Journey To The East
Jun 19.
The time has come. Reached in Semarang Tawang Station at 18.04pm and faster come in to the train—which departed at 18.15pm. Fyuh!! (I thanked my litte brother for giving me a ride by taking him to fancy resto lol)
Not too much to do in the train, just hot chocolate, overpriced nasi rendang and Do I wanna Know that I —oddly played for this past few weeks, I don't know.
Sampai Sidoarjo sekitar pukul 23pm, had a cigarette dan lanjut ke kos E. Di perjalanan bapak grab ngajak ngobrol asyik, mampir sebentar ke alfamart buat tarik uang. Waktu nungguin bapaknya, di depan ada mall Lippo Plaza dan aku berkata dalam hati "anjeeeenngggg w ngapain malem2 di tempat antahberantah ini" (dengan intonasi positif). Lanjut perjalanan, bobok di kos E.
Jun 20.
Starting the day around 5 in the morning, grab-ing (I like the slang. Grab-ing means nge-grab) ke Stasiun Sidoarjo, mampir beli nasi kuning 10rb/ea untuk sarapan. Roti O tidak lupa, and here we are, di kereta Probowangi dengan sandaran kursi tegak. Masuk Probolinggo, keluar ngerokok dan sarapan. Aku ngide beli minuman dingin dan HAMPIR aja kami ketinggalan kereta (sorry my friend). Masuk Jember dan we decided to eat at gerbang restorasi. Ciomy and hot chocolatte, dan pemandangan indah yang menakjubkan yang sudah kurekam di kepalaku. I couldn't even describe how beautiful it was. I talked to E "I feel like I want to fly" for many times saking bahagia dan berasa bukan hal yang nyata. Bukit dan jurang, rumah2 di hutan serta kali kecil, aku akan mengingatnya. Sampai Stasiun Banyuwangi kota yang relatif kecil, kami langsung bertemu ibu rental motor (yang pembayarannya udah dilunaskan E waktu di kereta). Tentu karena lapar (dan sesuai itinerary) kami ke Warung Sego Tempong Mbok Nah. Seporsi Rp 22.000 dengan dua macem sayur rebus, gabus asin, tiga chunks ayam tepung, serta sambel yang jadi andalan, sambel tempong. Verdict 3/5 karena nothing special. Even sambel tempongnya cuma sekadar sambel mentah yang rasanya pedes banget. Yaudah~
Pukul 14.00 isi bensin, muter2 di jalanan desa yang kecil sampe ketemu jalan besar, ada mobil polisi melintang. We thought the mobil kurang kerjaan so we just rode our motorcycle happily sambil ngetawain how silly they were but the actual silly one was us! Ternyata jalan ditutup karena ada demo di depan polres dan kami agak (sedikit) nyasar di komplek perumahan. Dengan sedikit puter balik we back to our sense LOL and found the pom bensin. The weather was nice atm, we found it quite cold so we kinda comfort with it. Pulau Merah, our today's highlight would take around 2 hrs to reach, and we are ready about it. Perjalanan momotoran kami cukup ok, jalan provinsi/lintas timur idk, cukup lengang, gaada hambatan dan macet. We just found out KoHay! Coffee ternyata searah (dan ganyangka di pinggir jalan) so we stopped there and grab a coffee. E did her work and I had my cig (of course!). Lanjut jalan sekitar pukul 16.00, melewati De Djawatan yang ada di pinggir jalan raya, jalan2 desa yang kecil, lalu berhenti sebentar karena di sisi kiri kanan tumbuh bunga bugenvil yang sangat banyak, literally same with what happened in my dream few months ago—sedikit cengoh hehe. We took some pictures at the best time, sunset. Perpaduan indah.
Jalanan desa sedikit koyak dan kami sampai di homestay dengan langit yang sudah menggelap. Sedikit berbasa-basi dengan mas penjaga, we took a shower and get rest. Keluar untuk makan malam (yang kemahalan) dan ke pantai sebentar (dan tentu saja gelap). Kembali ke homestay, the owner asked us to join the gossiping time. Some locals and a white guy, few minutes talkin' and we back to our room. —fast forward— and the day came. The beach is calling, we went there. Overnight cakes I bought from KoHay and we recorded memories there—with the popular Stone Island as the background, I swear this is the best and memorable birthday and our first and memorable trip ever! (Meskipun sayang ngga bisa take picture waktu sunset).
Jun 21.
Sarapan nasi kuning (lagi) di pertigaan arah ke Alas Purwo, 7.000 lengkap dengan minum (what a nice thing to start a day!). Perjalanan ke sana ngga ada hambatan samasekali, jalan lengang dan adem. E rode the bike and I read the gmaps. I felt like.... I got throwed back when we're still colonized by the dutch because.... it never changed. The buildings, the road, the urban planning. I really felt I live in the past, and all I do is just..... admiring those all. Reaching Alas Purwo around 11, tiket 35.000/2 orang and here we go, jalan aspal rhemox yang terasa sangat..... sangat panjang. Gaada sinyal samasekali dan kami hanya mengandalkan petunjuk arah. Mampir sebentar di pura kecil, E took some pictures, mampir lagi di pura besar dan ternyata gaboleh masuk (karna kami bukan Hindu) so we continued to Savana Sadengan, our last stop in Alas Purwo.
We went there happily, but it was the wrong moment. Siang terik semua binatang masih pada ngadem and we got nothing to see but savana. We just sat there and zoned out, breathing and acting that we were having our best moment (we were?!???).
Sepulangnya dari Savana Sadengan dengan jalan yang sama rhemoxnya, we headed back to the city. Mampir Kafein Coffee Roastery yang emang udah direncanain dan it met my expectations, both the place and food. Melanjutkan perjalanan ke De-djawatan, sedikit degdegan karna Krista used to visit here. Double degdegan karena hutan ini sudah hidup dari couple hundred years ago. Seketika I imagined how it was, how was the people in that time and what happened during the period of the times. I felt like I wanna go to the past. Hutannya sangat adem (of course??????), dan menenangkan sekaligus menyeramkan (ya normalnya?!???).
Usai dari sana kami langsung ke tempat sewa hiking stuffs yang sesuai ekspektasi juga (I patted the cat!) and had our dinner di Warung Dalam Negeri. I did not know what should I review cos it is just an usual rumah makan modern. Ayam gesrut was actually shredded chicken inside soup and mixed with sambal, and some blimbing wuluh, but I enjoyed it, but not my cup of tea.
Balik hostel because we got to prepare our stuffs before we head to Ijen. Muter2 alun2 yang ternyata ada beberapa lokasi berdekatan dan berhenti sebentar jajan pentol. I said to E, I was super happy becaus the day is the day and all the things we have prepared is as I expected.
Pukul 22.00 pm kami ke kantor damri nunggu bus dan sampai di basecamp sekitar pukul 01am. We ordered energen yang ditaruh di cup and its so tiny but E said that it was our best energen ever so yeah I would not complain it lollll. Having some cigarettes dan pukul 02am we started the hike.
It was my first time doing mount hiking ever, I did not prepare proper jacket (yaa rada goblok sih), nor p3k nor emergency jacket and stuffs. Just my body, running tshirt, fancy—useless jacket, trekking pole, headlamp and roma sari gandum LOLLLLLLL I wanna say to myself how stupeeedddd you are, tapi yaudahlah hehe. I borrowed puffed jacket, eventually. Karna udah mempersiapkan fisik dengan senam setiap hari selama 1,5 bulan it felt not hard for me, also I took the baby walk so I did not use too much energy. Sepanjang perjalanan I make sure that E walked safely. I lost one of my gloves during walking but someone reached me out and asked me is it your gloves when we reached the top and I couldn't say anything but thank him. I did not need to pay the penalty lmao. During our walking, I witnessed a magical scene where the mountains are totally dark and in between, the moon, shone, not so bright but enough to lead our path. Below the moon, the clouds also shine like flying cottons, I was like, God I wanna witness this scene again in the future. If only my eyesight is good, but nevermind, I still can live with spect all the time but, sigh.
We're supposed to walk down to see the bluefire but we thought that its a bit dangerous and we don't want to gamble our lives lol so we're just headed a bit higher to watch sunrise. I just sit calmy and eat my Roma Sari Gandum while E took some pictures of a white couple we met on the basecamp before. It was suuupppeer magical. It was cold and warm at the same time. I was super blessed to witness it on my 29th birthday. We took some pictures, people took our pictures, then we slowly walked down. I thought we reach back the basecamp around 11am and we took some nap before the driver asked us to come in to the bus. Reaching city around 1 pm I think? Then we just strict to our itinerary, have a lunch at Sego Cawuk Ibu Sri. We were abit late actually because it was almost finish but Ibu Sri said that its enough if only for two pax so yeah, we enjonyed our first time Sego Cawuk happily hahah.
Reached out hostel and I asked E should we join the trip to Baluran or not because the time is super tight and she said we have to because we already paid for the bus so yeah, we took a nap again around one hour and get ready. Its gonna be super packed afternoon. I thought I am a bit sensitive because lack of sleep and I was a bit mad at the couple who keep laughing all the way to Baluran and I think it made E abit confused, I felt sorry for this :(.
Baluran was magical. We reached at the right timing because its super beautiful like..... I couldn't describe. But its beautiful (I don't know whats the synonim of beautiful lol). We didn't see the animals but we didn not mind at all because the scenery is enough for us. E took some picture of me then I put it as my profil picture in ALL of my social media lmao.
The trip included Bama Beach so we're just chilling on the swing while seeing another trip member (?) playing around. One more problem came because of my stupidity. I was so sure that I booked ticked for round trip even got argument with the driver and turs out that I booked wrong hour(?). I was suppposed to book on 7pm but instead, I booked on 3pm. Stupidest stupid. I kept saying sorry to E because of this we had to suffer—we sit but we did not have seat— for about 2 hours. Reached hotel too late and we didn't even wash or bathe and just sleep all the night. It was tiring day.
Jun 22.
Today is our last day in Banyuwangi :(
We checked out hotel around 8.30am and just randomly picked food stall along the way to Green Beach. We had sego cawuk again but the taste just so different with the one made by Ibu Sri. A local uncle asked me some questions and we had a short chitchat. We have prepared all because our journey today is gonna be about three hours—and its a bit rainy. Lucky we've bought emergency poncho before we go to Ijen. We're supposed to visit Green Bay and Red Beach at the same time because both located in south part of Banyuwangi but we really did not catch the time so yeah. I asked to E to drive safely because we did not know the terrain (?) irl. At the beginning its just normal rural area, then we passed by a single road inside a forest—it took around one hour. We reached around 12pm and we still have to walk up and down on a muddy steps before reached the beach, and E slipped away because she wears converse. #lessonlearned besok2 gausah pakai converse. There are two parts of the beach. The closer one is not too appealing so we have walk further and we witness it! A green, super green beach. I was like.... oh my goodness. Blessed Erina and Rina for having sucha beautiful core memories. I was about to cry haha. We were just sitting and zoomed out lol. I never seen this scenery before, oh I saw one in Pacitan but not as beautiful as this Green Bay. There were not so many visitors so I think its super worth the time/struggle (?).
We headed back to the city and reached the station around 5, and E's train is around 6pm. I asked her to take care and really thanked her for celebrating my 29th birthday in Banyuwangi. My train is around 9pm so I have to wait outside the station for three fucking hours!! But nevermind as long as I got my cigarettes hahah. What elso should I write? I think those all. Can't say anything but Thanked god for this one. I wish I have another core memories with E again in the future. Cheers! @fridayrevived













