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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Selecta, beautiful flower garden at Batu

Last Dec 2016 one of my elementary school friend was so generous to bring our teachers and friends to Batu for leisure. Some of us departed from Jakarta, Surabaya, Semarang and the most members from Kediri with one bus and mini van. As it's a long weekend because Monday was holiday, we decided to leave early to avoid traffic jam on the Saturday. Surabaya left around 08:00 while Kediri around 09:00, delayed an hour as planned because waiting for some friends. The meeting point would be at Selecta, Jl. Raya Selecta 1, Tulung Rejo, Batu.

We had brought lunch box for easier arrangement as we didn't want to waste time stop at restaurant to order and eat. Surabaya team had plenty snacks, as the participant was lower than registered, also one of our friends provided snack (lumpur, cucur) while we'd ordered 3 different snack (spikoe, risoles, chiffon cake) for the member from Surabaya, I'm the member from Surabaya team. Our mini van was quite comfortable, it's for 17 seat while there were only 9 of us with the driver. There was karaoke, we could sing on the way to kill the time.

After around 4 hours we reached Selecta, the popular tourism place since 1930 built by Ruyter de Wildt, everyday opens at 06:00-18:00. It's quite crowded there as it's a long weekend. After paying Rp. 30.000,-/person and Rp. 10.000,- for car parking, our driver tried to find the parking lot near to the entrance. While waiting for our friends from Kediri, we decided to have lunch in the car because we're starving and lazy to bring the box to the park. It's a complete shrimp rice, all of us loved the taste, it's delicious, I ordered it from our neighbor, my mom's friend. When eating we heard that the bus had arrived unfortunately they could not go in as our friend who brought the money was in the mini van that's not arrived at that time. One of my friend from Surabaya decided to go to the bus, actually it was a long walk and hilly to reach the entrance gate.

The rest of us waiting for a few minutes, as there's no news, we decided to go directly to the park. It's been a long time not visiting the place, more than 10 years ago, the place was maintaining well. Although there are many new entertainment parks in Batu, this place is still survived. It had restaurant, hotel, fish pond, swimming pool and beautiful flower garden. It's quite hilly, so for senior people such as our teacher who's already around 70 years old must walk carefully. One of my friend brought her sons, her youngest son was kind enough to take photo for us, so we could take many pictures together.

From entrance we reached the big swimming pool, going up through the stairs we found water boom area. The pool is shallow, it's proper for children playground. It's decorating well with colorful cute animal statue such as pink elephant, green turtle wearing shoes. Across water boom there's another pool with small slides, and a bucket on the top that pours water after it's full. So many children playing, running and swimming on the area, we're afraid of getting wet, so we're taking picture not too close to the pool.

The beautiful flower garden was our next destination, we could take pictures in the middle of the garden which is full of colorful flowers. The arch gate created from various plant and flower, we had to queue and waiting people to pass by to get a good picture. After that we went to the flower garden, various type of flower, we started with the purple Hydrangea (panca warna) and white flower, I don't know the name, it's good because it's hilly, the foreground white flowers while the background were orange flowers and bungalow. Red flower garden were attempting, but we had to wait for people moving out from the garden.

Meanwhile we saw a beautiful heart made of still with red leaves, it's very big and beautiful, we were queueing to take our turn for photo session there. There was a sky bike surrounding the garden which enabled you to enjoy the beautiful scenery from above. As the time was limited, we didn't ride on the sky bike. We found nice spot which looked like colorful photo frame with flowers under the frame. We took our own frame and made a pose to be shot by my friend's son from below the frame.

Finally we saw the red garden already quiet, so we rushed to go there taking group picture with "Selecta" word as the background. Then taking one by one, as it's very beautiful and it could become one of our profile picture in social media :-) Satisfying taking many pictures it's time for us to look for our team from Kediri. Accidentally we met our elementary friend who went there with his family, he didn't join our trip. We took picture with his family, and invited him to the villa at night for dinner and reunion.

We heard that our teacher was having lunch with their grandchildren near the giant peacock made from plant too. On the way there we met our male teachers, they would like to go back to the bus already because they were tired, but we persuaded them to visit the garden as it's very beautiful. The female teachers were still sit down on the stairs finishing their lunch and waiting for their grandchildren who went around the park to play and explore. After taking picture together with them, we asked permission to go earlier to prepare for their rooms allocation in the villa and also dinner for that night.

Although just for a short time, I like Selecta with the scenery and its mild weather. It's worthy to be visited with family and children. I plan to bring my niece and nephew there later on weekend or holiday.

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Modern Cheonggyecheon Stream in Seoul

In early Apr 2016 after visiting the secret garden at Changdeok Palace, my friend and I would like to go to Cheonggyecheon stream, which was renovated in 2003 to its present form today, it's one of the place destination that we must visit as it's quite popular for Korea's people hanging around. We planned to walk from the palace to the place, we passed by many stores and restaurants, even go cross some streets, but it seemed a never ending walk, we're so tired, we called a cab to continue

Most of taxi driver in Korea could not speak English, anyway they are very friendly, I showed him the map where we would like to go, as I also could not pronounce well Cheonggyecheon stream :-) We asked him to stop at the edge of the stream which run through downtown Seoul, it's very obvious near Cheonggye Plaza and you could see the crowd, so you would not get lost. With high spirit as finally we could find it, we took some pictures under the sunshine, we're facing the sun until we could not see our camera screen so just count on our feeling, taking picture for selfie above the stream, before we're going down to the river.

Actually there's a fountain on the beginning of the 11km modern public recreation stream, unfortunately it's not played at that time. A small water fall was quite interesting beside the stairs to go down to the river, it flew from the level of the fountain going down to the river. At the left and right side of the river were pedestrian that people could walk, but we also could sit at the stairs at the edge of the river for chatting, or just enjoying the clear water and mild weather.

We continued strolling the river, till we found some square stones put in the middle of the river for people to cross from one side to another side of the river, we took many pictures there. Then we took a rest and enjoy by sitting on the stairs at the edge of the river. Our feet were soaring as we had walked around Seoul since morning. It's a good place to take a rest and seeing others enjoy the environment with their own activity and style. Creating an environment with clean water and natural habitats was the most significant achievement of the project, it could invite more fishes & birds, also cool down the temperature.

Almost sunset so we decided to continue exploring Seoul, we tried to find toilet, all of a sudden when we went up the stairs, we're just realized that the place was really close to 20,000m2 Gwanghwamun square where we could find two statues of Admiral Yi Sun-Shin and Sejong the Great, who are great and influential people in Korean history. The square was quite huge, I tried to take photos while jumping, unfortunately my friend had difficulty to catch it, lucky finally my friend could get my jump after several jumps. Some tends were available on the square, we didn't visit them, it seemed they were selling something, we're too tired to go there.

My friend was exhausted and feeling cold because it's very windy. She preferred to wait for me below at the basement where there were some shops while I was taking some pictures of beautiful colorful flowers decorating the square. The flower was quite beautiful with many colors and they arranged it well in the ellipse pots. The distance between 2 statues were very far, I walked to the front of the other statue to be able taking both statues with the flower and Bukaksan Mountain as the background. It's very difficult to get the proper angle, I had to be patient to wait for other people finished taking picture. My friend was kind enough waiting for me to finish my desire capturing all of them.

If I'll go to Korea again, definitely I would visit Cheonggyecheon stream, as I haven't explored many sides at that time, such as visiting the coffee shop along the stream.

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Stunning Crystal Clear Sulamadaha Beach, Ternate

Reaching Sulamadaha beach at noon, walking from the car park which was just next to the black sandy beach, I was rather disappointed as it's not as I imagine based on the picture I've got from internet. There were many food stalls next to the beach. My friends said that we should take a long walk to reach the place that I saw in the internet. I don't mind with it.

As we parked under the shelter trees, I forgot to bring along my jacket, hat and sandal. We walked through the path at the edge of the beach, it's hilly and quite challenging and I felt quite tiring as I hadn't had breakfast and it's already lunch time. Actually you could ride motor bike to go there along the path, unfortunately there was no "ojek", or motor cycle rental that could bring us there. I stopped a few times to take a break and taking pictures.

Finally we reached the motor cycle parking lot at the end of the path which towards to the beach, the scenery there was very beautiful, we could see the beach from above with boats and some huts hanging on the beach. I took my time to relax and taking picture again before going down through quite steep stone ladders. My colleague was kind and patient enough waiting for me :-) I asked my colleague to hold my hand as I was afraid falling down on the ladders.

Going down to the small bay, fractional shells and corals produce white sand, many local visitors swimming on the beach. A traditional boat was parked on the beach, my colleague offered me to go by boat to the middle of the sea. It's an interesting offer that I could not refused to enjoy the crystal clear beach. It cost IDR 50.000,- to rent the boat, our colleague from Ternate's office decided to row the boat, so the owner didn't need to go with us.

There were 4 of us, it's very sunny and hot, but it's windy. We went to the sea, although it's further from the beach, there was some shallow area, that we could see beautiful coral underneath our boat. It's very nice to see the beautiful coral reef with colorful fish swimming around it. If it's not very shiny and made my skin burnt, I would like to stay there longer. The scenery was like in heaven, combination of crystal clear sea with its beautiful coral reefs and mountains behind produced an incredible beauty. Unfortunately I didn't bring swimsuit, it would be more fun if we could swim on the crystal clear water.

I would like to take picture of the boat from the other side of beach which could show the crystal clear water, so I asked my colleague to row there. When we reached the hut hanging on the beach, I climbed the ladder while all of my colleagues stayed on the boat waiting for me to take some pictures from above. It's wonderful, it almost similar to the picture that I saw in the internet.

A group of teenagers had fun there, they jumped to the water one by one with different style. It seemed that the sea was shallow, I was afraid that they will hit the bottom. In fact the water was so clear, it's quite deep for them to jump but you saw as if it's only 0.5 meters deep. I asked permission to them to cross their hut to another hut to take better angle.

I returned to the boat and we returned the beach where we started sailing. One of our colleague who didn't dare to go with us because he could not swim was waiting for us there, keeping our bags :-) We ordered coconut and fried banana at one of the hut to fill our stomach before walking back through the path to our car.

Although we were starving, I really enjoyed it. The scenery was amazing, it's a very wonderful God's creation. You should visit the beach if you plan to visit Ternate. Don't forget to bring swimsuit so you could enjoy it more by snorkeling or just swimming on the calm and crystal clear sea.

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High Waves at Water Blow Nusa Dua Bali

After completion of our task during exhibition in Bali, we returned to hotel to take a rest, it's around 16:30 already, all of us were tired. Unfortunately my hotel key was not working well, I went to hotel receptionist to ask them fixing it. During reprogramming my key, I asked the reception where the location of water blow, as I saw in the map it's one of the tourism place which's near to our hotel. He said that it would take only 10 minutes drive and 500 meters walk, the best time to visit is in the evening when the wave could blow very high almost 4 meters high.

As we didn't have time anymore to stay another night, so I rushed to go to my room and called my colleagues asking them whether they would like to visit it. All of them agreed to go and gathered in the lobby soon, no need to shower first as the time was ticking, we had to go fast unless it would get dark. None of us had visited the place, my friend activated the GPS to avoid getting lost.

Reaching Nusa Dua beach parking lot, it's so full, lucky we still got a slot to park our car. We ran to the gate, asking the guard where "Water Blow" location, he said just go straight ahead, no entrance fee. We walked fast, even running. On the way we kept asking people where the direction so we would run to the correct direction, no time for getting lost. Actually the park was nice, but we could not enjoy it as we focus to reach the beach on time. Lucky we saw a golf cart, when we asked the driver where the location, he said it's right behind Rama Sinta statue which's in the middle of large field. He didn't mind riding us to the beach. Wow... it's a nice offered, of course I took it and shouted to my friends to run unless they had missed the cart.

Five of us in the cart, it's over loaded actually, we had to hold tight to the pipe unless we'll fell down. The road was rather hilly in some part, the driver was very excellent, we arrived near the beach right away. We're very happy and run to the path towards the hut jutting towards the sea. The sun started to get red, almost sunset. Lucky we rode the golf cart, when taking the pictures, a very high wave was occurred made the people on the path getting very wet. We hadn't been that close so we were safe. I took some pictures for my colleague, unfortunately they could not take mine with high wave at the background. I took wefie so we could have a group picture with myself inside. I'm not expert enough in wefie, although the wave was quite high, it's not too obvious in the photo.

High wave was not quite often, the highest was when the 1st time we reached on the beach. We continued walking to the end of the path. There was fence protecting people from the rocks and waves, anyway you still could go down to the rock to take nearer picture to the water blow. The pounding waves froth created by the crashing waves against the rocks created the stunning beauty of the sea water flow. I was afraid to go down, when I saw my friend there, I asked him to hold my hand so I wouldn't get slipped as it's sandy and many small rocks.

On the other side you could see the sunset, anyway there was no good object in front of the sunset, the water blow at the East side. I only could take silhouette of the people who sit on the stairs to enjoy the scenery. One of my friend was hungry, so she sit there while eating snack watching us taking picture and enjoyed the wave.

It's' getting dark, my iPhone could not get good picture in the dark, so we decided to go back to the hotel. We had to walk back to the parking lot, no more golf cart to bring us, so walking 500 meters as exercise at night. My friend who stayed in Bali, just know that time that there's a good place to visit near by, at Nusa Dua beach. He could bring his family there to spend weekend. Some people have used it as pre-wedding photo location.

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