What’s up surfer! Have you tried
some surfing spot in Indonesia? Yap there are a lot right like Kuta beach in
Bali, Desert Point in Lombok, Mentawai Island in West Sumatra and so on. I just
visited a tend to be quite place to go surfing to last month. Which called
Legok Pari Beach, in Batukaras, West Java, Indonesia.
The place is about 364 km (227
miles) far from the Capitol, Jakarta. The place is definitely different from
Bali where you can find bars and booze store around the corners. You can find
beers though, I am also a local tourist and don’t drink too much alcohol so I
didn’t bother myself to find one. NO NIGHT CLUB. You can buy some booze in the capitol and
bring them there though.
Compared to Bali, The Price is
kind of cheap. I rented a clean room near the main beach (5 min walking) by 10
dollars/night with bathroom for myself, small local Tr V (but useless) and a
fan. You’ll get lower price if you rent for more than a week. Oh ya, Indonesia
is a bargaining country, so you can bargain almost anything here. You can also
get more luxurious place by the beach where you can watch the beautiful sunrise
every day to stay with a nice pool with higher price.
The foods are okay, there are
various cafes you can try here from seafood, pizza, western to traditional food
in “warung”. The prices are also various from US $ 2 /portion till US $ 15.
How do I get there?
You can get to
the place from Jakarta or Bandung the capital of West Java. If you are landed
in Jakarta, you can find the bus pool and ask how to get to Pangandaran. The
crew will help you, to be honest I don’t really know the Capitol. The journey
will take you around twelve hours or so (We aren’t punctual people so apologize
my country for that). You can get the journey cut by ¼ if you are landed in
Bandung airport. So from Bandung there are 2 ways to get there.
First, you can
use shuttle car which I highly recommend because they will drive you to your
place in Batukaras with US $ 10 and they are also able to pick you up to the
airport or just simply come to the pool which just 5 kilometers form the
airport. The car usually leaves around midnight but they are ABLE to call you
and notify that the car will pick you at 10 or 11p, or even 1am. You can sleep
all along the way if you are lucky enough. The Shuttle name is 4848 and the
phone number is +62 2 420 8114. Their
English are bad, so just say I want to go to Batukaras today “Saya, mau ke
Batukaras hari ini” in Indonesian language.
It is sometimes
full booked so you can get the bus from “Cicaheum” bus station. I don’t know
the exact schedule but you can check “Jadwal bis budiman cicaheum –
pangandaran” on google. The name of the bus is “Budiman” and the destination is
Pangandaran, after you arrived In Pangandaran you have to use a car called
“angkot” to “Cijulang” terminal then use a ride from a motorbike rider called
“ojek” to Batukaras. I know that’s pretty annoying to get on and off again and
again, I really hope the shuttle car is available to you so you don’t have to
to use the bus and the angkot and the ojek.
You need to
call the shuttle car again when you’re about to go back to your place or
country, just ask the schedule and seat availability.
What can I do there?
SURFING!!! Yes that’s the first
thing you must do there! Never surf
before? Don’t have a surfboard? Those are no big deals, you can rent a
surfboard for only US $ 5 a whole day, You can also ask the guy who rents it to
be your coach with additional price. The best time is in the morning after the
sunrise, because the beach is still quite and the other surfers are usually no
more than 5. Don’t you ever try surfing on the weekend, you can get drunk or
ask some locals some “mushroom” (again if you are lucky enough) rather than
surfing with 25+ more surfer chasing the same wave, not to mention the swimmer
crowd the beach made me a pretty annoyed.
You can also rent motorbikes to
see around, there is not much to expect there, but I found some interesting
places for me, like the Mangrove Conservation Place, Bale Tau and Fish Market.
I didn’t visit the mangrove place
because I was too busy with my surfing practice, though I only able to stood
and rode it a couple times in2 hours. The place hears to be nice but I don’t
know much.
But I went to “Bale Tau” where I
did my first yoga class with the beautiful and peaceful scenery of the river,
the place belongs to the British woman. She also runs a volunteer class where
you can teach local children anything you could do. They are currently having free
yoga classes every Tuesday and Saturday at 4pm, English class and
Indonesian-Sundanese-English class mixed on the other days.
The place is super go green, it
uses solar panel in every corner and educates go green life to the locals. It
also has a major project to clean the beach three times a year.
Do's:
- - Exchange your money to Indonesian rupiahs for mostly everything, you might be able to use your credit card in only few places in Batukaras.
- - Use Indonesian mobile sim-card, it will help you to book the shuttle because they will call you back to give you further information and use the internet. The best sim-card in there is telkomsel. In case the place you stay in doesn’t provide wi-fi.
- - Bargain for the lower prices, if you stay longer than a week in your hotel, if you go to the traditional market or warung where the price seems unreasonably too expensive.
- - Since there is no grocery store, buy supplies you might need there beforehand. There are some food seller but they usually don’t have everything you need.
- - Ask the locals, they will help you even though they don’t understand your language, some of them usually want to take some pictures after. White skin from western countries or Australia are still rarely found here and thought to be cool, while you might think tanned skin like us are way better.
Dont's:
- - Drunk in public area, you will visit the largest moslem country in the world where half of the girls wear hijab, but we are friendly and not terrorist. I promise that.
- - Show up too much in the bus or public areas, just to avoid something bad. My country is not really safe for someone who has a lot of money, some locals still thinks foreigners are super rich. But don't worry too much, most of my friends went there and there was nothing bad happened to them.
Batukaras is a
perfect place to run away from the city crowds, it is so peacfull at night but
can be crowded in the weekend days. The wave is always looks exciting. And it
is calling you to come!
Have a great
time in Batukaras!
