Pangandaran

Last Thursday was Islamic New Year so we had an extra-long weekend. Originally Friday had been billed as a working day but there's a rapidly growing middle class in Indonesia, so whenever this "sandwich day" happens, the government usually concede and declare it a national holiday. Then more money gets spent in tourist spots and it's reputedly better for the economy. So after work on Wednesday we were driven to the coast, a town called Pangandaran. It took 6 and a half hours to get there, through crazy Bandung traffic, winding mountain roads and eventually rough roads down to the coast. We eventually arrived at about 1am. Fortunately we had pre-booked a hotel and it was quite easy to find, so pretty soon we were in bed, listening to the intense storm outside. At least it meant it was cooler!

The next day we slept in a bit and then had breakfast at the hotel. This was exciting as they had proper coffee, wholemeal bread and even butter! After this we went to explore the town a little as we hadn't seen much the night before. It is a nice, if slightly scruffy, seaside resort town which sits on a peninsula, with a tourist beach on the east side and a business beach on the west side. The end of the peninsula is covered in jungle - this is a protected conservation area, which is why it's still this way.

The east beach is very long and quite busy, but not many people lie on the beach sunbathing because it's stupidly hot and sunny. Much like Malaysia, the sun is strong even when it's behind a cloud, so you have to be careful. There are lots of little cafes, shops and vendors on the beach selling all kinds of food - probably more than there are tourists, in fact. After we'd walked up and down we decided that it would be most fun to go body-boarding because the waves on the beach looked awesome. Of course we got soaking wet and covered in sand, but it was totally worth it for 10k rupiah for an hour's body-board hire (about 65p) - it was fantastically good fun.

After this we were totally exhausted so we retreated to a beach cafe for a fresh coconut, which tasted delicious and is probably pretty good at rehydrating you, all ions and sugars and water. We headed back to the hotel for a quick change then headed out to the business side of the isthmus to find the fish market for dinner. Of course we were the only westerners there but it was fun - you choose your fish/seafood and style of cooking, get some rice and kancung (water spinach). It's all really fresh and delicious and since it's what all the Indonesian families go out to eat, very cheap. Well worth the trek!

After our long day we were totally shattered so went back to the hotel and played cards. We had arranged to meet a tour guide at 12:30pm so in the morning we lazed about a bit, read books by the pool etc. Once our guide arrived we caught a rickshaw to the national park. This was a fun way to see some of the town that we hadn't seen before. I felt sorry for the rickshaw driver though, having to push two people around!

Once there we had an amazing tour around the jungle, which is tiny but compared to the rest of Java absolutely teeming with life. We started in a tiny seaside cove where our guide told us about the tsunami that had hit Pangandaran in 2006. It sounded terrifying. Pangandaran is very low lying and most of the buildings are single-storey, so the 3m wave was devastating. They have recovered very well and there's little trace of the wave in the town. But in the national park, which is less managed, the damage is still visible - massive collections of coral churned up by the wave, salt damage to the trees, washed up boats in odd places.

After this we had an explore in the caves of the national park. There were some very large colonies of bats and two porcupines. Then a walk around the jungle, where we saw barking deer, macaques, black monkeys, monitor lizards, a flying dragon lizard, a snake, some cool millipedes, flying foxes and some hornbills. At last we came to a waterfall over the cliffs into the sea below where we sat and took pictures next to a deep natural pool. Sadly I fell off climbing round and went in, shoulder-deep! It was a bit of a shock but quite funny in the end. We walked back through the jungle to the beach for another coconut, then back to the hotel. Our dinner was a bit disappointing because we chose the only touristy restaurant in all of Pangandaran, which was full of tourists and run by a very stern German woman. A bit odd. The fish market was much better!

The next morning we got up early and went down to our favourite, Bamboo Cafe, for banana pancakes for breakfast. We had another hour's body-boarding but the waves were not quite so good the second time, which was a shame. Or perhaps we were just too tired! The day before had been very long and tiring.

At 1pm it was sadly time to leave so a collective taxi arrived to pick us up. We hadn't anticipated that it would take 8 hours, which was a very long time to be cooped up in a car. Eventually we made it back to the hotel in Bandung, very tired but pleased we'd had such a fantastic and worthwhile trip away.