A Tour Guide Talent 4

Me and The Bules

The Journey Begins

The next morning, I got up a little bit early since I'v got an appointment to take Jessica to the Bus Ticket Booth somewhere in Bandung. According to our plan, once we get back to the hostel we would go to Ciwidey right away. The thing is, It wasn't only the two of us, the trip members expanded from 2 to 12 people, and yes, they are our hostel mates which each of us were having our own travel group.

I met this guy named Rafal, I thought I heard Rafael when he mentioned his named, I really thought that he said it in his polish accent. Which I never met a polish bule before. So we sat in the same table, he was with his wife. After short introduction and a little bit of chat, came to the part where we talked about our plan. I said that me and Jessica was going to The Kawah Putih (white crater) in Ciwidey. 

Then he said "Owh great, Can we join? coz we got nothing to do here, it just happend that we landed here after the train couldn't bring us directly to Jogjakarta". I replied "Of course man, how many of you" "Me and my wife Magda" he said. Then there were these two girls near to our table "Are you guys going somewhere?" one of them asked. "Yes, we are going to the Crater, Fritz can you show them the picture?" Rafal said to them. I spontaneously showed them the pictures from the internet. "Wow, it looks beautiful, can we join too?" one of the girl named Simon asked us. "Yeah, why not!" I said. Considering the more the trip members are, the cheaper the cost will be if we go by rented car.

It was like from 2 trip members suddenly became 6 trip members, how wonderful is that. I said to Rafal that me and Jessica need to go to the bus ticket booth first then we'll go. Once I got back to the front of the Hostel, I met Rafal looking for me. He already prepared a letter addressed to me telling that if by 8am I were not back, He would leave me with his own group, which now expanded again to 12 people. Well, luckily I got there on time. Rafal has got a way to get the rent car.

That time was like a mutualism symbiosis, a win-win relationship. I needed them coz I need to travel in cheaper cost, they needed me coz they needed somebody who can translate Bahasa Indonesia into English, and of course automatically became a tour guide. Sort of...

On our way, we talked almost about everything out of curiosity. It should be common to me talking in English to some foreigners before, but yes, I felt amazing talking to them. We even joking around and laughed a lot. Which is very strange to me, coz neither of us, except for Jessica, uses English as our mother language. Which sometimes, we said things or hear things not in a proper way, which become a joke to laugh at. For example when I said the word "Snack", and Rafal heard it as "Snake". We didn't actually joke, but these kinda thing made us laugh. Jessica was mostly sleeping, maybe she thought that these multi-nations European against local guy did not know what they are saying. LOL.

The funny thing I remembered was, when Rafal asked about Jessica. He said "So Jessica, what are you? Are you like American Chinese or what? cos I thought you were Indonesian Chinese, I've seen a lot of Indonesian Chinese." I said to myself "yeah, that's very true mate!" Then Jessica replied "No, I am not a Chinese, I'm actually a Korean by blood, my parents are from Korea but I'm an American" "Owh I thought you were a Chinese too" I said. "Fritz, I think I told you that right?" Jessica replied to me. "No you didn't" I said "I was even scared to asked you, coz I thought that would be a racist question" I added. Then we laughed again.

It was a very long journey, the normal hour to reach the destination was 2 hours. It was already 4 hours and we just reached the Ciwidey area, and the driver said that we need another one hour to reach the White Crater. We stopped by to Indomaret, to have some drinks and snacks, and of course to pee and stretching our numb mucles. Everyone looked exhausted by the long journey. Luckily this place has Indomaret.

Another 1 hour drive ahead and we will reach the destination. Once we were there, I was acting like a tour leader, or you can say it a tour guide, the free version of tour guide. I searched for information, which is very similar to the internet research. We had to pay for a shuttle car for Rp 20.000,- for Indonesians and Rp 50.000,- for foreigners, luckily Jessica happen to look like Indonesian Chinese that she can pay in local price as long as she could keep her mouth shut. The rest couldn't lie with their faces.

We rode Ontang-anting, as they called the modified vehicle, to the nearest spot of White Crater (Kawah Putih). Then we enjoy the place. Kawah Putih is one of the crater of Mt.Patuha, one of numerous volcanoes in Java. The epic scenery is so amazing. The white and tosca colors of the crater lake is from the sedimentation beneath. It is a sulfuric water that is still be heathen up from below.

There were a lot of other tourists enjoying the place, most of them were locals with very few foreigners, except for our group. Kawah Putih is less famous compared to Bromo or Kawah Ijen or other volcanoes related tourist destinations in Indonesia. 

We took photos, and a lot of them in turn, and in groups which the rain suddenly fall. For me it is a good opportunity to take a selfie with beautiful background with nobody around. Everybody fled to places with canopies to avoid the rain.

Enough with the selfies, I look around for the guys and told them to regroup, coz I thought it was the time to go to the next destinations. We canceled the Lake trip since it was already sunset. So we decided to go to the nearest tea plantation. Once we were there, another photo session begun. Then we ate at the nearby warung (traditional foodshop). Luckily the Nasi Goreng (fried rice) we ordered were delicious, I was afraid that it would turn to be the opposite, even Rafal got two plates of Nasi Goreng that time. I tried other than nasi goreng due to the time of cooking, and the prices were very cheap. The foodseller even gave me discount for my food since I brought a lot of Bule guests.

So, another long journey back ahead. We got to Braga Street at 09.00 pm sharp. I collected the rent car payment which was Rp 150.0000,- each, I thought it's not a bad price for such experience.