Spectacular Rainbow Mountains at Zhangye

One of the most interesting place which attracted me to join inner Mongol tour was the picture of Rainbow Mountains with its beautiful layering color. From our hotel we had to travel around 4 hours by bus to reach the place, we stopped by for lunch first in a restaurant near to the place, it's a set menu of Chinese food, served for 10 persons/table. The restaurant was quite crowded with tourists, so we had to wait for few minutes to get the meal. Lucky we still get tables at the ground, no need to go to the second floor. Our tour leader informed that the toilet was not good in the restaurant, if we could wait, the toilet at rainbow mountains would be cleaner and not smelly. I decided to follow his suggestion, although the weather was getting cold there.

I started worrying when coming out from the bus, I didn't expect the weather that cold. I didn't bring scarf, just wearing a thin sweater. It's windy and cold, definitely I need scarf to protect my neck. Lucky there was a seller right at the front of the restaurant, I asked my friend's opinion to select the best while waiting for the food was ready. After lunch, we rushed to the bus, I couldn't wait seeing the Zhangye National Geopark soon.

Arriving at the place, our bus was not allowed to go inside the area, the bus had to park at the parking lot, while we had to walk further passing through some stalls selling snack, souvenirs and others towards a building where the proper many toilet rooms available for the tourists, it's clean, not smelly, water flowing well. So many tourists were coming, we found a little bit difficulty to find our group member, then our tour guide asked us to make 2 rows hand in hand to avoid losing members to go to the bus terminal. A bad habit of most Chinese mainland, they could not queue properly, they would like to overtake any queue, so we had to hold tight to avoid separation.

The shuttle bus provided by the government to bring tourists among places in the park, it's good to avoid traffic and pollution. Unfortunately the officer could not speak English, so we couldn't communicate well with them, and most of them were quite fierce, maybe because of many tourists could not queue well. Our tour leader argued and complained him, as she would like to have all of us in the same bus, while the officer forced us to get on the bus based on the queue. Finally we could go in the same bus, giving a chance for the tourist after us to take the bus first.

There were 4 stops in the park, where we could explore the scenery. The first one was the lowest part while the fourth was the highest. On the way we already could see beautiful scenery with colorful layering rock as if layer cake. I tried to take picture, but it's rather bumpy and must take from the window's bus, so it's not too good, sometimes it's blurred and had shadow. It's still drizzle, people said that after raining, the red color would be more obvious. It's still cloudy when we arrived on the 1st stop.

After short briefing about gathering time, I ran to the edge of the area, where we could take picture with the layering mountains as the background, we had to queue as many tourists prefer to take picture from the same location. Based on the signage it's called "Returning Sail in The Sunset". We walked around and found a helicopter parked in the area. You could rent the helicopter to enjoy the aerial panoramic of the rainbow mountains. I also asked my friend to take my pictures on a bench. Finally our friends joined and we took picture at the end of the bridge, as we could not go across the bridge, it's closed. We also tried to jump while our friends' husbands captured the action, it's difficult to jump together at the same time.

As the time was not enough to explore each stop, Sunny, our local tour guide suggested us to move to the fourth stop, the last one, skipped the 2nd and 3rd one. It's a good decision, it's much better than spending short time in every stop, wasting time by queuing for shuttle bus to go to the next stop. The 4th stop was more amazing, the color was more obvious. This time our friend who stayed in Auckland encouraged us to climb to the top. The path was quite good, it's already built well with wood stairs and fence, so it's not too difficult to climb. I stopped many times to take a breath and take picture, till my roommate friend got a little upset waiting for me.

It's very windy, but to make the picture looked good, I took off my sweater & glasses while taking picture, it's quite troublesome, to take off and on again and again .... I really felt amazed and enjoyed Zhangye Danxia, the unusual colours of the rocks, as result of deposits of sandstone and other minerals that occurred over 24 million years. Wind, rain, and time then sculpted extraordinary shapes, including towers, pillars, and ravines, with varying colours, patterns, and sizes. Our friend from NZ already returned from the end of the path. They said that it's more beautiful there, my roommate insisted to go back as time to gather getting closer.

I said I would like to continue, she could go back first if she would like to. Then continuing to the end of the path alone, I met our tour leader from Indonesia, it's safe, as he just arrived, so I won't be left by the group. It's true, it's very beautiful, so I took some more pictures, I really would like to stay longer, unfortunately we didn't have time anymore. Then I returned to the bus stop, on the way I met some of our friends who just went up. I informed them that it's beautiful to continue to the end of the path, so they ran to reach there.

There were some wishing bells hanging on the ceiling of the rest area next to the bus stop. It's good to become our shelter from the strong wind. We sat and chatted while waiting for the remaining of the group. We took photo group picture before leaving the The Amazing Rainbow Zhangye Danxia Landforms which became a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2010. The area has become a top tourist attraction for Zhangye. A series of boardwalks and access roads have been built to help visitors to explore the rock formations.

On the way to the parking lot, some of our friends still managed to buy snacks at the stalls decorating with animal statues like cow, camel, etc. The snack was quite unique too such as crispy mushroom and other type of mushrooms. I thought it's rare, so I didn't buy. I only tried sunflower seed from the real big sunflower, when my friend and I tasted it, we canceled to buy as it's still wet & tasteless, the cooked one is better with its savory and salty taste. Anyway if you like mushrooms, the price was cheap here and the quality was quite good, some friends bought many of them. If you'll go to Inner Mongolia, ensure to stop at Zhangye Colorful Danxia Scenic Spot, it's very amazing and unbelievable natural scenery.

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Enjoy ethnic Mongolian Culture at Ordos Grassland, Inner Mongolia

In Sep 2017 my friend offered me to join Inner Mongolia tour using charter flight, the difficult part was to get the correct pas photo for getting China visa, so many pre-condition, the pas photo size was not in normal size using cm, but even till mm. It's the first time difficult experience although I have applied visa for many other countries including China. Our travel agent rejected all my pas photos although it's passed for other embassy, finally I took at the photo studio that had been used by my colleague to get China visa recently. Finally my visa had been approved about 3 days before the departure, the departure city was Jakarta, while I lived in Surabaya, an hour flight from Jakarta. One of the destination place I like in Mongol, was the Ordos Grassland.

By bus from the previous city, we passed infinite grassland scenery, we could see a herd of horses or sheeps grazing, even some camels. Part of The Great Wall could be seen on the way to the destination. Our bus stopped at the tourist center building, there was a beautiful carriage in front of the building where we could sit on the red bench in the white carriage to take picture. A "Prairie Resort of Ordos" monument with wolves available at the central, unfortunately it's quite difficult to take picture as it's against the sun shine.

We welcome by Mongolian ladies wearing traditional clothes and put a blue scarf on us accompany with traditional live music. There's a corner decorated with Mongolian accessories, my friend and I waited for a turn to take picture there. In the building available a souvenir shop, most of us directly went there to find Mongolia souvenirs. Lucky I could got a bronze candle holder with standing horse which I would like to buy in the previous place, but it was finished, no much time to find other souvenirs, our tour leader asked us to go faster to the bus that had waited at the back of the building to pick us up to drive to the hotel.

We would stay in the unique Mongolian yurt. I thought it's the real yurt, in fact it's a normal 2 stairs hotel, but they build as if side by side yurt. It's beautiful, I like the design with white wall, white dome and blue ornaments. As there were many visitors, we had to wait for a long time at the lobby, waiting for the room key. Boring waiting, I walked outside to take pictures, but I had to be careful not stepping on the horse's shit :-) As soon as we'd got the key, we rushed to the room to take a rest after a long hour bus driving. Stunning going inside the room, I felt like inside a yurt, my eyes stared to a large half circle bed which could be used for 4-5 persons, but it would be only used for 2 of us. The decoration was nice, the bed was surrounded by woods, wide windows available for enjoying the scenery. As the weather was quite mild, we didn't turn on the air conditioning, just open the windows to enjoy the fresh air. My friend and I chatted, charged our mobile phone while resting on the bed waiting for the dinner time.

We would attend gala dinner, it supposed to be for ceremony/celebration with the king. Before enjoy the Mongolian ethnic culture, they would lend us traditional clothes to wear during gala dinner. We would be treated as the king's guest, so we have to dress up properly. There were around 150 tour participants, so you could imagine the chaos to take the clothes as nobody guarded the clothes and taught us how to wear them. No reservation for the clothes size either, if the clothes were too small, people would try to get the change, so people rushed to take the best costumes, the earlier was the lucky person as they could have more option. The costumes were worn on top of our own clothes, so we could change anywhere in the restaurant area, no need to be inside of bathroom or changing room.

We came on time, but others already came much earlier, we're not lucky enough to get the costumes we wanted. My friend grabbed the available clothes in the room, succeeded to get me a red dress while she chose the golden one. Unfortunately my dress was too small for me, I could not close the right side button. As there were no more option for another bigger costume available, I tried to hide it by holding the right side when taking picture. The restaurant decoration was quite luxurious, full of red and golden colour, many places could become a good background of our photo wearing the Mongolian costume such as beautiful bronze sculpture painting, golden pillar, also royal seat which had to be queued.

Reaching the dinner time, we were asked to enter the restaurant room which was more amazing. It's arranged like a circle with different height for the guest seat, so whoever sitting behind was still able to see the middle area under the beautiful chandelier. Various meals were provided on the table for each person with a coke tin for drink :-). Opposite the entrance was the king throne, accompanying by 2 queens at his right and left side. They chose one man as the king and 2 women as the queen from the guests.

The celebration was started when some people entering the room behind a messenger, they went towards the king, reading the message that I could not understand as I can't speak Chinese. Then some dancing were performed for all of us, the king and the guests. While enjoying the entertainments, guests always served one by one with more and more food by the waitress and waiter in traditional costume. Most of the food was traditional which was served during the ancient days for the king, mostly made from lamb, it's not too suitable with my appetite. Finally the dancer brought a the main special menu, a whole grill lamb, to the middle of the room as one of the attraction, I heard they provided 4 grill lambs for all of us. Each of us got a full portion of small plate, first I only wanted to try a small bit, as I don't like lamb. When I tasted it a little bit, it's delicious and not lamb smell at all. I like it, it's very crispy, finally I finished the remaining portion for me.

The dinner was finished around 1.5 hours, we didn't forget to take group picture to record our experience with Mongolian party costumes before returning the costume. Another event had waited for us at the bonfire building. Outside the weather became very cold, my jacket could not help a lot to warm my body. I almost run to avoid the cold and getting faster to the place. As my friend jacket was thinner, she almost gave up with the cold, and planned to go back to the room first. Finally she agreed to join us to the bornfire place, she ran fast and reached the place before us. On the way we saw some Mongolians riding horse with their costumes brought archers or swords.

Entering the building was warmer, but we had to go to the open air bonfire area looked like a stadium, we sat closely to each other to make us warmer. The attraction opened with the horse parade with soldier on top of it. They started lit on the fire in the middle of the area, 2 master ceremony opened the event using Chinese, unfortunately I didn't understand what they said as I could not speak Chinese. It's continued with other performance such as singing and dancing by local people, till made fun with some guests for running race on the sand while carrying a woman, the winner who had struggled and tumbled many times finally got souvenirs from them. It's quite fun to close our day. The place was far away from the light pollution, we had a chance to see the shining stars at the night sky. Inner Mongolia has extreme weather. The difference in temperature between day and night was quite dramatic.

After early breakfast that I skipped, we had to bring our luggage to the bus. My roommate friend preferred to stay in the lobby while waiting for the departure time as she needed the free wifi in the lobby to check her email. I went first to the bus to put my bagpack, I saw the scenery was beautiful with some yurts, I took picture with my friends. We tried to jump while our friend took the picture, unfortunately it kept failing as he hadn't configured properly. We saw my roommate friend went out from the lobby, we shouted to ask her hurry to take picture together. She ran, unfortunately she tripped and stumbled down on the asphalt made her knee's hurt and her jeans torn. All of us were very shocked then ran to help her, after reaching her we could not stop laughing, when describing what's just happened. Poor my roommate friend, she didn't focus on the road, rushing to join us for taking picture while all of us encouraged her to come as fast as possible. Lucky it was the last day of the trip, as she was difficult to walk after that, it hurt when she bent the knee. Fortunate that her knee was not broken, so she still could walk by herself.

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Bantimurung Waterfall, Butterfly Kingdom in Makassar

After 2 days meeting in early October 2017 in Makasar, we had a leisure time to visit tourism places. I joined the participants to visit Bantimurung waterfall, it took around 1.5 hours to the place from our hotel, Rinra. There were 3 mini buses went to the place excluding the Event Organizer and Committee. Approaching the place we could enjoy the beautiful scenery of green paddy fields and karst mountains.

Arriving at the place we took group photo at the gate, while waiting for the ticket, so many stalls sold souvenirs along the street right before the gate. Some salesmen approached us to offer the beautiful preserved butterfly. I'm interested in it, anyway I informed them that I prefer to buy after visiting the waterfall. One of the salesman was very active, he followed us to enter the place. He became my guide and photographer, he said that I didn't need to pay him as guide, just buy his souvenirs were enough.

Before visiting the waterfall, we stopped by at the toilet, only 2 rooms available, so we had to wait for our turn. We passed by a swimming pool with the natural water from the cave as their source, unfortunately it was cleaning at that time, so no water in the pool. A butterfly monument was available in the middle for us to take picture, then we could see the natural pool flowing from the waterfall, so many people soaked, played and splashed water to each other in the pool, the water looked green. It's a nice mild weather and we walked under trees shelter, so the sun didn't shine directly on us.

Some benches available at the side of the walk path, people could sit there to enjoy the natural pool and waterfall. My salesman 'guide' suggested us to cross the bridge to get better picture of the waterfall. He was right, we could see clearly the whole waterfall from the other side, even we could go under the waterfall, it's quite slippery so we had to be careful. He helped me to take some pictures including photo with my friends.

Bantimurung waterfall at South Sulawesi was one of national park, which popular as kingdom of butterfly. I didn't see it around the waterfall, no time to play with the water although I had brought my plastic sandal, as others had continue the journey to the lake. My guide accompanied me to go back to the left side to lead us to Batu Cave and the Kassi Kebo Lake. We had to go up through some concrete stairs, then we went along the waterfall stream. The pathway had been built well, it's easier for visitors to go to the lake. We could see the green water river at the right side while the left side was the karst cliff. In the middle of the way there were benches to take a rest, we also met a small hut selling instant noodle. It's much lesser crowded comparing to the waterfall area.

A big tendril of tree was on the pathway which often used by "Tarzan" to fly from one tree to the other tree, I asked my guide to take our picture, even one of my friend was really hanging on the vine's tree. As we were the last group, we had to hurry to follow the previous group. Finally we could reach the lake, it's greenish with small waterfall. Which amazed me was the beautiful butterflies flying and landing on the ground at the edge of the lake, although there was no flower there. With my iPhone capturing them was not too clear, my friend who brought SLR camera could get it much better and clearer.

As we were the last group came to the lake, we didn't have much time to enjoy it. After taking some pictures including group photo, we had to rush going back to the entrance. Near to the entrance my guide reminded me to buy his souvenirs, I took magnetic and keychain with real butterfly covering with resin to preserve. Actually the real preserved butterfly is more beautiful, but I'm afraid it would easily break when I brought back to Surabaya and I could not keep it well enough. I've just known that there was a butterfly museum and park at Bantimurung, unfortunately we didn't visit them as our EO (Event Organizer) said there's few butterflies at that moment. You also could visit a cave which had been used for meditation for few days previously by our ancestor.

After exit from Bantimurung park, some of our friends were still shopping souvenirs at the seller stalls, while my boss was kind enough buying us the grill corn, it's delicious, tasting sweet especially as it's free :-)

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Beautiful & Majestic Plaza de Espana, Sevilla

During my trip to Portugal, Seville was the 1st city we visited, not too long driving by bus from our hotel, we had arrived at the main landmark, Plaza de Espana Seville which was built in 1929. The previous night was very hot, up to 47 degree Celcius, lucky we went to the square in the morning, so it's still around 32 degree Celcius. The place is next to Maria Luisa park, unfortunately we didn't have time to visit the park, the park could not be seen from the square.

Entering the gate, we welcome by beautiful ceramic mosaic wall, it would lead us to the half circle balcony with beautiful big arches where we could see one of the tower from the arc facing to the square. The arc was framing the tower beautifully. From entering the gate, I kept saying very beautiful many times.

We went down through the stairs, to the circle center, there was a canal surrounding the circle, to cross the canal, there is a bridge with beautiful ceramics fence to go to the center of the circle where there was the Vicente Traver fountain, unfortunately the fountain was still off when I was in the middle of the square. Some benches available at the edge or the canal where we could sit on it enjoy the square. Some flowers and trees were planted at the edge of the canal.

I tried to record all of them by taking many pictures. We went to the other side of the circle to look closer to the middle of the half square. We went up to the second floor, then our tour leader was kind enough to take our picture from below, so it could show the fence, arc and the beautiful ceiling and wall as the background.

My sister was interested in fabric fan painted Flamenco dancer and Spain landmark, it cost 10 Euro for 3 pcs, my mom and myself took one of them, so we selected our own choice. Lucky we bought it, as it's cheaper comparing to the souvenir shops we visited during the trip. Finally we enjoyed the tiled Provincial Alcoves along the walls of the Plaza de España, it represented the region during ancient kingdom of Spain. Spanish architect Aníbal González designed the largest and most famous of the buildings, which surrounded the square.

On the way to the entrance, I could see the fountain on, and lucky there was a horse carriage went around the square. I still had time to take some pictures of the beautiful ceramic stairs on the way out, also the ceramic walls. I would like to stay longer, unfortunately we still had some places to be visited on the day. Definitely I would like to visit it again someday.

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Long journey from Banda Aceh to Meulaboh

In May 2017 I had a trip from Banda Aceh to Meulaboh, normally it would take around 4 hours. At around 09:30 a rental was ready to picked me up in the airport to go directly to Meulaboh, 245 km from Banda Aceh. Meulaboh is the capital city of West Aceh District which the most suffered during tsunami. As I don't like spicy food and the driver informed he's not sure whether there was any restaurant on the way to eat, I bought noodle with meat ball in the airport for my lunch on the way. We would pass 3 mountains and some beaches.

Most of the road was quite in good condition, it's built by foreign country as donation after tsunami in Aceh. I heard whenever the road is not perfect or a little bit broken, they would like to fix and make it perfect. For them safety is number one. In some areas, it's still being repaired because of some landslides broke the road. We had to be careful and sometimes we had to wait for our turn, as half of the road was fixed, only one way could be used. Lucky the traffic in Aceh was not as crowded as in Java. We passed by a beach, some huts were built at the edge of the beach, unfortunately it's empty, nobody there, maybe because of its workday.

On the way I still saw some construction activities, some new mosques were built too although Tsunami occurred in 13 years ago. In Aceh most of the buildings were brand new, as most of them had been demolished by the ferocity of tsunami disaster. We went through a winding road on the mountain, sometimes it's turned sharply almost 180 degrees. It's very scaring as the other side was steep cliff, the driver had to really concentrate and focus, unless we could plunge to the cliff. Going down from the mountain we found another beach. This time the wind blew so hard, the high wave hit heavily to the rock that created water splashed such as foggy. I asked the driver to stop for a while and let me take the picture. No parking area, he just stopped at the edge of the street while I stepped over the fence to get better picture. The driver helped to take my picture once, then he went back to the car. I took some more pictures, even taking selfie :-)

We had to go through another mountain, the driver said that this one had a beautiful scenery, we could see an island from the cliff. Some monkeys at the edge of the street or on the fence could be seen on the way there. After another 30 minutes we reached the place, so many huts there selling food and beverage, most of them sold instant noodles :-) anyway not all of them were open. We stopped at one of the hut, buying tea & cracker, then we ate our lunch there. The seller was kind enough, they allowed us to enjoy our lunch although we brought our own food.

It's called Geurette Peak, we could see the islands from the bench of the hut. Actually it would be good to see the sunset here. The weather was colder than Banda Aceh, the wind blew nicely. I took many pictures even panoramic one, but getting my picture with the islands as the background it's rather difficult as it's backlight. The background was much lighter than my seat. The driver said before tsunami both islands were connected, now it's not anymore. It belongs to a person, swallow nest was available there, it would produce more money to the owner as the nest is expensive.

After lunch when we'll continue our journey, I saw a very stunning scenery, the beach with its greenish land, so I asked the driver to stop. This time he didn't follow me, just staying in the car. I took the picture from behind a fence between huts. I'm still not satisfied, so I entered the empty hut, as I didn't see anyone there to take from different angle. Really it's very amazing scenery, I seldom saw a beach side by side with a very fertile land and you still could see the hill behind it. It's a perfect combination.

Continue the journey, we passed by some small village, sometimes on the road we met cows, even the driver honked the horn, the cow didn't step away, so we had to be patient and try to avoid them. There was a traffic signage displayed "Beware cows" :-) The unique tradition here, if a car accidentally hit the cows, the cows' owner must pay for the car damage, as he/she must be responsible to take care of the cows to avoid walking on the road.

Around 13:30 we reached the last bridge to Meulaboh, unfortunately we stucked on a long queue, they said that the bridge was repaired, it would be opened at 14:00. No other way to go to Meulaboh, so we surrendered to wait for the fixed bridge. Many trucks with heavy cargo, I saw a big truck loaded oil palm. Wait and wait and wait.. till 15:00 o'clock no indication of the bridge would be opened. I called my friend it seemed that I could reach Meulaboh on time, so I asked her to meet me at the mosque near to the bridge. It would take another 45 minutes after the bridge to reach Meulaboh. Finally around 16:00 the bridge was opened, the small car was prioritized, anyway it had to wait for the turn with another direction, as only one side of the bridge could be used. Then the big trucks and buses were allowed to go through. As we had waited almost 3 hours, my driver was not patient enough to wait for my friend to come. We decided to go passing the bridge to pick her up. After meeting her, we decided to go back to Banda Aceh directly.

Poor my friend, she could not see the beautiful beach, as it's getting dark when we passed by the beach. Anyway we still could stop by a beach to take her picture although there's noise on the photo as it's too dark. We stopped by a small hut to have dinner before continuing the trip. It's quite scary journey especially on the mountain with steep turned, it's dark, no light at all, only some sticker available at the edge of the road that could be illuminate when the car's light shines on it. It must be very tiring for the driver, lucky that he's very skilled driver, so we could reached the hotel in Banda Aceh around 23:00 o'clock. I was in the car from 09:30-23:00, what a long journey. It's been paid with the amazing scenery along the departure way to Meulaboh.

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Peaceful Prayer Hill Tomohon (Bukit Doa), Manado

At weekend Sep 2016 I explored Tomohon, North Sulawesi with one of my colleague accompanied by a local friend to drive us around. Tomohon was around 2 hours drive from Manado. Actually you also could find the Tomohon Traditional Market full with many kind of meat to eat such as bat, dog, rat, snake, monkey etc. In Manado people eat all animals, which is uncommon in other area. I don't dare to see the poor living dogs in the cage waiting for his fate next to his dead friends to be sold. I'm a dog lover, so I would never eat them.

On the way we stopped by at Citra Land Manado, city of blessings, built since 2003 for middle to high class property. With concept "state of the art features" the property build a giant "Tuhan Memberkati" (God blessing) statue which is now popular as one of Manado icon. Manado scenery is beautiful, it's the capital city of North Sulawesi province with airport and harbour where we could find beautiful beaches and mountains. We went to the higher part, there's an open space where we could sit on the bench and enjoy the scenery. It's shading by trees and we could see the house on the slope of the hill with the Manado Tua mountain as the background, at that time the cloud was covering part of the top mountain, it looked like snow so it seems like Fujiyama, the clean blue sky made the scenery more beautiful, peaceful and amazing. At the right side we could see the white flying Christ statue with His open arms as if protecting the houses. It's located on the hill with some big houses beside the monument. We're not allowed to park in front of the area, one of the security officer asked us to move to park further, as I had taken many pictures, we decided to continue our journey to the next destination.

The road to "Bukit Doa" was winding and quite high, the vehicle must be in good condition. Our driver was kind enough to stop for a while on the way as I was interested in the scenery, where I could see both lakes and mountain from the street. Actually we could walk from lower part of the hill to the top following the path of cross prayer with 14 statues of the Way of the Cross depicting the misery of Jesus Christ when he carried the wooden cross while climbing Golgotha hill. We were too lazy to walk a long way, so we asked the driver to go directly to the top place where there was a unique chapel called "Chapel of Mother Mary". It looked like a long tube facing to the mountain. Some couple prefer to have wedding ceremony here, they could provide catering and decoration for party.

The altar background was a big window with beautiful scenery to the trees and mountain, the chapel was not too big, just 2 columns of around 10 rows of long wooden benches next to the wall for praying. There's stairs to go down to the basement, I don't know what it is for, but the wall was decorated with angel sculptures. The path brought us to the open flat space which has already created cement swath. The field below the church where we could see clearer the trees and Lokon mountain as the magnificent background, it's a very magnificent scenery. The weather was nice, it's mild although the sun shone. I took a panorama photo to record the beautiful scenery as God's creation. Unfortunately there was no bench here, you could sit on the cement if you're tired.

We went back to the church area, at the right side there was an amphitheater that could be used for art performance or mass celebration. The half circle seat surrounding the stage made from cement with grass between the levels. Nobody there at that time, I took some pictures and asked my friend to take my picture while sitting there. We had difficulty to find the restroom, no signage for it. We kept walking, finally we found some restrooms near restaurant area. It's clean unfortunately there was no tissue paper.

Our driver told us that there was another area to be explored, Grotto of Mother Mary facing to the fish pool, unfortunately the water was not clear, it seemed it's not maintained well. There was a wooden bridge to cross the pool to the last station of cross prayer where you could find a tomb. A tomb depicted the place where Jesus had risen after died. It's very quiet and quite creepy if you go alone here. The aisle directed us to the previous station where Maria was very sad carrying Jesus on her lap after crucified. The statue made from stone as big as human.

As we still had other destination to visit, we decided to go back to the parking lot. Driving down to the entrance gate, I asked the driver to stop by a small building which was hanging on the cliff, it looked beautiful, although the building was modern style, not a traditional one. It seemed that it was used for restaurant, looking it's facilitated with washing basin to clean our hand, stove and tables to serve foods. It's still functioning well when we tried to turn on the tap water. From the building, we could see a beautiful scenery.

Across the building we could see outbound facility where you could use the rope bridge, flying fox, etc. It seems they were building a complete facility for people entertainment during prayer or any religion activity. We saw many construction still happened in some areas. They had a huge area on the hill, it would be good if it could become one of the tourism place. Don't miss to visit "Bukit Doa" when you go to Tomohon.

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