This is a late post which took place at the end of 2020.
Sorry for not staying at home.
Throughout the 2020 pandemic, we were all urged to stay at home, to quarantine ourselves. Our little family usually went hiking during school’s holiday. On end of school year break (June 2020), we followed the rules to stay at home. No matter how much I needed to recharge myself by going hiking, I stayed at home.
But the pandemic lasted the whole year. Yes, I know be safe at home, have pity on the busy doctors… However, I couldn’t stand it anymore. During the end of semester break (December 2020), I tried my best to assure myself that I would be okay to stay home this holiday just like previous holiday. I tried and I tried and I tried but I failed. There were days where my tears just fell down for no reason. I am a happy mom enjoying every minute playing with my son during holiday, but still the tears fell down.
My husband knew what happened. I needed to get out of my house, I had to see the nature despite of the pandemic. I need to refresh my mind before finally getting back to work. Dangerous? Yes we know but when it comes to health, mental health is as important as body health….and being happy can increase immunity. We prepared all the precautions we need and hit the road. Praying that all the precautions we have prepared will protect us. Amin š
Unplanned Trip
As usual, my husband took us on an unplanned trip. The only trip that we really planned well was the trip to Lombok and Mount Rinjani because we had to buy the ticket to fly there… Other than that, our trips were always unplanned.
Seeing his wife starting to loose her mind, hubby asked me where do I want to go. I said a simple camp in Loji would be enough, just to see the greenery and sleep in the tent, just like Anka’s first camp (here). He said OK, let’s go with motorcycle like before. But Anka is not a baby anymore and I really don’t want to go with motorcycle for 3 hour ride.
“Let’s rent a car,” I said. He won’t rent a car for a 2 day trip. Then, out of the blue, he said “let’s go to Mount Merbabu.” Fine by me. But Merbabu is still closed. A sudden change of plan… “Let’s see the beauty of Mount Prau in Dieng again.”
The idea was proposed on Des 27 at 9 PM and we took off on Des 28 at 11 PM. Yes… He always did that š
Necessary Precautions
In order to guard ourselves from the virus that causes this pandemic, we prepared some important items.
- 2 types of disinfectant spray
- Hand sanitizer in the car and in my bag
- Hand soap, in case the places we visited have no soap
- Wet tissue to wipe the tables when we had to eat out
- Lots of face masks.
We also stayed away from the crowd, used disinfectant before entering the rented car and the homestay/hotel rooms, prepared honey, habbatussaudah and Vitamin C to maintain our immune system.
After all the necessary precautions had been prepared and done, then pray to Allah to keep us safe. Alhamdulillah we all come back in healthy condition.
Off We go….
We decided to start at 11 PM because the highway wouldn’t be crowded and we predicted that we will arrived at Dieng early in the morning. We didn’t know the road, therefore we totally relied on google map.
According to the map it would take 6.5 hours to reach our destination. In reality, it took more than 6 hours. It was a challenging trip for us because hubby never drove this far before and we didn’t know the road at all.
We stopped in several Rest Area because hubby needed some rest and seeing all the red lights of the cars in front of him kinda made him dizzy. Since we were not in the hurry, it would be safer for us to take a lot of stops.
I also refrained myself from sleeping because he needed company to prevent him from getting sleepy. The only one sleeping at that time was our son.
The road that Google map chose was through Pekalongan, it was a bit different to what my husband’s friend had told him. There was doubt about the map but we followed it anyway, hoping that the road was the right one. The road lead to Batur and ended up on the other side of Dieng (when we used Bus, we came from another side)
We passed through a place we have never passed before. Not many cars passing through and we were a bit scared, thinking that we might be lost. Fortunately, we we stopped in a small shop and asked the owner, he said we were on the right track.
The unknown area that we passed had beautiful scenery. We stopped for a while to enjoy the beautiful scenery of endless tea plantation
There were a lot of hang out places that we passed through but since we passed that road early in the morning, so all of those places were still closed.
Candi Arjuna – Arjuna Temple
We have visited Dieng several time, it was our third time (fourth time for me) to visit Dieng in Wonosobo (Central Java). We usually reached Patak Banteng before Arjuna Temple, but since we came from Banjar (on the other side of Dieng) we decided to visit Arjuna Temple first before heading to Patak Banteng.
My son loved seeing all the trees. He was running eagerly heading to Arjuna. However, once he reached the temple, he wasn’t as happy as seeing all the trees heading there. The temple kinda made him bored, until he found the joy of throwing rocks. He did the same when he was 1 year old.
Here are some pictures of my son, how he has grown from adorable 1 year old boy to handsome 4 year old boy š
That’s all for now š
I will continue Part 2 soon.
Polychrome Interest 
You are all such a beautiful family! We all needed little get-away trips this past year. Iām glad your husband made sure you got it. He sounds like a good husband.
Thank you Karel and yes he is a great husband š
It is good that you could get away from the city A six hour plus trip is a long way from home, especially for a little guy, but it sounds like you saw a lot of interesting things on the way and made the trip interesting..
The little guy enjoyed the long ride, never complained let alone crying. He played with his toys, read his books, and ate all his snacks š