Bandung has many leisure places, one of them is The Lodge Maribaya (Jalan Maribaya No.149/252, RT03/RW15 Kp Babakan Gentong - Cibodas Lembang 40391, phone: 022-2323432) which has many natural photo spots, restaurant and place to stay overnight either room or glamping (in a tent). I've been there once with my mom and sister, only one day trip from Bandung to visit it and other places. I like the scenery, so during our team quarterly meeting, I proposed to stay there and it's approved by management.
We decided to have the meeting there, and stayed one night to enable doing activity in the morning with its fresh air and nice scenery. Some of us from Jakarta and Karawang, we thought they would reach the place later than us from Surabaya using flight. In fact they were faster than us as our flight was slightly delayed for landing, we flew round and round many times above Bandung. The traffic in Bandung was also very bad at that time as they build street infrastructure, so we arrived quite late in Maribaya, it's around 16:00 o'clock.
A restaurant without windows surrounding by the trees was the place to have the meeting. It's nice with different ambience, when getting late, the weather became very cold until we had to wear jacket or sweater. We slept in the tent at that night, it contained 1-2 persons for each tent. It's clean, but you had to close the tent if you would like to avoid any insect. There was electricity power inside the tent, so we could charge our mobile phone, sleeping bag and blanket were provided on the bed. Toiletry and towel were provided, you could use bathroom outside sharing with others, hot water was available too as the weather was very cold at night. It's quite clean, and you could put your wet towel on the hanger outside your tent.
At night when we slept in the tent, I felt very cold although I had worn blanket and jacket, it made me difficult to sleep tightly, maybe I should use the sleeping bag pack provided. Morning view was very nice, we had breakfast first before starting activities. There were 3 activities (best group photo, archery, trekking)planned to have a more solid team and engagement, the team divided into 3 groups. First activities going to the photo spots, there were 6 different photo spots with beautiful scenery on the height. At that time sky tree, zip bike, mountain swing and hot air balloon cost IDR 20.000/person, while gantole and hammock cost IDR 35.000/person, no matter you took individual or group picture. Some of our friends were afraid of height, we're quite impressed with their willingness to fight their fear to try some of the spots.
As we stayed overnight, we had a privilege to start earlier, getting picture an hour before the locket would be open for other visitors, unfortunately the crews were not ready at the time, so we had to wait for around 20 minutes. All groups went to the same spot, e.g. skytree, it took quite some time to take picture one by one, as we had to wear the safety belt first. Based on this experience, we decided to split the group to different spot to save time. You could ask your friend to take your picture by your own camera or mobile phone, the crews were using SLR to take a good quality one. If you're interested in it, you could buy IDR 10.000,- per picture when you would go home next to the exit gate.
My group took a group picture at the hot air balloon, I thought it's hanging in the air. In fact we were just standing on the board surrounding by walls as if we were in the basket while the balloon hanging above us. I also rode zip bike and mountain swing, some of my friends skipped it. To go from one spot to another spot you had to climb or go down the hill to reach the place, it's quite heavy for us who seldom having sport activity. When going to the zip bike, the queue was getting longer as the locket had been opened for outside visitors, although it's not as long as during the weekend.
Gantole spot was the last spot we visited, most of my friends skipped it as the queue was quite long and they were tired. Most of us could not sleep well because it's very cold at night, so our physic was not in a good condition. We decided to skip trekking activity although the boots had been prepared based on our size by the host. Walking up and down from one photospot to others already very tiring, we could not imagine to walk through the pine forest to go to the river for around an hour.
We continued the activity with archery, the winner was the highest score total from each member's score in the group. We could practice first, the archer was quite heavy and big, I never experienced it before. As the archer was limited, I didn't get a chance to try for a long time, just around two shoots. I was failed to reach the target. When the competition had started we had Maribaya's staff as the jury, my group got the second turn. I could get quite a good score although one of the arrow was landing on the roof of the house :-) my group total score was higher than the first group. Finally after the 3rd group finished, we were the winner.
Finally it's lunch time, as the "Omah Bambu Restaurant" was down the hill, I preferred to eat first before taking a bath. The restaurant decorated beautifully with bamboo, from wall, ceiling, chairs and tables. There were 2 parts of the restaurant, outdoor and indoor, I love the scenery. While waiting they served the food, we took some beautiful pictures in the restaurant surrounding by pine trees view. The food served privately for us, as I had selected the menu when ordered the package. It seemed that other visitors were interested in our menu instead of buffet provided for them :-) The ice dessert was very fresh and yummy.
I rushed to take a bath, then going directly to the lobby as most of my friends already gathered there. We took the complete group picture in front of the lobby with beautiful background of the forest. On the way out, some of us stopped by at the office to select their pictures. They would give you tablet PC contains of your pictures, then you must delete unwanted pictures. The remaining pictures were the ones you selected to buy. They would transfer it to your mobile phone, and you have to pay the total fee. I had difficulty to select as most of them were good, I spent almost IDR 200.000,- for the pictures (around 20 photos).
If you like scenery and photos, you must visit The Lodge Maribaya. It could be reached around 1.5 hour from Bandung, one day trip is possible as I did previously with my family. I still had a chance to visit other place too at that time.
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