Haven’t read day 1, check it out now, if you have lets dive straight into our day 2 of our Java road trip.
First things first, coffee!
While we were waking up and having a coffee I took the drone out to see our surroundings.
As I was setting up, we heard a couple of little voices shouting hello and soon the kids approached us smiling and waving. They were so intruiged by the drone they were running around and waving at it.
I soon get up into the air and the view was so stunning.
Trees and rice terraces surrounded us, with a cute little village not far away. In the distance you could see the mountains but it was a little cloudy so we couldn’t see them fully.
When we finished our coffee we packed the essentials and headed to Jagir Waterfall.
Jagir Waterfall
We payed 2,000 rupiah for parking (motorbike) then an additional 5,000 rupiah each to enter the waterfall.
As we were walking down the stairs, we could just see the waterfall. I was excited to get down to see it properly.
The last section bit of stairs we met some lovely local ladies, who were delighted to see us, waving and saying hello.
We continued to the waterfall along a little bridge with red railings which came up from either side to create a vortex type tunnel.
The path was surrounded by colourful flowers and plants and finally we made it.
There were many locals playing around in the waterfall, taking photos and swimming.
We had not come prepared and we didn’t do our research on how religious Java was and we only took bikinis with us! All the ladies swimming were fully clothed, no swimsuits or bikinis in sight.
We decided to respect the culture and not swim but marvelled in the view instead.
Two little girls spotted us and slowly and shyly approached us to get some photos. Soon followed by a local boy and the large group of ladies swimming.
They soon noticed Hossam and crowded around him for photos too, he looked like he was in his element!
After our little spontaneous photoshoot we headed back to the bikes and off to the next destination.
Sendang Seruni
We drove 20 minutes to Sendang Seruni and payed 5,000 rupiah each and started down some more stairs.
Sendang Seruni is a local spot for swimming in natural pools/springs, eat some food and chill in a gazebo.
We sat down for a bit of lunch and another coffee, having chicken and rice. It was delicious and cheap, paying 40,000 rupiah each.
After a bite to each Rachel and me decided to go for a swim.
The water was absolutely freezing but also super refreshing. At the deepest it was 1 meter 60 with a step to get back out along one edge.
Once we were suitably cold we jumped out, dried off then went back to pack so we could get back on the road.
De Djawatan Forest
We got back on the road and drove approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes to De Djawatan Forest.
On entry we payed 40,000 rupiah per person, parked up and started walking through the forest. If you want to fly a drone, do a photoshoot or wedding there are additional charges.
To say it was out of this world is an understatement, the Trembesi trees were breathtaking and it felt like we were part of an avatar movie.
We climbed into one of the big trees and the view was amazing, but watch out for the big spiders. When I say big, we seen on the size of our hand!
We climbed back down and continued walking around marvelling at all the trees.
On our way back out, Mo spotted a tree which you could climb using a rope so of course we all had to give it a go! Check out how we got on in our video and tell us who did the worst job.
The last part getting to the top was the hardest and the fear set in regarding how to get back down.
The Last Leg of The Journey
We jumped back on our bikes then headed across to Jember, where we were going to stop for the night.
We drove around 3 hours making a stop for snacks and continued through the mountain roads at night! It was so scary, the big trucks and the winding roads made for an interesting drive.
Vehicles were overtaking on the worst sections of road and it was slow going, definitely not a 2 hour 15 minute drive like google maps told us!
We eventually made it to Jember and drove through a local fruit and veg market and finally found some street food.
We had chicken sate in peanut sauce, one of my favourite dishes!
While we were eating food we found a hotel for the night, 5 minutes from where we were eating. Fabulous!
When we were finished we drove around to the hotel, Hotel Anugerah, it was super cheap and we got a deal of 100,000 rupiah for 2 people.
We checked in and when we seen our room we realised why it was so cheap.
The room consisted of a double bed and a single bed, no duvet or blanket, a fan (no AC) and a TV which was only in Indonesian.
The bathroom wasn’t much better, we had a local toilet and shower, for those who don’t know this is essentially a hole in the ground to pee and a bucket to shower with.
This was the opposite of luxury like we had the previous night.
Anyway we settled in for the night, got showered then went to bed.
Around 1am we were woken by the creepiest music, it sounded like something from the film Hostel before something bad happened.
We managed to get back to sleep but we knew better for next time!
Follow along for day 3!
