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After an 11 hour journey on a minibus in heavy (and, again, completely mental) traffic from Jakarka to Pangandaran with the only highlight of the day stopping for lunch at this traditional Indonesian restaurant overlooking a valley of lush green rice fields, we arrived in Pangandaran.
On the first day in Pangandaran, a few of us went for tour of the area on becak which can only be described a seat with a bike strapped to the back of it where some guy cycles you wherever you need to go (usually used as taxis). This allowed us to go off the main roads and venture down some of the back alleys and through some of the local estates. At the end of the becak tour we stopped off at the sea to watch the village people trawling the coastline by hand! It was quite amazing to see a family consisting grandma down to 10 year old children all working together to bring the nets in.
In the afternoon the real fun came...... we went forest trekking where we saw deer, monkeys, macaw’s, black monkeys, bats, flying foxes and porcupines in addition to being led down what seemed to be
a old war bunker with about 3 metres worth of steps with me and one of the other tour members, Kim, being at the front with only our torches for light!
We arrived at the bottom of the stairs to the sound of 5 inch empty egg shells crunching below our feet. Standing to our right, thrashing themselves around were 3 monitor lizards with the largest being about 4 foot long. At that moment the biggest one decided to bolt for the door which happened to be the entrance we came in! I ended up with lizard footprints up the bottom of my leg and I heart that almost left my body. I don’t think that i’ve ever jumped so much in my life!
We definately deserved a Bintang (local beer) after that!
On the final day in Pangandaran, in the morning, we visited a local market. This experience was a full on assault of all the senses. From the fish market where the variety and quantity of fish was astonishing in addition to being fly infested, smelly with fish blood running down an open gutter in the centre of the walkway, to the beautiful fruit and ever smiling
people in other parts.
Next, we visited a coconut sugar making village with an onsite puppeteer (as you do) where we sampled the delight of drinks, foods and materials which they efficiently extracted from the coconut trees, I climbed a tree but definitely had to hand it to the local people for the hight of the trees they were climbing! My favourite experience had to have been the warm sugar caramel (almost like Scottish Tablet) and the fresh liquid of the coconut flower...yummy!
Our next location for the day was the green canyon where we took boats up the river to an area where you could swim. This place was beautiful and serene. Interestingly the rocks were covered in tiny little crabs which also float in variously parts of the water.... I found this out when about 20 of the little buggers swam up my shorts and started having a little crab party in my pants. Also, in the green canyon was a natural rock wall that, if you scaled, you could jump off a rock. Now this didn’t look that high until Betsy and I had already scaled it and was looking over the edge at a
large rock filled pool. I imagine the drop was about 5 metres which was certainly enough to get the adrenaline pumping!
Click here for Green Canyon clip If that wasn't enough already for the day, the tour took us to a beach where couple of the girls in our group and I had an hour and a half surfing lesson where the waves were 9ft tall. at time Not the easiest learning environment but I had a few occasions where I rode the surf all the way in (Woooooo)!
Another day where a Bintang was more than deserved!
FAMOUS PEOPLE
A side note for this trip which is really quite strange to be a part of..... over the course of the past week I have had to pose for photos with so many random people because they hardly ever see western people. It is also especially apparent that blonde hair makes you even more of a target. Lucky me!
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