End of Year (2020) Trip – Part 2

This is the second part of our end of year trip, the first part can be read here> End of Year Trip – Part 1. Basically it talked about our planned trip despite the pandemic as my mental health became unstable. I couldn’t stay at home anymore, without the trip, going back to work will increase my stress.

In this end part, I would highlight important moment during the trip 🙂

#1 Homestay

In our 5 years of marriage, we never once stayed in a homestay or hotel/motel because our trips were always hiking or other nature trips which ended up staying in a tent or mountain basecamp or my husband’s friend’s house. It was our first time staying in a homestay.

We arrived at Patak Banteng, Dieng around 12 O’Clock (December 29, 2020). It would be impossible to hike Mount Prau at that hour, so we looked for a place to stay. We found a homestay called Seribu Bukit (Thousand Hills). We did the first precaution due to the pandemic by spraying the room with disinfectant. The boy really loves that place. It was a new thing for him to be staying in a homestay.

The lady who owned the house rented 3 or 4 rooms for anyone who wanted to stay. The rent was only Rp 250.000 (17 USD) for one night.

#2 No Hike for Today

We finally decided not to hike due to constant rain. Sometime the rain was heavy, sometime it was just a drizzle but since we were with a toddler, we wouldn’t risk it. We have hiked Mount Prau three times (on our Honeymount, when Anka was 1 year old and when Anka was 3 years old) so we will skip it this time.

The only thing we did was taking picture in front of the mountain.

Anka asked whether we were going to hike or not, I had to explain to him that we couldn’t hike on the mountain for now. He was sad but we explained to him that we will still travelling and heading to the forest, that sure made him happy again 🙂

We decided to go to Batu Raden Botanical Garden in Purwokerto.

#3 Agrowisata Tambi (Tambi’s Agritourism)

Before heading to Batu Raden, we decided to take a small reroute to Tambi’s Agrotourism. It was on the foot of Mount Sindoro, Hubby and I were using this trek from Mount Sindoro when we had our Honeymount (our version of Honeymoon)

The scenery was stunning, a huge tea plantation. Greenery everywhere and that surely clear my head and my sight. The boy was also so happy, we pretended to look for T-Rex while walking along the tea trees.

• 

• 

• 

• 

We stayed quite a while just to enjoy the view. We the sky looked a bit dark (again) then we hit the road to head to Batu Raden

• 

• 

#4 Heading to Batu Raden

It was a 4 hour ride from Patak banteng to Batu Raden. We relied 100 persen on Google Maps as we didn’t know Central Java at all.

It was a great decision to go to Batu Raden because we got to see many new places and most of them were empty due to the pandemic.

#5 The Motel

We arrived at Batu Raden sometime around 5 PM (December 30, 2020), it was late and Batu Raden Botanicalk Garden was of course closed. We looked for the nearest Motel. The view ion front of our room in second floor was amazing, it was the view of the tallest mountain in Central Java, Mount Slamet.

• 

• 

• 

Since we were all prepared to go hiking, therefore we had all the required equipment. At night when we were so hungry, instead of looking for food outside or order room service, we decided to cook our own meal. Please don’t follow our initiative 😉

Carrying stove and cooking ware sure came handy.

#6 Batu Raden Botanical Garden

The Botanical Garden was amazing!! We often see the one in Bogor which is nothing compare to this. It was more like a forest rather than a garden. The trees were huge and dense. The mist made it look like heading to Mordor 😉

The first plan was to look around the botanical garden then heading to Pancuran Tujuh (Seven Shower) and Pancuran Tiga (Three Shower) but the rain fell down heavily around 1 O’Clock, so we had a sudden change of plan.

• 

• 

• 

• 

#7 Pancuran Tujuh (Seven Shower)

Pancuran Tujuh is a hot spring. We had to walk downward about an hour. The boy was so excited and managed to walk alone without being carried. He surely has our gene of enjoying nature.

We enjoyed being there. Not many people were there. Hubby got a sulfur massage and the boy enjoyed the small pool of hot water. Afterward, we enjoy a little a little meal while looking at the view around the hot spring.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

  Seven Showers (Pancuran Tujuh)

#8 Batu Raden Basecamp to Mount Slamet

From Seven Showers, we headed to Three Showers and the Labyrinth, unfortunately the rain forced us to change the plan. We found the Basecamp to Mount Slamet. When Hubby and I hiked Mount Slamet, we hiked from Bambangan. Here’s another trek to Mount Slamet, through Batu Raden Botanical Graden. We talked with the guard/guide while waiting for the rain to stop. It turned out, the trek from here is quite challenging and far longer than from Bambangan. It will take about 11 hours of continuous walk to reach the peak of Mount Slamet. Maybe one day we will hike through this trek once our boy is old enough.

#9 New Year’s Eve (December 31, 2020)

We spent another night at the motel because we wanted to see more of Batu Raden. We were planning to move to a room in first floor but the boy wanted to stay in the same room at second floor.

The road was blocked by policemen to prevent people from crowding in that area. It was amazing to see how quiet New Year’s eve at that time. We really enjoy the quietness and decided to walk around the area. It was great decision to take a walk because we had a chance to train our son to dare to speak to a policeman.

We lost our umbrella in a restaurant and he wanted to tell the policeman about it.

Anka: Ibu, there’s a policeman there
Ibu: Yes, do you want to talk to him?
Anka: Yes, I want to tell him that someone stole our umbrella
Ibu: Ok, let’s go talk to him

Anka: Pak (sir)
Policeman: Hello little boy, where are going in this middle of the night?
Anka: Pak, there is a thief
Policeman: Oh really? What did he steal?
Anka: My blue umbrella, the thief took it in that restaurant
Policeman: Well thank you for reporting, I will try to catch him later
Anka: Thank you Pak

That’s the rough translation of their talk 🙂

I am very proud of our boy 🙂

Thee missing blue Umbrella

#10 Telaga Sunyi

The next morning (January 1, 2021), we packed our stuff again and ready to head to Telaga Sunyi (Quiet Lake). We planned to visit several places before heading back to Jakarta.

Telaga Sunyi was great, we enjoyed playing in the water there.

• 

• 

• 

• 

#11 My Little Book Lover

We brought some of my boy’s toys and the book he recently bought. I am so happy that he read the book all the time…well, he couldn’t read yet but he enjoyed all the images and memorized all the dinosaurs in the book. Yes, the book is about dinosaurs in different continents. He is my little dino lover who is also a book lover 🙂

• 

• 

• 

#12 Flashback to Honeymount

On our Honeymoon which we called as Honeymount because we hiked 3 mountains in a week during our Honeymoon. It was back in January 2016, now in December 2020 we sort of doing a backward flashback.

In January 2016, we went to Mount Slamet then Mount Sindoro and finish it by hiking Mount Prau.

In December 2020, we went to the Patak Banteng (The foot of Mount Prau), the to Tambi (The foot of Mount Sindoro) and finish it in Batu Raden (The foot of Mount Slamet).

#13 Burst Tire

When heading home, we had an accident. In the highway, one of our tire suddenly burst out. In turned out, there was no equipment to change the tire inside our rented car. We regretted the fact thet we forgot to check whether the car has all the equipment for event like this.

Fortunately, we could call the emergency and people from Jasa Marga (the highway officer) came about an hour later to help change the tire.

• 

• 

• 

There was no more incident afterward and we arrived home sometime around 11 PM.

---

That’s all from our end of year trip. Despite the pandemic, don’t forget to still be happy as it is good for our immunity 🙂

See more posts on Thursday 13 here: