Sukabumi

July 30, 2018

Sukabumi

It's only fitting that my first holiday post from Indonesia (finally) is about Tanakita camp ground, Sukabumi. I absolutely love this place. I've been here twice and each time it felt like I'd found my own little paradise--lush and pristine with clear blue skies and no garbage. It's hard to believe this magical place is less that 100 km from Jakarta. Practically a suburb.

Gunung Gede is one of Indonesia's many towering mountains, and as seems to be the case with most mountains in Indonesia it's a volcano--its last eruption was in 1957. It's probably the closest hikeable mountain from Jakarta, and it's absolutely smothered in steamy rain forest, complete with every type of tropical tree, fern and undergrowth imaginable.

I don't think I'll ever get over these Indonesian rain forests. Being from Canada, I'm used to forests that are full of one type of tree. If you're lucky they may all be fir trees, if you're in Saskatchewan they may be a few types of trees that all basically look the same. Such is not the case here in Indonesia. In Lombok I saw mountains covered almost solely with palm trees. In Java a single forest will be packed with hundreds of types of trees. Within two square metres, you'll have trees with leaves big enough to wrap around a child, but also palm trees banana trees, a scores of tropical fruit trees, and maybe even spice trees.

Sukabumi is full of this type of forest. From the moment you enter the park, you are surrounded by the menage of tropical trees, with beautiful fresh air and the breezy chill characteristic of Indonesia's high-altitude areas.

Tanakita has a number of activities and areas to discover, making it perfect for a weekend getaway. The camping price includes camping gear, delicious Indonesian meals, hot showers, and zip lining (weather permitting). There is also river tubing, a very high tree-house overlooking the valley, a picturesque lake with bamboo rafting, and a 2-4 hour hike you can do through the forest to a nearby waterfall.

While I love that this place still feels undiscovered, I can't help but post about it here, because it's just so magical, it needs to be shared.

Getting there:

On our two Sukabumi adventures we took very different routes to get to the park, the second one being better by a long shot. Ideally if you want to get there without your own vehicle, you should take a Commuter train from Jakarta to Bogor station, and then take a pre-booked train from Bogor station to "Cisaat" station in Sukabumi. From there you can flag down an Angkot (not from the station - walk a few blocks in either direction first) and ask the driver if he will take you to the campground for a slightly higher fee. It should be less than 100,000 IDR.

Both times that we went to Sukabumi we meant to take this route; however, the first time we went, I overslept and we missed catching the pre-booked train from Bogor to Cisaat, which meant we needed to find a bus to Sukabumi, and since we weren't able to find a charter bus, we ended up on a really local non-airconditioned bus on which it took us 10 hours to get to Sukabumi. By the time we arrived we were exhausted and gross. However, it was still more than worth it, because when we finally arrived it was paradise and the Tanakita people took such good care of us and let us check out late the next afternoon, so we still had a nice amount of time at the park.

So there it is, one of my favourite places in Indonesia, especially in West Java. Now, if I can just get myself back there again I will be one happy camper.