At The Stone Garden of Gunung Masigit

It rained when we got to the Stone Garden at the top of Gunung Masigit, so we had to take a shelter in a makeshift hut that had apparently been left by some previous climbers and waited for the rain to stop.We began exploring the place when the rain finally stopped.

The stone garden is a magnificent place. It's a vast field scattered with stones of different sizes and fascinating shapes. The landscape is 'bizzare'. To me, being there is like being in a far away strange land.

Here are a some more photos I took there. The light is a bit diffused and warm because the sky was cloudy and it was almost sunset time.

Hujan turun ketika kami tiba di Taman Bebatuan (Stone Garden) di puncak Gunung Masigit. Kami harus berteduh sejenak di sebuah gubung yang ditinggalkan oleh pendaki-pendaki sebelumnya untuk menunggu hujan reda sebelum mulai menjelajahi keindahan tempat ini.

Valley of Limestone Factory

This is what we saw at about half-way through our climb. Below in the valley are areas of the Rajamandala mountain range that have been mined for their limestone with a limestone processing factory in the middle. Ugliness is creeping in and destroying Bandung's ancient geological heritage.

Pemandangann yang kami lihat di puncak pertama Gunung Masigit, kira-kira di tengah jalan antara Gua Pawon dan Taman Bebatuan (Stone Gardens). Banyak gunung kapur di daerah ini yang telah hancur ditambang. Beberapa puluh tahun ke depan, mungkin kita tak akan dapat lagi menyaksikan kemegahan karst Rajamandala seperti yang masih bisa kita saksikan sekarang.

Inside the Pawon Cave

The first place that we visited after the lunch was Gua Pawon (Pawon Cave). Unlike the Sang Hyang Poek, the Pawon Cave is a large, multi-story, and multi-chamber cave with a naturally-occuring inside courtyard and garden. It's like a huge apartment of the ancient time. Indeed, it was. The discovery of household and hunting weapon artifacts and human skeleton fossils confirmed that this place was a dwelling place of the prehistoric Bandung Plateau residents some 10,000 years ago.

We entered the cave from what experts believe to be the kitchen located at the lower level of the cave after a short track and climb from our basecamp, which is only about a few hundrerd meters from the cave. 'The kitchen' is probably where the name of this cave is derived from. Pawon, the name of the cave, in Sundanese (the native language of the West Javanese people), means kitchen. Legend-wise, this cave is also believed to be the kitchen where the foods for the wedding of Sangkuriang were prepared.

From the kitchen -- the entrance -- we climbed further through a small 'alleyway' onto the second floor and another chamber that faces what looked like a courtyard garden. Here, our tour leader gave more explanations about the cave.

Here is 'the door' (the opening) in the second floor of the cave that leads to the courtyard garden.

And the courtyard garden seen from a chamber believed to be the main hall or the common room of the ancient cave dwellers.

There's also a big window in this chamber from which we can see the beautiful green valley underneath. I suppose our ancestors loved a room with a view too. :)

Explanation about Karst

After the lunch (see yesterday's post), we relaxed a bit and listened to our tour leader give the explanations (and let us ask questions) about how karst is formed so that we may appreciate better what we'd explore and see in the next phase of our Bandung geological history tour.

Setelah botram (lihat posting kemarin), kami beristirahat sejenak untuk mendengarkan pemandu wisata kami memberikan penjelasan mengenai karst agar kami bisa lebih mengapresiasi kawasan karst yang akan kami jelajahi dan lihat setelah itu.

Botram Lunch

From the Saguling area, where we visited the cave of Sang Hyang Poek and the underwater cavern of Sang Hyang Tikoro, we continued our trip to the Rajamandala Karst in the west of Padalarang, about 25 kilometers to the west of Bandung.

The trip from Saguling to Gununng Masigit Village, the 'base camp' from which we would start our exploration of the Rajamandala Karst, took about 45 minutes. It's about lunch time when we got there. And here's how our luch was prepared:

The Sundanese people (the idigenous people of West Java) call it botram. I don't know what the most appropriate English translation would be because, depending on what the context is, it can be described as a friendly gathering diner, a picnic, or a potluck. I'd describe it as a communal eating where everybody would eat foods (usually simple ones) prepared on a single platform like the whole banana leaf you see in the above picture.

Our botram lunch that day consisted of nasi liwet (rice coocked with spices and salt fish/anchovy), fried chicken, tempeh and tofu, lapapan (fresh vegetables) and sambal (fresh chilli sauce). As you can see from the above picture, everybody ate the same foods spread over the banana leaf using their hand.

Dari daerah Saguling di mana kami mengunjungi Gua Sang Hyang Poek dan Sang Hyang Tikoro, perjalan kami lanjutkan ke kawasan Karst Rajamandala di sebelah barat Padalarang. Sebelum memulai eksplorasi kawasan tersebut kami botram makan siang dengan menu nasi liwet, tempe goreng, tahu goreng, ayam goreng, lalapan dan sambel.

West Padalarang Karst

A limestone mountain (hill?) or what remains of it of the west Padalarang karst at Citatah. The winding curve you see in the picture is the road used by local miners and mining company to extract or mine limestone.

The west Padalarang karst is located about 22 kilometers to the west of Bandung. The karst has been heavily mined for its limestone and other mineral deposits. It has been the concern of many environmentalists and geologists because of the prehistoric significance this place has in the formation of the Bandung plateau. They are afraid that much of geological and bio-diversity evidence will be lost because of the mining activities.

I am going to tell more about this place at later posts.