I didn’t realize that I had a “thing” for suspension bridges until I went to the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park in Vancouver last year. You can read about that day here.

My daughter remembered, partly because when she asked where I thought she should go on her trip to Taiwan, I picked the options that included suspension bridges. She specifically included a suspension bridge trip for my visit, so I knew was going to enjoy this day because it was going to involve a suspension bridge and a zipline.

Still, the trip to Jembatan Gantunga Lembah Purba National Park exceeded my expectations.

Sunday, February 22, 2024

Once again, we met our guide in the KFC parking lot. His brother was going to be the driver and had just started working with the guide company. I don’t remember much else from the ride there because, once again, I promptly fell asleep.

The drive was about 3 hours. We did a stop halfway there for a bathroom break and to get gas, but it was quick, and the next thing I knew, we were in a parking lot in the middle of a gorgeous forest. I remember really sleeping hard in the car on this trip for some reason. So I was feeling a bit bleary getting out of the car.

I mean I remember that I had my welcome snack (above in the middle), and I went to bathroom, but it was all fuzzy from me still being sleepy. I don’t even remember what the snack was. On the right was a banana (so sweet), but I can’t remember what the white stuff was kind of like a potato, but not a potato.

We were only spending one day at the park, but this is a place that you could spend a LOT more time in. Many people were there camping, and you could easily spend days walking/hiking between different venues and doing one activity a day. The whole place is beautiful. You will see lots more pictures like the one above on the right with Kiana and our guide.

Check out their website to see all the other things, especially the glamping accomodations! I’ve already shared the specific trip with a friend who will be visiting Indonesia with her family this summer.

We did things in a different order than usual because our guide was afraid it was going to rain, and they close the Flying Fox zipline when it rains. So we went to do that first.

Give me a zipline, and I’m happy. Also, there is no way you can feel drowsy after doing one. I love the feeling of secure flying.

What is handy is that if you aren’t spending a lot of time at the park, you don’t have to worry. They have ojeks all over the park to take you between venues. There is no way we could have gotten between the different stops merely by walking and still have had time to do everything.

In the first picture, top left, you can see my writstbands for the trip. These tickets include a certain number of transports. The second picture is of us all in line getting our bands checked before heading off. I have video of some of my ojek rides on this day, but they are too big to send to myself and post. I will have to figure out how to reduce the size so I can share. I really want everyone to see how pretty everything was and to admire how well I was doing filming over some bouncy and muddy terrain. You can still see how lush everything is there.

Our next stop was the Situ Gunung Suspension bridge which is the longest suspension bridge in Southeast Asia at 243 meters.

The very first picture in this post is of Kiana and me taken by our guide at the bridge. Everything about it was beautiful. The fog did start clearing up, and you could see all sorts of different kinds of plants and tops of trees.

Top left is a little rest place on one of the hiking trails, and the other two pictures above are of a different suspension bridge in the distance. Click on each to see them better. I remember thinking that the other bridge looked scarier than the one we were on. I didn’t know that I would find out if this was true or not. Maybe when you are on the bridges, you can’t really comprehend how high or how small they look.

After crossing the bridge, we continued walking until we go to another restaurant area. This was so pretty that I forgot to take a picture of the sign at the restaurant. I was completely drawn to what I kept referring to as “the Nest.” I’m pretty sure it’s called something else.

I can imagine people wanting wedding pictures here. I could have sat there a long time. I think we did get to sit longer than usual because it wasn’t that crowded.

I can also imagine just coming here to the park walk through the trails and doing nothing else. It’s just breathtaking and much cooler than in Jakarta. Yes, some of it is because it was so overcast, but even with the rain in Jakarta, it wasn’t as cool as it was here. Plus, it was not nearly as humid despite the fog.

I made sure to take a bunch of random pictures of different places on the trails as we walked to get a representation of the variety of trail space/type.

There are also bathrooms along the way and different places to stop for snack or music breaks!

We were heading to the next popular picture spot: the Curug Sawer Falls.

I don’t usually plug products, but I’m going to talk about my Keene H2 sandals. There is no way I would have been scrambling over these rocks in other shoes. I know that Kiana did and so did the guide and his brother, but they are all around thirty years younger than me. I need as much grip help as I can get. They are spendy, but worth every penny and last a LONG time.

From here, we headed over to the Keranjan Sultan, a hanging basket ride that takes you through the forest over a pretty creek.

Then it was time to head to another suspension bridge. It was the one that I had seen from a distance earlier. We had crossed paths with a group of men who were on some reunion trip together; the word “reunion” was the only word I understood from their matiching t-shirts. They were clearly having a good time. We had seen them waiting for the ride above, but some of them did NOT look ready to cross this bridge.

In the big selfie picture below, you can see them all in the distance behind me; first Kiana, then our guide and his brother, and then all of them in their black tshirts holding on. As anyone who has been on one knows, the more people on a suspension bridge the more it moves which I’m sure made them even more nervous. Still, I liked seeing them together; they were really supporting (and teasing) each other through it!

Since we could see this bridge from the other larger one, it shouldn’t surprise you that we could see the other bridge from here. What did suprise me was how far away it was and how much higher it seemed then when I had been on it.

This is not a trip you should take if you are afraid of heights. The next stopping place was a place that you could get food, but the cafe was not the main attraction.

As you can see, I did eventually get out to where Kiana was sitting, but unlike her, I did not nimbly walk across the ropes to the edge. I took two steps, stumbled, and went the rest of the way on my hands and knees. The view was worth it.

We still had one more place to see, and it was like the weather was watching because it waited until we were under cover to start pouring. I still did got some great pictures. Situ Gunung Lake is beautiful even on such an overcast day.

This is another place that people can camp, and there were a number of people who had tents set up or who were setting up tents around the lake.

That was the last stop in the park, and the only regret I have is that we didn’t get to ride an ojek again even though there are plenty stationed at the lake. I was tired and the walk back to the parking lot was a bit of a hill, but it turned out not to be that long.

We got in the van and drove about 20 minutes to get to the cafe where we were scheduled to have lunch.

Namu Tuang Cafe & Resto was a lovely place. It doesn’t have a website, but it does have a Facebook page so you can go there to see more pictures. I remember thinking it would be a nice place to have a small wedding reception even before I saw the sign that you could rent out space for weddings. It was fitting because one of the places in the park was a place you could order wedding invitations. I remember thinking it was odd, but maybe people go there and inspired by the beauty decide to get engaged.

I only have about three more pictures from the van before I fell asleep. Kiana woke me up once to ask if I needed to go to the bathroom. I know that our guide and his brother were probably relieved when I said I didn’t because the trip back was long. Typical Sunday evening traffic back from a vacation spot. They didn’t want to have to stop at one of the rest stops because they knew with the crowds how much time that would add to an already long trip.

But what a perfect day and being dropped up practically in front of the place we lived was even better.

Another plug. My daughter did all her trip bookings through a complany called klook. I had never heard of them before, but they have trips all over the world and pages in multiple languages. The next trip I organize, I will look here because all of the trips I went on while in Indonesia were really well organized.