Taman Hutan Raya Ir. H. Djuanda — Attraction in West Java

Monday morning hike-trail run from Taman Hutan Raya Djuanda to Curug Omas Maribaya

so ... after settling some stuff in Jakarta for a more convenient living including had AC, fridge and washing machine fixed, I finally got the chance to try Bandung's very own conservation forest ...

Taman Hutan Raya Juanda is located in the once lush green hill overlooking Bandung as an ancient escarpment. It is still green though, but penetration of human settlement is just way too deep. So sad that it leaves no space between public housing and the provincial (national??) park itself.

What is more ironic is that several hundred metres away from the park gate, lies a HIDEOUS high rising CONDOTEL APARTMENT, spoiling the view on my way to Tahura Juanda. But, hey, I'm here to be among the green, instead of whining ...

So, my first impression of the park is: Tahura Juanda is quite promising as a regular hiking site, but yes, it needs a lot of improvements, especially in terms of choices of trails and its cleanliness 😩😩 ...

By far, on my first trial of the Tahura Park, I found three major trails. The firstbtwo are main official trail varying from main trail from Gate I and trail fromGate II, which actually is the same trail, with a variation of going through the deer breeding area or sticking to the main trail.

Should you take Gate I, after paying a Rp.15.000 (less than $1 for locals, but $4 for international.tourist) you will.be greeted by a jungle cafe. Of course the intention is good, but most likely in the end you're sacrificing the park ecosystem and of course its cleanliness ... Somehow I also see it as a chance of educating people in maintaining cleanliness ...

The thing about Gate I is you can either choose to take the plain and easy main trail, or take a more adventurous one. It's quite easy for you to gues which one I choose. Gate II which is further up the road, offers an easier access to park. For me it simply means less chance for walking, so I avoid it ... lol 😂😂

The more adventueous trail includes crossing an old suspension bridge, shaky and rusty despite being painted yellow (the smell of rust lingers on your fingers, so having a glove before crossing the bridge is helpful). Under the suspension bridge is a narrow, steep and sharp rocky cliff small meandering gorge. Do not lookdown if you are acrophobic. Well, evennid you are jot an acrophobic, it will still give you the chill or "singunen" in Javanese term.

I came quite early in the morning ... at around 6.30, the ticket guy had just arrived and hadn't even sat on his chair, let alone having his morning coffee. He didn't even have any change for me, so he decided that I could get the change later on when other visitors came and paid, giving him some extra change for me.

Caves are the first two attractions you will find, an old Japanese cave and a Dutch one. They offer guide for Rp. 30.000 or a little over $2 only. I haven't tried to explore the caves as I left my flashlight at home ... On your trail to the caves, you'll encounter a wuite population of monkeys. Some are familiar with human, especially the adult ones, while the young ones are still afraid of human.

As rule of thumb in most conservation area, we are not supposed to feed its wildlife using "human" food to avoid making them dependent to visitors and lost their natural instinct in finding food to survive.

The park also serves as beekeeping facilities, so you'll fiind many bee houses along the way after crossing the gorge. The sound of it buzzing somehow give me peace ... lol

Deer breeding ground is one of the perks crossing the shaky suspension which can only be crossed by 4 people at a time ... in the deer breeding area, you will also meet locals selling natural honey harveated from the beehive houses scattered around the area. Gotta try it someday ... It is direct from the farmer, so I hope it helps locals community.

Not far from the breeding ground, you will find a dam, dividing Cikapundung stream into three streams, one for Bengkok power plant turbines (I should...

Incredible forest with amazing views and monkeys everywhere, plenty of young cute indonesian kids on school trips who are so adorable and friendly and say hello and want a photo with you

Didn't realise there was an entry fee to the forest but it wasn't too bad at about 50-60k per person if i remember correctly, when you enter the main entrance there is a left or a right way, to be honest left I went the whole way and I dont think there is anything important worth seeing, mainly picnic areas, if you go right thats where you can see the caves, lots of monkeys, the waterfall is quite far probably the other side of the forest so quite tiring

The caves arent really that interesting for me personally, also pitch black, was some guy with flashlights you could use but think he was charging, tried using my phone flashlight which wasnt too bad but still nothing inside the caves, however it is a handy straight shortcut through the forest which can save a good 15-20 mins walking around the mountain of trees

I originally started walking right from the entrance, passed the caves and came to an area of a lot of monkeys in packs, was a bit skeptical passing at first but passed a first group and started to think they were okay, then got to a second group and was a bit unsure, also thought there was nothing much further going on and I assumed more interesting things were further back and the left way as thats where all the school kids were going

So I headed back and went the left way, got to the end and realised I was wrong and there wasn't anything left and maybe I should go back the right way and just continue on past the monkeys, (this probably added to my being tired after lots of walking later on)

Continued right and got past monkeys, in all honesty once you go past the caves, there isnt really anything massively interesting apart from beautiful scenery and monkeys every so often, made it my goal with how far I had already came to get to the end of the park and see the waterfall, was eventually getting to the stream which is sadly polluted with lots of rubbish, kept pursuing following the rough path (you need good shoes, patience and persistence for this walk) then got so far and had to eventually quit and didn't make it to the waterfall, another sad thing is you walk all this way and there is no exit at the end (at least thats what locals told me) so had to walk all that way back again to get to the main entrance to exit again, a very long long tiresome walk, great exercise and beautiful scenery but hope others can benefit from my mistakes, still an incredible visit that I would recommend and nice to see the monkeys also who in my experience at least were safe and friendly, of course you have your doubts because they are still animals, you just have to keep your wits about you and dont be one of those people who...

It was my first time visiting this place. I came to this place from the second entrance. This place was very dirty and not maintained. There are 2 caves here. Japanese cave and Dutch cave. The Japanese cave is unique, it is also very spooky, and dark. There is some tour guides outside the cave offering the flashlight and historical explanation while we are inside. We paid 25k to this tour guide to have a tour. It was a good quick tour. We could also see some of the baby bats still live hanging at the ceiling of the cave. The Dutch caves is not really impressive, it is white-painted and cleaned. Nothing much to see here. After we walked and visited these 2 place. We decided to track to the Maribaya entrance. It was a 5.5-km walk. The most disappointing thing was NO beautiful panorama after these tiring walk. There are some guiding arrow after our adventure to the Dutch caves. But after a short walk, we had to go pointlessly without any guidance, we even did not know how long we would walk, and we had to ask others passing by tourists. The forest seemed like a mess to me. Broken glasses at some points, branched road but no map or directions/suggestion where we should go, smelly and dirty water under a bridge on our adventure. We even went to another road to Batu Selendang, but we ended up in a high cliff with messy and grotesque view. I also did not know how to get to others Curug except Maribaya. Even Maribaya panorama was not well-maintained and very dirty. I could only remember a lot of smokes in the air and small food stalls at the sides. One of the most dissatisfying thing is we park our motorcycle at the second entrance and we ended up in the Maribaya Entrance. How can we get to the second entrance to fetch our motorcycle? The local people only told us to walk back 5 km more to fetch our vehicle. I find this is insane and very unpractical. We finally booked a ride with online taxi and get to the second entrance. However, this park was very great says one of my relatives and parents in the past. Why was it so disappointing these days? I find this long walk was neither enjoyable nor memorable. It was a regret to waste...