Ciwidey Trip

by | Dec 24, 2018 | Bandung, Photo Stories, Places

It’s been awhile since three of us go somewhere new. It’s been a very hectic year on work and all. Thus couple of weeks ago we decided to take a break and do a one night weekend gateway trip to Ciwidey. Ciwidey is still inside Kabupaten Bandung area and only an hour away from Bandung city. Weeks ago, we finally did it.

10:30 – 12:30

Pinisi Resto

We went from the house around 9:00 and went straight to the highway. The first place we visited is the famous Pinisi Restaurant. I found Wikipedia clearly explains what Pinisi is:

Pinisi or phinisi is a traditional Indonesian two-masted sailing ship. It was mainly built by the Konjo tribe, a sub-ethnic group of Bugis-Makassar mostly residents at the Bulukumba regency of South Sulawesi but was, and still is used widely by the Buginese and Makassarese, mostly for inter-insular transportation, cargo and fishing purposes within Indonesian archipelago.

Pinisi Restaurant is a Pinisi-shaped restaurant located on top of Bandung’s hill beside a Patenggang Lake. Pinisi Restaurant’s official name (per Google search result) is “Pinishi Resto – Glamping Ciwidey Situ Patenggang“; So what the area actually offers is a gigantic Pinisi-shaped restaurant + glamping area on the edge of Patenggang Lake.

We arrived at Pinish Restaurant around 10:30-ish. The restaurant actually opens for 24 hours and the restaurant is already little bit crowded at that time. Many people (me included) enthusiastically took picture at the restaurant. I mean seriously, it is a Gigantic Pinishi-shaped building at the edge of a lake on top of Bandung tea-planting hills. I have to say the food that is served is relatively so-so, but man the scenary was glorious.

I managed to fly my Mavic to capture birds-eye view of the area. Beside that, there are small boats available for a ride on the lake for a relatively affordable fee.

  1. Pinisi Resto as seen from the above
  2. Entrance to Pinisi Resto
  3. The sight from “the deck”
  4. Wife & kiddo enjoyed the scenery
  5. Small boat departed to enjoy the lake. The view from the restaurant’s deck was glorious.

10:30 – 12:30

Kawah Putih Crater

After lunch at Pinisi Resto, we went to our next destination: Kawah Putih (literally translates to “White Crater”) crater. Again, per Wikipedia:

Kawah Putih (English: White Crater) is a striking crater lake and tourist spot in a volcanic crater about 50 km south of Bandung in West Java in Indonesia.
Kawah Putih lake (7.10° S 107.24° E) is one of the two craters which make up Mount Patuha, an andesitic stratovolcano (a “composite” volcano). Mount Patuha is one of numerous volcanoes in Java. Kawah Putih crater lake itself represents a relatively stable volcanic system with no records of significant activity since around 1600.

I saw many people took pictures at Kawah Putih on Instagram and I’m always curious to see it directly. To be honest, it didn’t disappoint. Huge surreal white-ish crater with a little smell of sulfur surrounded by dead tree. Surreally impressive.

  1. Wife and kiddo descends to the crater
  2. The “Kawah Putih” crater
  3. Wife and the kiddo at the edge of the crater.
  4. The ramp to the edgier side of the crater
  5. Me having a good time with the kiddo at the crater

16:00 – 09:00

Bubu Jungle Resort

Post sulfuric atmosphere of Kawah Putih, we went straight to the resort. It’s been a while since our last trip together so we decided to look for a fancy resort which was just opened in the area called Bubu Jungle Resort. I have to be honest: the road access to the resort is little bit small but the resort didn’t disappointing. The resort consists of number of hip villa covered by metal cage which makes it looks like an onion. There is  a small pool outside each unit and the facilities are relatively modern.

  1. Bubu Jungle Resort’s room view
  2. Another angle of Bubu Jungle Resort’s room we rented
  3. The resort vibe at the night, around 20:00-ish
We stayed for a night at Bubu Jungle Resort. The view at the evening was awesome but the morning ambience of the resort was jaw dropping.
  1. Wife enjoyed the breath-taking morning view
  2. We chose to have breakfast in our room.
  3. The resort’s onion-shape front office. Most of the building has decorative steel structure which made them have these onion-shaped like
  4. The resort’s morning view
  5. The look of the unit we rented from the outside
  6. The resort’s restaurant table in the morning
  7. The resort’s gate

10:00 – 11:30

Ranca Upas

The next morning, before went back to Bandung, we visited Ranca Upas. I’m not sure if this is correct way to put it, but Ranca Upas is a camping area + deer breeding facility in Ciwidey. The site was relatively empty since it was Monday (my weekend is Sunday to Monday). We simply checked out the deers and feeding them some food.

  1. The male deer calmly chewed his food with this furious look
  2. Another deer seeks for food from the center’s visitor
  3. Some deers chilled & enjoying themselves

11:30

Back To Bandung City

We din’t spent too much time at Ranca Upas. Our goal was simply to check out the deers so Makna can directly see it. Once it has been done, we decided to go back to the city. The time required to go back home is much more faster due to the less traffic on monday and the recently built Soroja highway which connect Banjaran to Bandung.

It was a great weekend trip.

Ciwidey Trip

Photos & Words by Fikri Rasyid

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Photo Gears

All photos and videos are taken using:

– Sony A7 mark 2 + Sony FE 24 f.2 / Sony FE 50 f1.8

– DJI Mavic Pro

Photo Notes

It’s been a while since I had a chance to fly my Mavic. I found aerial photography to be really tricky for two things: framing is quite tricky because not everything looks interesting when you see it from the high above (at first everything looks new and exciting but after do it over and over again you start to notice that most thing looks repetitive from high above) and the second one is lighting: it is so easy for the result to be over/under exposure.

Sony A7ii + Sony FE 24 f.2 / Sony FE 50 f1.8 performs really nicely as usual. Shooting animals makes me wants to have telephoto lens tho.