TEBING KERATON

On my latest trip to Bandung, precisely on the first day before actually arriving in Bandung. My friends and I made a stop at this highly talked about area called Tebing Keraton. It’s been there for quite some time, but for some reasons more and more people are talking about this lately, some even claimed this as Bandung’s very own Gunung Bromo, oh well.

Tebing Keraton is located at Cimenyan, Dago. Since I came from Jakarta, I rely myself 100% to Google Maps, it gave 85% accurate path and not to mention, I went with a friend of mine who used to live in Bandung for almost 7 years, so he knows Bandung in and out. I departed from Jakarta around 4 AM, after a stop and very relaxed driving, we managed to arrive at Tebing Keraton around 7:30 AM.

We parked our car near this stall named “Warung Bandrek” as NO CAR is allowed to go further than this area, ojeks were everywhere in this area and the Warung Bandrek seemed like the ojek basecamp. The back and forth ojek ride would cost you IDR 50k (standard price here), or IDR 40k if you ride the motorcycle yourself. Initially decided to walk, THAT before we realized that we had to walk 2,5 kms and at least would cost us 40 minutes, so yeah motorcycle to the rescue! Since both of us can ride motorcycles, we chose to ride ourselves.

The road seems all well-polished at the beginning, that until the first 2 minutes of driving where I noticed that MOST of the road was in a very-very bad condition, they’re so bad they’re actually destroyed and very rocky, riding the motorcycle was like a horror, and I mean it. Not to mention, the road featured steep climbs and downs along the way.

Another thing that I found lacking was signages! When we were driving, we were like alone and there wasn’t anybody near us. We continued driving straight as we really thought we were on the right way, BUUUT there’s this particular rocky climbs that was crazy steep and was almost impossible to go through, but still feeling like we’re on the right way, we continued and continued driving, until...

WE FUCKING FELL! OMG LIKE BRUTALLY FELL FROM THE HALFWAY OF THAT PARTICULAR CLIMBS!

Imagine how the engine suddenly stopped, the road was super rocky and all we did was tried as hard as we could to stop the motorcycle from falling backwards with four feet, but failed eventually, I really thought I was going to get hurt so bad.

God loves us. We felt like we fell hard, but we were just like... fell, and fortunately we didn’t get any major injury, nor feeling shocked. The funny thing was this one young lady who watched us fell, but she was so relaxed and approached us slowly while JUST smiling and asking “where are you going?”. Like seriously bitch, I expected some help LOL.

We told her we’re reaching Tebing Keraton and that was the moment when I knew that we were taking the wrong way all that time. See? Little details like a signage could really help first-timers like us. We were right about keeping the path straight from the start, but what we didn’t notice was this left turn, which not far from that, the entrance to Tebing Keraton. NOTE FOR THE GOVERNMENT.

That was the last straw that I thought hiring the driver supposed to be a good idea and IDR 50k was very worth it, it’s about THE SAFETY! Not to mention when you actually drive yourself, you have to park the motorcycle and pay extra IDR 5k for the parking fee.

The ticket price for locals was IDR 11k, and foreigners were charged IDR 51k.

2 minutes walk from the ticket booth, there was this fractured path where you could choose to go left or right. Again, there was no clear signage of where this path would lead us, so we chose the right one first, but let me tell you here clear and loud. The left one will lead you to the actual “Tebing Keraton”, and the right one will lead you to the “pine forest”, both were totally different.

You go to the pine forest if let’s say you want to take some Instagenic shots for your Instagram like I did. Must admit it was a little tricky as there were so many people packing the forest and creating the clear shot seemed impossible, but I guess it’s all about the angle and how you created your picture. Lucky for us the sun was shining very bright and managed to capture a little “flare” action here yay!

The left path wil lead you to the actual cliff, I heard not so long ago, they just covered everything with a safety gate, boy I really think THAT should be their first instinct from the very beginning. The news I got from my friends was that some visitors were dare enough to climb the gate and take photos on the tip of the rocky cliff below, which is completely NOT suggested. I wouldn’t bother risking my life just for the sake of good photos.

I don’t mean to be a bitch to my own nature, but I honestly expected more from Tebing Keraton. There were several things that made my visit less special: the place was super crowded, I visited Tebing Keraton during the holiday, and the main cliff wasn’t exactly spacious, and everyone needed to wait for the photo shot (behind the scene was not THAT glamorous people!), well I don’t mind waiting, but I personally don’t really like places that are too crowded, and PLUS keep in mind that we’re hundreds or probably thousands of meters above the sea surface and that means we’re closer to the sun, and yes, when I expected Tebing Keraton to be cold, it was a total opposite, and I mean, TOTAL. It was pretty humid up there.

And don’t forget the incident when I fell from the motorcycle, but hands down, that’s THE MOST UNFORGETTABLE THING on that trip!

But if I am the one to blame, then it’s probably because I didn’t arrive precisely during the sunrise, so what I saw was a common green scenery of hills. I heard the sunrise scene is pretty gorgeous, you get to see the actual sunrays and fog! OK better luck next time I guess! Take note bitches!

Not that I think Tebing Keraton is not beautiful or overrated, but I guess I have to come back here at a different hour (earlier). If you’ve been to Tebing Keraton and have photos to show, comment below and tag me on Instagram ;).

Thank you for reading!

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Map for Tebing Keraton