Goa Pindul, Yogyakarta

Rafting at Goa Pindul

June has always been my favorite month. No it's not really about I'm turning 24 soon. In fact 24 sounds a bit scary to me, where are the years going ?   I love that everyday always different, while last year I celebrated my birthday in Vietnam and Cambodia, this year I'm going to take it easy visiting Thailand with my best friend. Went to Yogyakarta last week – we met lots of interesting people and soon I’m going to share the photos and stories here on the blog, also been working on some projects, even did this mini show with some cool kids from one of international schools in Jakarta – which it really meant a lot to me. I love working with kids, simply because they’re always happy and energetic. Haven’t dealing with little crazy monkeys since I left Malaysia 2 years ago, so that morning when the principal invited me to the school, he asked me to create one dance for grade 3, I decided let’s just dance, be crazy, and have fun. I put some African songs, top 40, and few songs from Grease. Results ? They danced. They laughed. We all had fun. I found myself unbelievably happy dancing and moving with them, sometimes dealing with kids is so much easier than dealing with adults from oil and gas industry. And the other days, I spent a lovely evening with a good friend of mine. We were just sitting in front of the ticket box in the cinema, talking about dreams, tea, passion, and business. He’s such a big inspiration to me. To create, learn, dream and achieve more. Isn't it amazing to be surrounded by inspiring people. Never thought I’d get this far… Being 24 should be fun.

Kampoeng Ketandan

Pasar Beringharjo

         Anyway, to continue the previous post , InstaGoodies : Vesak at Borobudur 2013 actually I had no idea what’s the Vesak day like in Borobudur temple – Yogyakarta. My friend booked us train tickets to Yogyakarta, left Jakarta on Thursday evening at 9 pm from Gambir station, the Taksaka Malam brought us back to the beautiful Yogyakarta. We arrived at 4.30 am, just a perfect time to walk down the Malioboro street. Some people were busy cleaning up their food stalls while others about to open their small shops as the new day was about to begin. One thing for sure, Yogyakarta would be flooded by tourists coming to see the Vesak ceremony at Borobudur temple. We stopped by for a quick breakfast, when you visit Yogyakarta, you definitely have to try nasi gudeg at Jalan Wijilan. Only Rp 8000 for rice, krecek, gudeg and egg. Didn’t want to waste the time then we took Trans Jogya ( single trip ticket Rp 3.000 ) to Terminal Giwangan, we wanted to go to Wonosari, Goa Pindul. Some friends told me that Goa Pindul was worth to visit, so this time I thought I should stop by and check the place. Once you arrive in Terminal Giwangan, it’s easy to find mini buses to Wonosari. The journey takes around 1 hour and a half to Wonosari, I told the bus driver to stop at Desa Wisata Bejiharjo as the main gate of Goa Pindul. (  The single trip bus ticket costs you Rp 15.000. )

          Arrived in Desa Wisata Bejiharjo, we took ojek or motorcycle taxi to Goa Pindul, Rp 40.000 and the man will drop you to Goa Pindul and pick you up back to the bus station. We were lucky  when we reached Goa Pindul there were only few tourists there as normally the guides said hundreds of people lined up to get inside the cave. We decided to go on cave-tubing, explore what’s the cave like and a quick dip in the river before rafting and off-road. The friendly guide brought us to the cave. He explained that since couple of years ago local people decided to open Goa Pindul as a tourism destination in Yogyakarta, Goa Pindul has attracted not only locals but also international tourists. For me, it’s not only the beauty of the cave and the village, but also the smile and how friendly the local people there make our first experience cave-tubing in Goa Pindul super unforgettable.

Jump ! Goa Pindul

Bats 

Goa Pindul offers several types of tour package you can choose. For cave-tubing only costs Rp 30.000 per person, that is including the tube, guide and insurance. While for river tubing costs Rp 45.000 including transportation, tube, guide and insurance. Off-road costs Rp 300.000 for maximum 3 people. If you plan to spend a night in Goa Pindul, experience staying with locals at the homestay with a room Rp 30.000 per person.

Mbah Ireng - our guide, flying !

BIG FAILED !

Happy People

Indonesian Next Top Model !

 

My favorite part was definitely off-road. Ibnu, our guide brought us around the village, the river then jungle. We were covered by mud, my head hit the car door several times. It was even more fun when the car stuck for hours in the middle of the jungle. We had to wait for an hour til these kids with high school uniform came to rescue us, they looked so happy, kept telling us that they just graduated today. My friend recorded a short video below :

 

We left Goa Pindul back to Wonosari at 4pm. Some people said the last bus back to Yogyakarta leaving at 5pm from Wonosari, at the beginning we thought the worst case could be if we missed the bus then we  had to spend a night at Wonosari, well thank God we saw the mini red bus was waiting – our next stop would be Yogyakarta then Magelang for Borobudur temple. Another 1 hour and a half journey back to Yogyakarta. Back in Terminal Giwangan, we took the last bus to Magelang. Again we were lucky we didn’t miss the bus, the local people said normally the local bus leaves the terminal at 5 pm and after that, if you want to go to Magelang then you should take bus to Semarang first or Solo which the journey will take even longer. Well just another 2 hours to get to Magelang and I was super excited about the Vesak day, Borobudur temple, visiting old friends and AmanJiwo resort. Will write a different post about Vesak day and Aman Jiwo, stay tuned…