Pangandaran Journey

23 July 2014 09:44 Chaidir Salamun No Comments!

From Friday to Saturday (18-19 April 2014), Trendreader held an employee gathering in Pangandaran, which was participated by 39 employees. Unfortunately 4 people couldn't join the fun over personal reason. However, the absence didn't stop the party from going as refreshing event for all employees. So the journey began on Thursday night.

The departure began on the 2nd floor of Trendreader office on Thursday evening. After everyone met their deadline, the crew packed up and received a briefing from the outing committee chairman Razki Raditya upon leaving for Pangandaran.

Let's start from the beginning, shall we? Before deciding on Pangandaran, the committee gave three choices as the outing location: Cikole in Bandung, Papandayan in Garut and Pangandaran beach. It was decided then the majority votes went to Pangandaran beach. After deciding on the location, the committee had a meeting marathon for 2 weeks. The 16 committees gathered everyday during the 2 weeks preparation. Yes… They juggled between their hectic deadlines and the outing preparation. Very multitasking people! We all left as schedule on Thursday (17/4) around 7.30 pm. The warmth feeling was presence during the trip as everyone travelled in one bus. There were laughter and chit chat as everyone mingled. After three short stops along the way, we arrived in Pangandaran on Friday around 6 pm. Precisely as scheduled.

Before entering the hotel, we enjoyed breakfast at OWEN. After a short break at the hotel, we began the jam-packed schedule already arranged by the committees and local event organizer "Planet Pangandaran". We received a short brief from the EO prior to heading to our first location at Batu Hiu beach. If the road to the beach wasn't heavily damaged, we would have easily reached the destination in just 15 minutes. However, we spent 30 minutes on the road. First stop was the beach. Second stop was the turtle conservation nearby.

Everyone took their time to treasure the beauty served at the Batu Hiu beach. No game or other entertainment activity that day. We simply just enjoyed the moment. The view was breathtaking; the beach was clean with soothing fresh air. The coral reef condition along the beach made it impossible for anyone to surf. The tide was high at the time. The beach had a unique view of black stone resembling a shark swimming during a tide.

Meanwhile, the turtle conservation is one of tourism destinations in Pangandaran which is managed by conservation group marine bay (KPBL) Batu Hiu. In here we can learn knowledge about turtle breeding and growth from Kang Didin as the KPL Batu Hiu chairman. What special about this conservation is we can touch and photographed with the turtle.

Around 10 am, we visited Batu Karas beach. After exploring this place, the men conducted their Friday prayer before eating lunch at Sederhana restaurant.

Batu Karas is one of the beach destinations in Pangandaran. The exotic place offers calm panorama and gentle sea waves. All Trendreader employees took their time to blend with the nature, enjoying the soothing wind that cause a bit of sleepiness. In addition to the spectacular view, visitors can take home souvenirs sold at small gift shop along the beach, surf and swim. This beach also become the surfer destination for local and overseas tourism.

After lunch, the journey continued to Green Canyon around 1 pm. Wooow !!! in my opinion, this is the most amazing natural tourism object in this area. After 30 minutes ride from the port, we can see this area is flanked by two hills, many stones and shading tree. After passing the cave which is flown by a river, reliefs started to unveiled, such a unique nature painting. When we've met narrow rapids and difficult to pass, it means we've arrived at the mouth of Green Canyon. When I asked the helmsman of the boat, during holiday around 80 boats could pass by. But during a normal day, less than 10 boats are operated. According to our guide, the Green Canyon was discovered in 1993 by a French man, this can be interpreted that this view was discovered as a national unique natural treasure not long ago. The trip then continued within the basin steep walls on either side of the river flow.

The walls presented its own beauty and the most unique thing is that it almost resembles a collapsed cave. Adrenaline challenge ended at the edge of "Batu Payung" for us, where we climbed on to the rock and then jumped at a height of 7 meters and splashed! Drifted along the river to be flown along the river to the early spot. In this place, a friend of ours had a seizure and fainted while swimming in Batu Payung. Several of our team gave first aid, led by crew and EO members, before he was taken to a clinic for further medical treatment. I was amazed to witness quick action and care shown by the committee and organizers when that happened. Then at 4 am, the whole members went back to the bus and headed to OWEN. With the dirty body after enjoying body rafting in Green Canyon, we took baths while waiting for adhan for Maghrib prayer.

While taking a rest and killing time, we chit chat and sang songs together before adhan for Maghrib prayer. After that, we headed for dinner at Bu Surman diner.

After dinner around 8.30 pm, we went back to Pondok Daun hotel to continue our schedule such as inauguration night; where representative from each division, such as editor, analyst and production; gave speech. Trendreader general manager Marini and owner Mas Bogi also expressed their gratitude and appreciation for the hard work shown by the committee. Meanwhile, Mas Dayat showed support and congratulated Trendreader on the achievements so far. After the night ended, some of us headed back to our room while the others spent the night playing guitar. As for the outing committee, they wrapped up the night with preparing for the next day event.

On Saturday, 19 April 2014, 07.00 am, we had breakfast. The menu arrived at the hotel so we didn't have to go out.

Breakfast was also a momentum for us to get to closer to each other as we all packed in one spot. There were laughter and joy along the way. Two agendas were waiting for us on that day: marine tourism and jungle tracking. Around 8.30 am, we enjoyed marine tourism at Western Pangandaran beach, about 500 meters away from our hotel. Although it offered spectacular view, our hotel was the most impacted place by tsunami when earthquake hit the area in 2006. It was no surprise that there are so many evacuation directions just in case Mother Nature strike again. The unique view from the beach is the white sand. The beach is slop with clear water. The calm wave current also made it possible for us to swim safely. We went on the marine tourism with fisherman motorboat for 30 minute.

Surrounding the white sand beach and enjoying the wave amid the hot sun. The marine tourism has become a livelihood for the local fishermen particularly during the long vacation as many local tourists come to enjoy this beach. The local fishermen become the motorboat services provider in this beach.

We continued the journey to the white sand land, whereas the land has unique fauna of its own such monkey and long tail Lutung. This area has been used since World War II, when the existence the caves from the Japanese heritage were used as hiding place during the war.

The monkey on the island tend to behave aggressively if they seen the food brought by visitors. However, since the monkeys are excellent social creatures, they easily mingle with human and often receive food from them. On the other hand, the long tail lutung live in group and tend to separate themselves from human. This species has smaller population and behave less aggressive.

After jungle tracking, we participated in games designed by the committee. We were grouped in 3-4 members and went thought 5 different games, all determined by teamwork. The sand on the beach drained out our energy when we had to run around to fill bucket with water or look for balloons.

The winner group was determined by who were the faster and the accuracy for each stage. The last phase for each team, they had to track article in several magazines. Several teams struggled more than the others in this game. As for me, since I've never done article tracking before, the game was challenging. My team required more time than the others to complete this game.

After this game, all participants were dehydrated …… So it seemed!!!!! Off course the coconut water became the perfect drink to quench our thirst after running around at the beach all day.

While we were resting, the committee was busy preparing for our next activity, Banana Boat, as a bonus from our EO Planet Pangandaran. Despite the fun throwing each other into the water, the activity was monitored with high safety standard. Banana Boat was out last activity for that day before we checked out of the hotel around 12 pm.

Around 12.30 pm, we had lunch at Yan's Sea Food. Several announcements were made during our lunch, including beach games' winners. My team came in second place with slight time difference with the first winner. Before we headed back to Jakarta, we expressed our gratitude to the local EO Planet Pangandaran for supporting the outing. The outing committee head Razki presented a souvenir as a form of our gratitude to Planet Pangandaran representative.

Around 2.30 pm after lunch and Dzuhur prayer are finished, the groups returned to Jakarta. The journey estimated took around 12 hours before our arrival around 02.00 am in Jakarta.

During the journey, we held singing karaoke in the bus. The contestant who got the most applause would win certain amount of money provided by Bogi, Dayat and our friend. Fiqri won this contest after singing Rhoma Irama's song completed with his funniest body gestures that invited laughter. He got the longest applause and got the money as promised before.

As estimated, we arrived in Jakarta about 3.00 am; half of us stayed at the office due to exhaustion before returning to their home in the morning. I personally went home directly and arrived around 04.30 am.