On the eve of Thursday, there was a sudden calling to make a one-day trip to Bandung during the weekend. After four months had been mandatory asked to work from home, reconnecting with fellow friends was honestly aspired. As most people would not travelling anywhere, I imagined that the road would not get so much traffic as it used to and this idea of a trip would then be possible. And fortunately, I was right.
As the by-product of patience and never-ending traffic jam for years, the Elevated Toll Road came into handy. It cut off the normal travel time of BSD-Bandung by an hour! (well maybe by six hours if you count how crazy the traffic was during the Elevated construction).
Bandung always had its way to welcome its long-missed people. At instance, I could feel how the cold yet warm air caressed my face when I opened the car door on the Juanda Forest Park complex. My friend suggested that our primary agenda that day was to venture the Park from its other entrance, the one that is located on Maribaya (the main entrance to the park that most people come is the one in Dago). She told us that there were a fair Curug (waterfall) and great picnic area at the end of our hiking route.
We did not consider the hiking hard at all. It only took us around twenty minutes or so to reach the Curug bridge. The waterfall stream is nestled between rocky hills. Since the waterfall is nearer to its conjoint end to Cikapundung river rather than its upstream on the mountain, the water quality is not exactly clean as its colluded with trashes. People are prohibited to swim there for sanity reason.
Despite that, the surrounding scenery and morning air by the tress was second to none.
Just beside the steady stream of Curug, we found this vast area for picnic and enjoying some meals from the local warung (vendor). They really maintained the area well; it was clean, the grass was constantly mowed and hardly any litters were visible. We got to select our picnic spot wherever we desired as there were hardly people there (guess that was the perk of an early bird). The lady from the warung was nice and she offered us the menu for our breakfast to order. For we already did our morning chores to hike those hills, the amount of foods that we ordered was then logical.
Little did we know that this soothing picnic area was notorious for its lurking forest monkeys. They were everywhere! On the trees, behind hills and rock, and they readily stole our foods whenever we lost our guard. Inevitably, when our orders came to serve it was instantly becoming a battle ground: Hungry-Tired Human vs Hungry-Tenacious Monkeys.
Even though the warung lady had equipped us with this faux slingshot which under her instruction we only had to pretend to aim the slingshot to the monkeys, they were indeed some resilient ones. We broke into formation to watch each other’s back when we ate our foods. One had to stay on guard while the others were eating.
At the end, two points from monkeys and zero point to human. Those scary monkeys succeeded to steal one bag of crackers and handful of tofu (which I love them dearly).
What we imagined as relaxing morning with cup of warm tea and inspiring book on hand turned into a thrilling morning with constant lookout for cunning monkeys. It was too risky for just laying down and ignoring them. God knew how aggressive they were.
However, we totally enjoyed the laughter and screams, and those primates surely had shaped the overall experience even better. None of the monkeys were captured in the photo.
After four months staying at home, one of the takeaways that rang loudest to me was about connection to others especially to those that we cherished the most. I felt that many trivial activities of life had been taken for granted. The longing feeling to meet and to reconnect with friends or even families had become unbearable.
Who would expect that several hours of picnic in Bandung could be so recharging and fulfilling? That enabled me to put things into different lenses. The one that projects gratitude and sense of living in the moment. One big theme that remained in pursuit during this dire situation was on mental healthiness. I sensed that maintaining our mental being was as important as maintaining our physical distancing. Each person might have different approach for reaching that state, but thankful that after that trip ended I at least found it on-check whenever connecting with friends and coming back on the road.
-R
*On the day that this post was written, Indonesia just passed the 100k mark of number of people infected by disastrous corona virus. This unprecedented situation made our world upside-down. Throughout places that we visited in Bandung, at our best, we always followed the health protocol and maintain proper physical distancing.
Journey on Journal 