Raja Kelana

Pameungpeuk is located in West Java, within the Garut Municipal.

What the heck is "Municipal" ? According to Wiki: A municipality is an administrative entity composed of a clearly defined territory and its population and commonly referring to a city, town, or village, or a small grouping of them. A municipality is typically governed by a mayor and a city council or municipal council. In most countries, a municipality is the smallest administrative subdivision to have its own democratically elected representative leadership.

Indonesia consists of 5 big (main) islands, Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan (Borneo), Sulawesi, and Papua. And within those big islands, divided into Provinces. Within Provinces are Municipalities.

So, Pameungpeuk is a small town, in the Garut Municipal, in West Java Province, and clearly on Java Island.

What so special about the place ?

It's south, facing Indian Ocean, palm trees, beach, sand, corals, waves, seawind, fresh air, blue sky...and in the night, while you sit by the beach, listening to the nature, ocean waves, look up to the sky....and the sparkling stars are right on top of your head....as if you could reach them by jumping up to the sky.

Maybe its because of the name Pameungpeuk, which is unqiue, and sounds strange, even for native Indonesian. Well, I have already "something" about Pameungpeuk in Geocities.

Actually, the story is Egil Repstadt's, a Norwegian who visited the place and wrote a travel journal about his journey.

I have my own story too. It was my brother in-law who somehow persuaded me to visit the place. His wife is a Garut native, and we (me, my wife Amy, my daughter Syakira) used to visit them in Garut. Normally we would bring along our nephews in their teens, eager for adventure. And all of us would stay by the in-law's wife parent's house, an old fashioned house from the seventies era (1970).

Strange but true, the most memorable journeys are those which are not planned ahead.

It was not my intention at all to go as far as Pameungpeuk. One lazy day, at the end of the year, after Eid or was it Christmas, me, my wife and my daughter, drove in a sedan to my wife's elder sister's place. She was at home with her teenage daughter and a nephew, watching tv and doing routine errands. After an hour or so, after finding out that my brother in-law, that is my wife's younger brother, was already in Garut, we just couldn't resist the tempation to go to Garut. After leaving a note for the sister's husband, we took off like that, no plans, no preparation.

It was already late in the afternoon, and from Jakarta to Garut takes almost 6 hours drive. We reached Puncak in the evening, around 8 PM and took some half an hour rest. We just drove past Bandung and arrived in Garut at almost 1 AM.

A warm welcome, coffee, cigarette, talk, exhausted, and sleep.

Next day we took a swim at a hot-spring-water swimming pool in Cipanas Garut. Lukewarm water, fresh air, lovely.

On the second day, my brother in-law started talking about Pameungpeuk. He said it's only 4 hours drive and the place is "you won't regret it". I wasn't very much convinced, but in the end, before noon, we got into the car, and off for Pameungpeuk. We were nine in a sedan. Including my brother's in-law wife, and their little son.

The road to Pameungpeuk is quite smooth, but relatively small. We drove up the mountain and reached a tea plantation where we took a rest and had a "picnic" lunch with a breathtaking view, vaguely overlooking Garut. Then drove downhill ... pine trees, cocoa plantation....very quite...could hear the cuckoos I guess, and other birds too, never thought would find such a place in Indonesia, feels like in Switzerland...only few cars passing, mostly small intercity buses, some young daredevils on their motorcycle, but they don't bother us at all. Seems like not many Indonesian people "go" to Pemeungpeuk after all. I was beginning to have doubts about the place, is it worth the trip ?

If you take a closer look at the picture, that's exactly how the road to Pameungpeuk looks like. Just like in the middle of nowhere. We stopped by a cocoa plantation, we never knew how real cocoa "fruit" looked like, took one with us. And another tea plantation. This time with a giant black rock the size of a mountain in the background. Amazing, where did that came from ? Must be billion years old. Can't imagine if it was brought up by the volcano eruption, or perhaps it is a meteorite fallen from the sky ?

The closer we got to Paemeungpeuk, the more flat view we got, and now we could see ricefields, rivers, typical Indonesian scenery.

At the end, I just got a feeling that we almost reached the place, but where is the beach ? No more mountains, and it doesn't look like a road to a resort place or something like that. Well, I must have expected something else....then, while still asking my brother if we are already "there"....a strong sea wind blew through the window...and I could smell a salty ocean water....at last....the beach !

While still driving, looking through the window.....white surf, waves, ocean, sand, palm trees, mangrove trees....that's it, this is the place.

To be honest I was at first a bit disappointed about the place. A bit dirty. Expected some sort of a bit "luxurious" place like Anyer. The road ended in a small fishermen village. That's literally the end of the road. Some small shops, called "warung" selling food, with rooms upstairs for rent. The place was deserted, no tourists in sight, only locals. We were very tired and took two rooms for a less than fifty thousands rups each ! That's very cheap. We could have got it cheaper, if we bargained longer. But needed shower. We had some dinner, and afterwards sat on a bench by the beach, listening to the surf, waves hitting corals and sand, wind, fresh air. That was already dark night, about 8 PM. Up above in the sky....million stars. Looks very close...I said, thank you God, for giving me, us, all this.

We slept quite late, and woke up the next day with fresh feeling. We took a strol to the beach. And the view on the beach was fantastic, endless sand, surf, with palm trees bowing to the sea.
We took a swim, and I almost lost my glasses when a wave hit my face. It was fun, real fun, everybody was laughing. One of the happiest moments in my life, everybody was laughing at me.

After swimming we began to pick some shells in the corral, and while looking for shells I didn't realize we were already far from the coast, meanwhile the tide was getting high, started to cover to corral. When I looked back, my wife and my daughter were shouting and screaming and telling me to turn back. Which I did.

We left the "inn" in the afternoon, and on the way back "home" stopped by another beach, Sayangheulang (see the first picture) , half an hour drive from the place we stayed. This used to be a more popular "resort" place a few years back, but now deserted. There were some huts by the beach, with their owners selling snacks, and we asked the owner for a fish, which they didn't have, but somehow they managed to get some fish and prepared the lunch for us. Plus coconut milk. It was good...and cheap !

We left Pameungpeuk after that, and headed back for Garut, got there at almost 11 PM and had a good good night sleep.

I haven't got a chance to visit the place again. No time. No money. No car. I pray to God, and wish I could bring my wife, my daughter, my family again to see the beautiful beach of Pameungpeuk.

(Acknowledgment: all the pictures are Egil's Repstadt, taken from his page about Pameungpeuk).