My Experience - Punthuk Setumbu, Yogyakarta
- Divi R. Gurtika
- Nov 5, 2017
- 5 min read
Hello, readers. Today, I am going to share my enjoyable experience about my trip to Yogyakarta. One of the sites I visited was the mountain range of Punthuk Setumbu. Before I get to spill the beans of my personal experience, a heads-up information should be in order.
General Scope
Punthuk Setumbu is a hill top located in Karangrejo Village, Magelang, Central Java. If you’re from Yogyakarta, it’s about 44 Km drive from it. Punthuk Setumbu is a perfect site for sunrise experience, on the peak of the site, you could see the famous cultural site of Indonesia, the Borobudur Temple. In the site, you could park your vehicles on the base of the hill, where there are many huts selling refreshments and welcoming tourist. From the base, climb up to the entrance to purchase your tickets and then start climbing. About half-an-hour trekking should take you to the peak. At the peak is where you could enjoy the view or take selfies on the available photo booth attraction such as swing sets and hanging cliff. Do take precaution when taking photos due to the high possibilities of falling, but there are those who supervise the peak grounds. Punthuk Setumbu gets more popularity recently due to it being featured in the Indonesian Romance movie “Ada Apa Dengan Cinta 2” in 2016. (Not for movie promotion)
My Trip, My Experience
So, last August, around the anniversary of Indonesian’s Independence, on August 17th, some of my childhood friends and I decided to spend around a week in Yogyakarta for holidays. Honestly, it’s an odd time to go for a trip due to that time isn’t really the holiday season, we just had some free time in our hands and decided to go. We didn’t have any solid plans in Yogya, so we tried something what I call “The AADC2 Package” meaning my friends and I literally follow some of the movie’s culinary and site tour, but also mixed it with our own plans.
By the way, the house we stayed in is a guest house owned by one of my friend’s parents called the Panembahan Guest House, it is located near the Alun-Alun Kraton (Kraton Square), the guest house’s location is really strategic and convenient to go anywhere to the popular and hype spots in Yogyakarta. So, if anyone planning to go Yogyakarta soon, please stay in this guesthouse, it’s really comfortable and it feels really homey. It balances between simplicity and enough fancy which making it exotic and not tacky. (Not being paid to promote, but purely intent to promote for supporting a friend)
Straight to the point, on the night we went to Punthuk Setumbu, we depart from the house we stayed in at around 01.30 AM. Surprisingly, we arrived at the base of the hill quite fast, we made it even before 03.00 AM. It’s probably due to either it’s not the season for holidays or because it was smack dab in the middle of the night, either way there was less traffic. However, I bet it’s because of my friend’s driving skills, even though he (Deyo) drove us all day and we even had a couple of drinks before the Punthuk Setumbu trip, he didn’t show any sign of fatigue. Even though another friend of mine offered to take the wheel, Deyo said it’s okay and continue to be the driver for the whole trip. I even tried to stay awake as hard as I could to support Deyo as a co-pilot, but alas, I, too follow my other friends and fell as well. The car WAS HIS and he was the one that offer this Yogyakarta trip. Deyo does study, work, and live in Yogyakarta, while we were all from Jakarta, so it’s no wonder that he acted as the leader. Anyway, Deyo have my salute and my respect.
To continue, so we arrived around 03.00 AM, but unfortunately the ticketing entrance was not open yet, it opened at 04.00 AM. We were early, so while waiting, some of us took a nap in the car, while some ate noodle soup. For me, the car was too stuffy if I joined in for a nap, thank God there was a praying hut nearby, where I could lie my body and sleep. The weather was quite chilly when you just wait around doing nothing, especially for me who lives in Jakarta and mostly knew the heat of the capital city, it took some time to get familiar with the air of another city.
When the entrance opened, we started the trekking. It was pitch dark accompanied by only the flashlight from our smartphones. The road was all in stairway form made from dirt and sandbags. At the sides are cliffs barricaded by only bamboo fences. Fortunately, none of my friends, including me was lost or had any accident during the trekking. At the peak, it was still dark, but as time flows, the darkness fade and light were seen. Around 05.00 AM I saw the first sign of the sun. To be honest, during the trip, I didn’t know that you could see Borobudur Temple from Punthuk Setumbu, until it was mention by my friend, the view from the peak was marvelous, but the morning weather would have fogged up the ground scenery, we couldn’t get a clear view of the temple, the fog might have lifted later when the sun was higher. Even when it was 05.00 AM, when I could see the sun, unfortunately it was hiding behind a pair of twin mountains beyond the horizon. We enjoyed the scenery from the peak quite long, until around 06.15 AM we began to go back to the base. Even at that time, I still couldn’t feel the heat of the sun although it has risen enough, which means in that day the weather was quite chilly, the clouds were thick though, blocking the sun.
While trekking back down, I could see there was some resting post and facilities for younger segments, like jungle gyms. Also, while trekking down, because of the sunrise, we all felt energized. We were all chatting and singing while walking down to the base, even on the road back to the house, we were all telling funny stories and cheesy jokes. It was very much an enjoyable experience. Upon arriving at the guest house, most of us just took a shower and then sleep all day until late in the evening. Everyone was very tired, we spent the day just laze around and ending up playing Congklak and playing cards.
The overall experience going to Punthuk Setumbu was very fascinating for me, an amateur for trekking and mountain climbing. The road to ascend to the peak was not very tough, just remember to be cautious of your footing. It is noted that the facilities regarding safety was still lacking, knowing that the road was mostly sandbags and having bamboo sticks for fences. Deyo did said to us that it is still in the development stage. However, it has the photo booth attractions which visitor could enjoy for free and there’s also a big sign using native Javanese language saying to keep the site clean. It shows that the site supports the trends of millennials being photo and social media addicts and it reminds the visitor, especially the native domestic to preserve the site. Due to it current and developing facilities and high demand for cleanliness, it’s no surprise the site has quite the price for tickets, around IDR 20,000 for each visitor. That was my experience to Punthuk Setumbu, thank you for reading.
*It should be noted that my time chronology or the ticket price have possibilities being wrong because it’s already in the past, my memory is kind of a blur and unreliable.
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