Orchid Forest Cikole's Fresh Breath of Air

You can plan as long as you want but end up never executing it but you can also pops an idea and five minutes later you’re actually doing it. We had a latter moment weeks ago. We had a free time, my little sister is in town (she’s currently studying abroad), and we felt like it’s time to see places we haven’t seen. I popped up the idea that i always wanted to go to Orchid Forest (a thematic park) at Cikole (about 15 minute-ish from Lembang) but we never had a chance to do it, how about to do it now?

The next thing i knew was we’re on our way to Orchid Forest.

Orchid Forest Cikole

Orchid Forest Location. Click here to see on Google Maps

Orchid Forest is one of the recent thematic park built in Kabupaten Bandung Barat area. The weird thing about the place is it is named Orchid Forest but it is located in a pine forest. So it is kinda weird to call it “Orchid Forest” but when you explain it you’ll keep saying you’re surrounded by a Pine Forest all the time.

The place is located 1km after Grafika Cikole entrance. The road access is pretty good. The parking space is also located in pine forest so the moment we step out of our car, we were greeted by tall pine forest everywhere. The air felt unbelievable fresh.

The entrance fee for Orchid Forest is pretty affordable, only IDR 35,000 per person if i remember it correctly. However, the place looks amazingly well designed and managed; we could feel it the moment we entered the gate.

(left to right) – 1) Orchid Forest parking space in the middle of pine woods, 2) Path to Orchid Forest Entrance, 3) Orchid Forest signage

The Entrance

The first thing we saw after entering Orchid Forest is long pathwalk to the bottom of the hill and several “tree balconies” (not really sure what these things are called) hung on the various trees on various sizes where you can see Orchid Forest from 3 – 5 meter-ish high.

The scenery was awesome.

1) The entrance gate, 2) One of many tree “balcony”, 3) Other tree balcony seen from tree balcony, 4) More scenery from high above

We took couple of photos on the tree balcony. After that we continued walking down the road surrounded by awesomely tall pine woods. Some trees had description card attached to them which explains what its name and its latin name are. After couple of hundreds of meter, there was this souvenir shop selling interesting merchandise.

1) There are description card attached on the tree, 2) Wife, sister, mom, and son 3) Tiger wood sculpture sold as merchandise that can be found on the gift shop

The Orchid House

We kept walking down hill until a signage shown us direction for Orchid Forest’s Orchid House; The green house of Orchids where the name of the theme park come from. The Orchid House was located little bit outside the road. It had various kind of beautiful looking orchids.
1) Sidewalk to Orchid House, 2) Orchids, 3) Orchids inside smaller climate-controlled green house, 4) smaller climate-controlled green house, 5) the path walk inside Orchid House, 6) Orchid Forest Cikole’s Signage, 6) Me & My mom. My mom looked very happy. Orchid is one of her favourite flower.
Group Photo at Orchid House of Orchid Forest Cikole. Mom, Me, Wife, Son, and Little Sister.
We got out of the Orchid House once we had enough fun inside it. There was this big-size wayang-inspired looking chess game outside the Orchid House. We had fun and took couple of photos there. Afterward, we kept walking and found another green house for flowers. This one looked more “open” tho.
1) Big wayang-inspired looking chess game board, 2) Inside look of the other green house, 3) The “open” green house look from the outside.
After the open green house, it was long good ol’ path walk surrounded by pine woods. There was a tented-stall selling flowers, interestingly shaped toilets with thoughtful pair of squat and sit toilet, and lots of greenery.
1) Tented-stall selling flowers, 2) good ol long path walk surrounded by pine woods, 3) interesting-shaped toilets with squat and sitting toilet options

The Rabbit Forest

After walking for a while, we stumbled upon a must-have attraction for thematic park in Lembang area: rabbit mini-zoo. Orchid Forest names it “Rabbit Forest” (all thematic parks in lembang have rabbit mini-zoo). The site looks pretty much like other rabbit mini-zoo with several distinctions:

  • The area is pretty large
  • It is still free of charge
  • The rabbit’s cage are shaped into mini-house made from the wood. So it looks like the rabbits live on their own cute-mini town.
1) The gate is hidden under very tall pine woods, 2) Rabbit Forest. It’s more of Rabbit Village to me tho, 3) My Son, assisted by my Mom, tries to feed the rabbit, 4) The rabbit sits like a boss, 4) My son chases the rabbit, 5) My son still chases the rabbit, 6) My son caress the rabbit

We were pretty tired and starved after we got out from Rabbit Forest. Luckily, there was a food court right after Rabbit Forest. We took some time for rest and ate some snacks. The food court was pretty clean and well designed. There was not many people; Probably because it was monday.

1) The food court from outside, 2) We ate in the food court

The Wood Bridge

After done eating and little bit of resting, we moved forward and decided to try Orchid Forest’s simple suspension bridge which is tied on top of the Pine Woods dubbed as “Wood Bridge”. It costs around IDR 20k per person including a zip line (mostly known as “flying fox” in Indonesia) at the end of the bridge. You can also optin for walk down the hill if zip-lining isn’t your thing.

The bridge was pretty long. I estimated the length was at least 300 meter-ish.

1) The Wood Bridge’s Signage. Orchid Forest is generally well designed except for its attraction signage: they use green color which is surrounded by other natural greenery. Not a good contrast, 2) A path walk down the hill which you can choose if you don’t want to zip line, 3) We were at the bridge, 4) We were still at the bridge, 5) The length of the suspension bridge, 6) The view from the above

The suspension bridge was a great fun of walk and photo opportunity. After we reached the end of the bridge, me and my sister zip-lining until the bottom of the hill while my mom, wife, and son took a walk.
1) The zip-line platform, 2) Some dude zip-lining toward the end of the hill, 3) At the bottom of the hill

The End

We were now at the end of the road of the Orchid Forest. We walked outside and transported back to the parking area using Shuttle Car. A very nice design by Orchid Forest: intentionally make the flow of the visitor one directional and help them go back to the parking space using shuttle car.
1) The end of the road of the Orchid Forest, 2) Shuttle car that brought us back to the parking space, 3) Right before the turn to the parking space

Photo Notes

The photos were taken using Sony α7 mark 2 + FE 28mm f2 OSS lens that i recently bought and I loved it. The lens’ field of view is appropriately wide for my preference and the camera took pictures with a very good dynamic range. The color pops up more and the blur caused by hand jitter is relatively reduced thanks to its in body camera stabilization. So far, me likey!