Back to the beach

Trip Start Sep 01, 2009

Trip End Ongoing

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Flag of Indonesia Pangandaran, Indonesia
Thursday, October 15, 2009

Just like getting to Dieng, getting out was just as confusing. We went from a one hour packed bus ride to a two hour bus ride followed by a three hour bus ride. Once again...we got air....only this time, we eventually had to move further up the bus...as the roads were less than optimal and clearly the bus driver did not own the bus. After finding what we thought was the best villa for us to stay in, we decided to splurge.....and get some a/c....woo-hoo! We walked around town and discovered that Pangandaran is a small beach town which is apparently the best beach in Java. It had been devastated by a tsunami just a couple of years ago and we had learned about it after talking to some of its survivors. Now, when we say "small beach town", we mean that as soon as we sat down for dinner that night, one of the local tour operators conveniently sat himself down right beside us and told us of the tours he had to offer. He knew exactly when we had arrived, where we were staying and even probably that we had a/c in our room

Most beautiful beach in Java

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The next morning we had breakfast on our balcony and then decided to check out the beach. The beach was long, had nice sand and shallow water for a long ways. We walked down for awhile watching the local fisherman pull in their nets and search through the waters for something..although we are not sure what. The rest of the day was spent relaxing on our balcony, reading our new purchases before going for a run. Reading about how great the seafood is in Pangandaran, we had to have a try for ourselves at a little local spot. Not knowing exactly what we ordered, we were pleasantly surprise with huge shrimp dinners which were delicious as promised.

Still craving more banana-chocolate pancakes, we ordered the closest option at our villa....banana pancakes. Having the tour operator talking us into a full day tour, we started off at nine that morning getting our second scooter experience. This time we weren't required to show our license or sign anything to drive the bikes, but instead just got questioned "have you ever driven one before? are you sure?"....and off we went. Our first stop was at the brown sugar factory (a small one person hut where they produce brown sugar from the palm tree flowers). This was then followed by a tree climbing lesson (the "white monkey" was what the locals called us if we tried ourselves)

Making some brown sugar

. Next stop was the puppet factory. Here they carved the puppets out of Balsa trees. Next stop....the real destination...the Green Canyon. Not knowing what to expect, we first took a boat ride through the green river which was cool in itself. We then stopped at a spot in the canyon which was packed with other boats. We couldn't really see what all of the commotion was about as we got off the boat, until we hopped in the water and started swimming against the current through the canyon. Following our guide, we went around pulling ourselves along the rock edge from one corner to the next. Stop offs included cliff jumping and strong current rides to glide you through the rocks back to the start. We then made our way back stopping off at another beach. We spent a couple of hours watching the surfers and playing in the water. The final stop was at the turtle conservation where we got to pick up the nine-month old sea turtles.

The next morning, still on our chocolate-banana pancake craze, we went out on the search. The restaurant we ended up at didn't actually have chocolate-banana pancakes on the menu, but they made them for us anyways....and were they delicious.....but did we pay for it. We then continued onto the beach for a couple of hours and played in the huge waves. Later we found another restaurant that was right by our place but we hadn't noticed the entire time...what did we see on the menu....chocolate-banana pancakes...and for cheap.

On to Bandung...