn’t plan to write anything nor taking any pics).

Citumang body rafting entrance.

             

In front of the cave (left pic), It was very crowded, we took turn with other groups. Inside the cave (right pic).

     

Body Rafting in the ditch (right pic).

After having lots of fun, we cleaned up, had lunch and continued to Green Canyon. As the name green, the water should be green but due to the heavy rain the night before, the green water become brown, so it became Brown Canyon. Actually, you can do body rafting in here too, more challenging and the view is spectacular!! I hope I can come back and do it in draught season when the water is green.

             

The water should be green… 😑

We rode the boat, one boat for 6 people or less and stopped to take pics, a very nice view. Not much activities in Brown Canyon … I mean Green Canyon, only riding boat and taking pictures.

Me, it’s tempting to photoshop the water.

And we continued to east coast. You can do water sports, banana boat, UFO, Manta, Trampoline, Gladiator etc (these are the variation of the boats) in this beach. Around this area, there are a lot of inns, food stalls (coconut, durian, sapodilla, Rames Rice, fried rice, etc), electric bike for rented, tricycle (becak), you also can ride Delman (a traditional carriage that pulled by a skinny horse). From far away, we can see Nusa Kambangan Island, it was for prisoners, but not anymore.

We spent our time here drinking coconut water and headed back to the inn to rest and at night we went to Bamboo Café and Resto for dinner, this place is similar with Jimbaran in Bali. The restaurant is connected with the beach and seafood is the favorite food here. 

      

The beach is full of restaurants (left pic). 

Second floor of Bamboo Café and Resto (right pic).

National Park Pananjung Pangandaran

The Next day we visited National Park. Before you go into the National Park, you can buy peanuts to attract the porcupines in the cave. Beware of the monkeys in here, they are quite aggressive, they will grab your phone especially iphone (the monkeys know which phone is more valuable), glasses, camera etc. If you see them, stay close to the guide, he will act as amulet to repel the monkeys.

Based on the chaldean rock site Pangandaran was known as Pananjung, the name comes from Pananjung Kingdom, a Hinduism Kingdom whose king was Prabu Anggalarang and the queen was Siti Samboja or known as Dewi Rengganis. Later, it’s known as Pangandaran, Pangan means food, andar-andar is visitor, Pangandaran means many visitors come to find delicious food. This is why the signage below is "Pananjung Pangandaran".

The signage at the entrance of National Park : 1. Do not give food to the animal. 2. Do not litter. 3. Take care of your belongings.

In this Park, you can see lizard, peacock (in the cage, because he liked to chase tourist), deer, hornbill, langur and monkey. ( I saw lizard, peacock, langur and monkey from far distance).

There are 7 caves in here (Stage, Parat, Tilt, Rengganis, Lanang, Mudal Well, Japan Cave), due to the limited time, we only explored 4 caves, some caves are a little far, need hiking to reach them. All of the caves in National Park are created naturally, only Japan cave was created unnaturally by Japanese as a bunker in Japan colonialism.

                    

The first cave is Stage Cave, people come here for praying. The cave is spacious.

             

the end of the cave is the beach.

The second cave is Parat cave, Parat means go through, this cave often been used for Indonesia horror movies and colossal movies. In this cave we can see stalactites and stalagmites that form interesting shapes. 

It’s time for you to give the peanuts to porcupine family.

               

This bowl is created after many years of dripping water from the stalactite above, and it was used for Indonesian horror movies (left pic). There are protruding rocks that can produce sound like Bonang (Indonesian traditional percussion) if you hit it (right pic).

               

A rock that have similar shape to an elephant at the exit of Parat Cave (left pic). The exit of Parat Cave, very nice view (right pic). 

The next one is Tilt Cave, there are some stalactites that shape like Pocong (Indonesian ghost), a father-mother-child and spine.

              

Mr Wempi (the guide) and Tilt cave entrance from outside (left pic), the entrance from inside (right pic).

             

The rocks create similar shape like a spine (left pic). The exit is diagonal. I didn’t tilt my phone (right pic).

The last is Rengganis Cave. The area around this cave is sacred, usually people come here for religious purpose, visitors can not enter the cave, we can only visited the spring that it’s believed that who wash their face with the spring water, will  stay young.

              

The view to the Rengganis Spring (left pic). The spring that will make you stay young (did I try it? of course who doesn’t want to stay young 😆).

After exploring 4 caves, our last destination was White Sand Beach, did nothing only sight-seeing. And headed back to the inn, check out and continued to Jakarta.

     

White Sand Beach, it was a cloudy day.

When people hear Pangandaran, usually they will relate it with body green canyon or body rafting but actually there are many to be offered in Pangandaran such as Natural Reserve Park, there is Rafflesia Padma, not Rafflesia Arnoldi, it’s smaller and red. You can also surfing at west coast or hire a boat to Nusa Kambangan or other nearby island. I hope I can go back and explore them.

Rafflesia Padma in Natural Reserve Park.

Thank you for Mr Wempi, the local guide that accompanied us and told us so much about the history and legend in the caves (although I only remembered 10% of the his stories 😅). And also Xplorer and our team leader Alif, who was very excited after his last visit to Pangandaran 10 years ago. If you are interested to join this trip, you can contact Mr Wempi (real name Ruhyat, don’t confuse when the name on the uniform is different with the nickname) 081321297338, if you are foreigner, you can contact him too, and he will refer you to the other guides that can speak English. The entrance fee for local and foreigner are quite different, far expensive for foreigner, it’s better to consult with the guide before you enter the national park.

That’s the end of Pangandaran trip, I hope you enjoy it. BTW, it's rainy season, I won’t join any trip, see you next year, ciao!