Last week, we went to this local attraction called “Gua Sunyaragi” at Cirebon. “Gua” literally means “Cave” in English, so I expected that the place would be some natural-made landmark turns into profit kind of place. It turned out that I was totally incorrect.
First, the place is not “a natural cave” sort of thing. It was a man-made site, made and owned by Keraton Cirebon (Cirebonese Kingdom). The place was used as a place for the kings to meditate, hence the name sunyaragi which means sunya “silence” and raga “body”.
I didn’t have much time to explore the whole site of Gua Sunyaragi (it was super sunny but raining at the same time), but based on my relatively short visit there, the place consist of (at least) three parts.
The first one is the stage. The first thing you’ll see upon entering the site is a relatively large stage. My wife told me that local art exhibition such as dance are often performed on these stage at particular night.
I think hundreds can fit into this stage.
The second thing you’ll see is a gallery in form of small joglo which displays photos of how Cirebon looked like in the old days. It was plain and simple; Joglo with quite spacious backyard and photos hanged on the wall. Straightforward and old school. No weird stuff.
The third part of the site is the caves. As I mentioned earlier, it wasn’t natural kind of cave. It was man-made, and it feels more like a labirynth instead of cave. And there are lots of them. Some are dead end, some has stairs & levels.
These days, the place is no longer used as a place for kings to meditate. It is an official attraction for tourism. The entrance fee is totally affordable:
IDR 10,000 / person
Gua Sunyaragi, Cirebon
Interested? Here’s the address:
Sunyaragi, Kesambi, Kota Cirebon, Jawa Barat 45132