For years, I packed my things in a big suitcase when traveling. I put lots of clothes and bring many items that I thought important. I always make sure that I will have all the things that I need and things that I might want later on the trip. And usually, it will lead me into three bags : a luggage for the clothes; a backpack for my laptop; and a handbag for my cosmetics, document, snack, and other misc things.

By the time, I learned that actually not all of those items were useful. Lots of them were staying untouched until I was back home. I began to think and realized that I was over packed.

I tried to find the reason for that and I think it’s because I want to feel safe. I was afraid.

When traveling, it means that I’m not in my comfort zone. I’m not in my house/ office where I usually have my daily activity, I’m not in the position where I have all the belongings around me to support my activity. Yes, I was afraid that I will find some obstacle if I did not bring something (which I thought very important in my daily life) during my trip.

At that time, I knew that I was not in the right track. What’s the joy of having a trip if I did not want to have problems and not ready to have a new experience. Why bother to travel if I want to have my things to be around me. Why spent money if I’m not comfortable leaving my house.

Something need to be done here, or else, I have to stop traveling.

I began from my packing list. I wrote every things which (once again) I though important. I did not look back on the list and keep it for a day. And on the next day, I checked the list again and removed all the things that I think I can survive without them.

I left my toiletries and decided to use the hotel amenities. I packed limited clothes and decided to buy if later I needed it. I bring only one small book. No laptop (but I’m keeping my USB and MMC for my files/ images storage). No extra shoes/ sandals. No big towels. No extra gadgets. No complete cosmetics.

With those adjustments, I succeeded to eliminate the need to use both my luggage and handbag. And what I need to bring was only my small backpack.

I have to admit that at first I was a little worried with this decision. I’m worried whether I can survive with these light-pack or not. There are lots of bad ‘What If’ questions in my mind at that time.

By the end of the trip, I finally can concluded that it was a good decision. It turned that I can manage everything quite well. I could keep up with my limited stuffs and no bad things happened to me.

I’m so happy I can do this. The joy of packing light was not only make me more mobile, but it also teach me to be more efficient. Learning to pack light is maybe something simple, but the advantage was quite major.

Dare to do the same thing?

Yeah, I’m finally turned off my silent mode for blogging. For the past weeks, I was turning into a lurker. Not quite offline, but not also online because I’m not active both in my blogs and my social media channels.

The reason for that silent mode is because of our moving. Yes, we’re not in Tebet anymore!

After a long discussion and lots of thinking, we’ve decided to move to a suburb area : Bekasi. Well, personally it’s actually quite hard for me to leave Tebet as I’ve been there for about seven years. I’ve been very accustomed to every little detail in Tebet, but I do realized that life must go on and to have a better quality of life, we need to move on.

All praise belongs to Allah, the moving process was turned to be smoothly. We’ve got a house located not far from Jakarta, in fact the house is in the borderline of Jakarta and Bekasi. We just need to go outside the housing area, drive some minutes and we’re back in Jakarta ^^

We’ve got the Internet Service Provider with no problem at all and currently, we’re even got a nice and complete channels of cable television. It’s something that really relieving as internet-connection is already our basic needs and we thought we cannot find a good ISP there.

It’s also easier for me to go to the office, I can just take the public transportation easily and it’s cheaper comparing to hiring a ‘tukang ojek‘ like I have done for years.

Pieces by pieces, we’re trying to make our ‘house’ into a ‘home’. Still much to do but I do enjoying the process. I like browsing here and there to find some references in home decoration. I like going to one store to another store to find affordable furniture and house accessories. I was also started to collect books about interior and exterior design.

For now, it’s more than enough to rent a house. But who knows, if Allah permits, we can buy our dream house someday. Amieeeen.

(worship)

NB : Pic above was taken from GettyImages.com

So, what do you think about this dog? Isn’t it cute? ^^

Her name is Bella and she’s our new Shih Tzu puppy. We’ve got her from my mom-in-law ’s friend and she’s currently living with my parents-in-law in Cikarang.

Bella is a hyperactive puppy. She’s always running here and there. Always looks busy playing with her toys. Well, not always a real toy she’s playing, sometimes she tooks some tissue from the desk and tearing it apart, sometimes she plays with ants in the floor, sometimes she take a potato and rolling it everywhere, and many other ridicolous things that make us laughing.

It took us some time for her potty training, but she’s doing fine now. At first, she’s always pee anywhere, but now we just need to have the cage clean and she’ll go to her cage anytime her nature calls.

Most of the time she’s always trying to seek our attention and what I love most is when she’s running around my leg when I was just arrived from Jakarta on weekend.

Hmm …. can’t wait for this weekend to come and play with her. She’s very adorable and I cannot help missing her all of the time.

Kita semua mungkin sudah tau tentang Pesta Blogger dengan atribut kemegahannya, tetapi belum tentu semua tau tentang Amprokan Blogger.

Amprokan Blogger adalah sebuah acara silahturahim blogger seluruh Indonesia yang diadakan oleh teman-teman dari @bloggerbekasi dalam rangka hari jadi kota Bekasi ke 13.

Acara ini diadakan selama dua hari full pada tanggal 6 – 7 Maret 2010. Benar-benar full karena acara pada hari pertama telah dimulai dari jam 6 pagi sampai lebih dari jam 2 pagi. Wew … gak kebayang gimana capeknya para panitia.

Hari pertama, dibuka dengan acara Anjangsana.

Okay, I have a confession to make here. Sehari sebelumnya aku sudah membuat janji untuk bertemu dengan @alitmahendra di POM Bensin MT. Haryono jam 6.30. Dan ternyata …. I woke up at 6.40. Please forgive me @alitmahendra for keeping you waiting for almost an hour. No idea why I cannot wake up at 5 am, either my alarm did not function well or I was totally exhausted after working until 2 am. But still that was my mistake. Don’t asked why @tamacrea did not wake me up, he’ll wake me up if I woke him up :p

Syukurlah kita bertiga tidak terlalu terlambat, we’re arrived at the venue just when the event about to start. Yay!

Setelah mendapatkan kaos, PIN, dan badge; kami bertiga kemudian menuju ke bus. There were five bus available and we’re on the third.

Lokasi pertama Anjangsana : Tugu Bina Bangsa

Sempat salah inform ke @alitmahendra dengan menyebutkannya sebagai Tugu Tunas Bangsa :p Acara dibuka dengan sambutan dari Pemerintah Kota Bekasi. Disebutkan bahwa tugu ini dibuat untuk mengenang jasa para pahlawan kemerdekaan. Lima pilar putih yang menjulang melambangkan Pancasila, selain itu kita bisa menemukan sebuah prasasti puisi Chairil Anwar : Antara Kerawang-Bekasi.

Lokasi kedua Anjangsana : UKM Boneka, Sumur Batu

Dalam perjalanan menuju lokasi kedua ini, kami saling berkenalan dengan semua blogger yang ada di dalam bus. To my surprise, lots of them are not from nearby cities. They came from all around Indonesia : Medan, Riau, Pontianak, Makasar, Madura, Cirebon, etc. Wow ….

Sesampai di lokasi UKM Boneka, acara dibuka oleh Wakil Walikota Bekasi. Ternyata UKM Boneka di daerah Bantar Gebang ini merupakan salah satu home industry terbesar di Indonesia. Kami pun berkeliling dari satu ruangan ke ruangan lain untuk melihat proses pembuatan boneka-boneka tersebut. Setelah selesai berkeliling, kami mendapatkan oleh-oleh sebuah bantal boneka berwarna pink. Love it …

Lokasi Ketiga Anjangsana : TPA Bantar Gebang

Siap-siap menutup hidung, what else can we found here kalau bukan tumpukan sampah yang menggunung. Setelah acara dibuka (sekali lagi) oleh pemerintah Bekasi, kami pun mendapatkan beberapa penjelasan pengelolaan sampah. Quite surprised to find out klo ternyata sampah-sampah tersebut masih bisa bermanfaat.

Bekerjasama dengan World Bank dan PT. Gikoko, TPA Bantang Gebang sedang mengembangkan PLTS (Pembangkit Listrik Tenaga Sampah) dari gas metana yang dihasilkan oleh gunungan sampah.

For me, it’s a little bit gross to see how the fluid came out from those big pile of garbage. Yieks ….

Lokasi Keempat Anjangsana : President University and Botanic Garden, Jababeka.

Okay, mulai dari sini aku dan @tamacrea mulai tertawa geli. Please forgive us, it was only because @tamacrea ’s house is actually in Jababeka. And now we’re having tour around it. So, you can see now why we were giggling around the tour :p

Disini pula akhirnya aku bertemu dengan rombongan @bloggerngalam yang baru datang dari Malang : @fajarembun, @mqhidayat @botkawos. Tambah rame dan seru lah akhirnya perjalanan kita. Love to see you, guys ^^

After having a nice lunch and presentation about Jababeka in Brief at President University Auditorium, we’re going to Student Dormitory and Botanic Garden.

Sebelumnya telah dijelaskan bahwa para mahasiswa diharuskan untuk tinggal di asrama, dan para orang tua tidak perlu khawatir akan keselamatan dan kesejahteraan anak-anak mereka karena fasilitas asrama sangat lengkap dan keamanan yang terjamin 24 jam.

Asrama dibedakan antara mahasiswa laki-laki dan perempuan. Khusus untuk asrama perempuan, dibangun pagar setinggi 2 meter (as seen on the pic above) sebagai ekstra pengamanan dan mahasiswa laki-laki tidak diperbolehkan untuk memasuki asrama perempuan. Nice …

Di Botanic Garden, para perwakilan blogger menanam sepuluh pohon yang berbeda dan setelah itu kita memotong tumpeng karena hari itu diperingati pula sebagai hari ulang tahun Botanic Garden. And guess what we’re singing. Still the same happy birthday song, but we change “You” into “Tree” . Here is the result :

(music)

Happy Birthday, Pohon.
Happy Birthday, Pohon.
Happy Birthday.
Happy Birthday.

Happy Birthday, Pohon.

(music)

Hahaha, very funny, isnt it?

Done with the Jababeka touring, we’re heading back to Bekasi for the next schedule : Live Blogging Competition.  Setiba di Aula Walikota, sebuah van milik Speedy telah stand-by dan sekotak cemilan juga sudah siap dibagikan. And this place was my last venue, as I have to end the journey and going home to Cikarang.

Seminar Interaktif (Day II)

Hari kedua Amprokan Blogger diadakan di Aula Mahkamah Konstitus Bekasi, dan aku menghabiskan lebih dari satu jam berputar-putar alias tersesat mencarinya (doh). Acara kali ini cukup serius karena beberapa keynote speaker dihadirkan untuk membahas tentang EGovernment, Blogger, dan Pemberdayaan Masyarakat. Inti pembahasan yang bisa aku simpulkan dari seminar interaktif ini adalah bahwa pemerintah masih perlu memaksimalkan penggunaan teknologi online (eps blogger) agar eksistensi nya semakin diakui.

Hari kedua dan hari terakhir juga merupakan hari berpamitan dengan teman-teman @bloggerngalam yang keesokan harinya akan kembali menempuh perjalanan panjang ke Malang. Too bad kita tidak bisa berjalan-jalan di sekitar kota Jakarta. Well, maybe next time …..

Overall, despite the full schedule dan panasnya kota Bekasi, I did enjoy the event.

Thanks for @bloggerbekasi yang sudah mengundang kami semua. I do hope that we can have the same event next year (worship).

Why “Sweet Escape”? It’s because for me; traveling is an escape from daily work, an escape from deadlines/ clients and an escape from a hectic routine. Not that I do not like my work, but sometimes we’re really need a break and traveling is just perfect for that. I also put my husband’s name because most of my travel journey were with him.

Currently I’m still writing for our detail travel log while we’re in Singapore last December. There are already six articles and still counting. I am quite excited in writing the log until I can create two articles within only one day.

I’ve also joined #365shots project. It’s a project which you need to take a picture daily. That’s why I called the photo blog as “pinkparis’ #365shots – Random Images. Daily Life. Everything in Between.”

Currently I have uploaded 37 pictures and hopefully I can keep my commitment until the end of the year. This project also excite me, I keep my camera everywhere with me. Take any object I think interesting the whole day and in the end of the day, I pick one of the most interesting picture. Doing some minor editing, searching some info about it then upload it. I learn new things everyday because of this.

In short, if I’m not gonna be around for a while in this blog, it must be because I’m busy with my others blog. Here are the links if you’re interested to check it :  http://pinkcrea.posterous.com/ and http://pinkparis.posterous.com/

See you there ….

Happy New Year!!
Okay, I’m a litlle bit late. It’s already 7th January, but I’m sure that the spirit of New Year is still around us.

The reason of my late posting is because I need some days to figure out whether I will make any resolution for this year or not. And I’ve decided to make it.

So, let’s start with my best of ‘09 as the background of my twenty-ten resolutions.

The most remarkable thing happened to me on ‘09 was being married. It was something unexpected. It’s not that I did not want it, but everything happened so fast from being engaged on June until our marriage on July. Thanks God. Our gratitude for all the parties that help us to make it came true. We’ve also created a simple wedding website at pinkparis-tamacrea.info to capture the moment and also as the invitation for our friends around the globe.

Our journey to tied the knot is over, but another new journey has just began. And my twenty-ten resolutions evolve around our marriage life which include :

Eat and cook properly (esp. for breakfast)
Since I was working in Jakarta, I always skip breakfast due to my laziness. Yeah, it’s because I’m lazy, not because ‘I did no have time’ or ‘I have no place to cook’. It’s just because I’m too lazy to prepare it. And this year, I want to change that. If I’m too lazy to prepare breakfast, it’s not just me who will suffer in hunger at morning, but also my husband.

Sleep and take a rest properly
Due to my deadlines, I rarely have enough sleep. Six hours sleeping is a luxury. I slept around 4 – 5 hours a day. And that’s truly not good for my health. I’ll try to recover that this year. I’ll try to have a quick nap between my working hours and have enough sleep at night. Healtly means I can have more quality time with my husband.

Travel more often
I love reviewing new places and cultures. With a husband on my side, things gonna be easier for me to travel around Indonesia and also the world. Well, that’s my wish. If we can have our first honeymoon in Singapore, it means we can have another overseas journey this year. Amien for that.

Avoid proscatination
No excuse for proscatination. If I can do it today, why I should wait for tomorrow. I always said that I have no time to do something, but now if needed, I will try to make the time. Hopefully, that will make me able to do much more things with my husband.

Simplify problem and issues
Not that we should skip problems, but try to simplify it and not get stressed by that. Problems are here and there. They’re always exist everyday. And what I need to do is to analyze it and find the best solution. It may not be a perfect solution, but the most important thing is that we have the problem solved and we can move with our life.

There’re more hopes and dreams that I have, but those five items will be a good start to have a better and colorful life. Just like what I have written on my tweet as followed :

So, what’s your resolution? I guess you have thousands of it

Kota Malang adalah sebuah kota kecil di propinsi Jawa Timur. Terkenal dengan udaranya yang sejuk dan dingin karena kota Malang terletak di dataran tinggi yang dikelilingi banyak gunung dan berjarak kira-kira 90 kilometer dari kota Surabaya (ibukota Jawa Timur). Menurut Wikipedia, nama ‘Malang’ berasal dari Candi Malang Kucecwara, sebuah candi yang terletak di kaki Gunung Buring yang dibangun pada abad ke-15.

Di kota Malang inilah, aku dilahirkan dan dibesarkan.  I do love Malang with each of its details.  Selalu ada banyak alasan yang membuat aku selalu ingin kembali dan menikmati my lovely hometown ini and here are five of them:

1. Malang is ‘Paris of East Java’
Bukan hanya iklimnya saja yang sejuk, kota Malang juga menyimpan banyak keindahan alam. Dari sinilah kemudian julukan ‘Paris of East Java’ muncul. Kota Malang dianggap bagaikan kota ‘Paris’ nya propinsi Jawa Timur. Ada banyak sekali wisata alam yang dapat kita eksplore dan kunjungi; mulai dari air terjun, pantai, pegunungan, taman, air panas, dan sebagainya. Just name it and you will find it in this beautiful city. Salah satu keindahan alam kota Malang, pantai Balekambang, sempat aku tuliskan dalam sebuah postingan di sini

2. Heaven of Culinary Journey
Tukang bakso keliling yang ingin dagangan mereka laris selalu menambahkan embel-embel kata “Bakso khas Malang” di gerobak mereka. Kota Malang memang identik dengan bakso/ bakwan Malangnya yang enak. Padahal bukan hanya bakso saja makanan enak yang dapat kita temui di kota Malang. Hampir semua makanan tradisional di kota Malang mempunyai rasa yang enak dan murah, sebut saja nasi Pecel di Jalan Kawi, Tahu Campur di daerah Dinoyo, Rujak Cingur, dan masih banyak lagi.

3. Small city but full of facilities
Semua kebutuhan masyarakat kota Malang terjamin dengan baik. Malang mempunyai sejumlah sekolah dan universitas bertaraf nasional/ internasional, sehingga banyak murid/ mahasiswa berasal dari luar kota Malang yang menempuh pendidikan di kota Malang. Kota Malang juga mempunyai pusat rekreasi dan hiburan yang sangat beragam mulai alun-alun, taman wisata, taman rekreasi, mall/ plaza, cafe, distro dan masih banyak lagi. For travellers, Malang is perfect, not just because it is accessible easily via plane, bus, or train; but also the wide range of  hotel/ losmen that you can choose to suit your budget.

4. Less traffic and easy to go anywhere
Pada umumnya, jarang sekali kita menemukan kemacetan di kota Malang. Hanya titik-titik tertentu yang sering mengalami kemacetan, itupun biasanya relatif sebentar apabila dibandingan dengan Jakarta. Di kota Malang, taxi jarang ditemui karena kendaraan umum sudah cukup memadai. Mikrolet dengan berbagai jurusan tersedia dengan mudah dan murah.

5. Fresh air and less pollution
Udara kota Malang masih relatif bersih dan hampir tanpa polusi. My favorite part is when I take my breath deeply early in the morning, sangat cocok untuk menghapuskan residu polusi yang selama ini tertimbun dalam paru-paru saat  di Jakarta.

Kota Malang memang cocok disebut sebagai kota wisata. Just try to spend your holiday in Malang and I’ll bet it will be an unforgettable holiday experience!

Tulisan ini dibuat untuk berpartisipasi dalam BlogFest 2009 Bloggerngalam

Tidak pernah terpikir sebelumnya bahwa menjadi seorang blogger berarti kita juga harus menjadi seorang marketer. Mengapa? Karena seperti halnya seorang marketer yang ingin produk/ layanan nya laris di pasaran, seorang blogger juga ingin agar tulisannya dibaca oleh khalayak ramai.

Dengan perkembangan blog yang berjalan sangat pesat, tentunya ’saingan’ kita akan terus bertambah. Dan seiring dengan persaingan tersebut, para pembaca akan semakin kritis karena mereka dihadapkan pada beragam pilihan bacaan dengan waktu yang semakin terbatas.

Ada banyak sekali cara-cara yang dapat kita aplikasikan untuk ‘mempertahankan’ para pembaca kita. Salah satu cara yang sangat menarik adalah teori “Codification” yang disampaikan oleh Bapak Hermawan Kartajaya, seorang pakar pemasaran dari Indonesia. Beliau menyampaikan bahwa “Di era New Wave, yang menjadi nyawa perusahaan adalah codification dari DNA-nya. Kode DNA ini adalah yang dicari konsumen.”

Merujuk pada teori ini, perusahaan dapat kita analogikan sebagai Blog kita. Sedangkan konsumen dapat kita analogikan sebagai para pembaca. Sehingga yang perlu kita lakukan untuk mempertahankan pembaca adalah merumuskan kode DNA bagi blog kita.

Bagi blog yang sudah berjalan lama (just like mine), setidaknya ada tiga langkah awal yang dapat aplikasikan dalam blog kita untuk menemukan kode DNA yang tepat, yaitu :

1. Membangun niche blog
Ada beragam topik yang dapat kita bahas dalam blog, tetapi alangkah baiknya apabila kita hanya membahas satu topik tertentu. Semakin spesifik topik kita, semakin fokus pula materi pembahasan yang dapat kita sampaikan. Hal ini akan menarik pembaca dengan minat yang sama untuk membaca blog kita. Apabila sebelumnya topik kita sangat beragam, mungkin inilah waktunya kita untuk melakukan “Blog Repositioning”.

Salah satu contoh niche blog favorit saya adalah blog milik Ivan & Toni di http://navinot.com/. Mereka berdua dengan sangat brilian berhasil membuat postingan tentang dunia Komputer dan Teknologi dengan bahasa yang mudah mengerti. Tak heran blog mereka berhasil menjadi pemenang dalam “Kategori Blog Komputer dan Teknologi Terbaik” di Pesta Blogger 2009.

2. Membangun karakter
Ribuan blog dapat kita temukan dengan mudah, tapi tidak semuanya mempunyai karakter yang kuat. Karakter ini sangat penting dalam menentukan identitas kita di ranah daring. Dengan berjalannya waktu, tentunya kita semakin mengetahui karakter apa yang cocok kita terapkan dalam blog kita. Bisa jadi karakter tersebut adalah cara penulisan kita yang unik atau bisa juga cara kita dalam menyapa para pembaca.

Contoh blog yang mempunyai karakter kuat adalah blog milik Ketua Pesta Blogger 2008 : Wicaksono alias Ndoro Kakung. Beliau selalu memberikan sapaan khas pada setiap akhir postingan blog nya di http://ndorokakung.com/

3. Membangun Network
Tradisi blogwalking dan saling memberikan komentar pada blog lain bukan hanya berguna untuk menaikkan traffic, tetapi juga bisa membangun network. Dan hal ini lebih penting karena dengan semakin luas network kita, akan semakin tinggi pula kemungkinan adanya pembaca-pembaca baru. Biasanya, justru network pasif lah yang mendatangkan peluang yang lebih tinggi daripada network aktif kita.

Proses membangun network ini secara berkesinambungan selalu berusaha saya lakukan setiap bulan dengan aktif dalam forum FreSh (Freedom of Sharing), sebuah forum sharing yang merupakan ajang diskusi, kumpul-kumpul, networking, sharing ilmu dalam industri kreatif, dimana saya dipercaya sebagai salah satu committee.  Lebih detail mengenai forum ini dapat dilihat di http://freshyourmind.com/

Ketiga langkah tersebut memang terlihat mudah, tetapi sampai sekarang pun, I still keep struggling to do them.

Satu hal yang dapat disimpulkan dalam teori “codification” ini adalah bahwa “Be unique” is not enough right now, what we need to do it “Be a blog that stand from the crowd with our own specification/ DNA“.

Karena itulah mari kita mencoba untuk merumuskan kode DNA blog kita, semakin otentik kode tersebut, semakin susah para ‘pesaing’ kita meniru. Dan hasilnya, para pembaca kita akan setia membaca tulisan kita walaupun banyak blog baru yang bermunculan.

So, shall we do it together, guys?

Tulisan ini dibuat untuk berpartisipasi dalam acara Bloggers @ MarkPlus Conference 2010

Source image : http://www.gettyimages.com/

One thing almost all writers afraid of is ‘Writer’s block‘ and I’m sure as a blogger, we experienced it many times.

It’s the condition when we lose the ability to produce new post. It’s when we’re run out of inspiration. Totally lack of idea. It’s when we’re trully stucked, cannot think and write.

That’s why when one of my friend, Ollie, published her first EBook, I was very excited and curious to learn her mind mapping.

Reading her Ebook remind me of my Creative Writing class in my college and it’s absolutely recommended and worthed to read. Five reasons below with explain why you should also read it :

1. It provides you with very detail guidelines to find your inspiration.

Yes, very detail!!
You will find steps and screenshots just like a manual. You will find no problem following the steps, thus you will get your inspiration faster that you thought.

2.  It provides you with secret recipe to have a good writing composition.

Steps are not enough when you do not know how to compile it into one good composition. And here you can find the secret!

3. It will inspire you to write.

Not just the steps and secret recipe that you will get, but you will be encouraged to write as soon as you can.

4.  Short story as the bonus.

After you learn all the steps and get the inspiration, you will be provided with the result of those steps. Of course the result is a nice composition which you will be thrilled.

5. It was written by Ollie.

She is a writer and an online business entrepreneur. Her genre varies from fiction to web/blog how-to books which had been recommended by lots of media. You can get more detail about her at salsabeela.com/about

So, if you think you lack of ideas and wanted to get the inspiration, get the book from this link. And I do hope you enjoy the book just like I did!

It’s been more than an hour my dad drove the car and I was started to feel that we’re lost since there’re only trees, woods, and more tress around us. We saw a few houses but there’s nobody around to ask. My husband have tried to checked the GPS but the signal is not quite good. We need some minutes to figure out our location but fortunately we’re still in the right track.

We’re on our way to Balekambang, a beach located in Bantur area which approximately 60 km away from South Malang. No public transportation available to reach the beach. And if you used a vehicle, you must make sure that it has a good condition since the road is quite bumpy. I’m pretty sure you didn’t want to be alone with a broken vehicle in the middle of nowhere, isn’t it?

At fist I’m not quite excited to explore the beach as I thought it will be loaded with people. Well, it was a long Ied-Fitr holiday at that time, a perfect time when the whole family is having fun together and going to have a vacation. And this beach is a popular choice for Malang resident.

After two hours of long journey, we finally reached the entrace gate and had to buy tickets which cost us IDR 47.000. IDR 7.500 for each person and IDR 2.000 for the vehicle. It will be cheaper if you used a motorcycle, just pay IDR 1.000 and you can start exploring the beach.

Don’t get surprised if you found lots of trucks in the parking lots. The youngsters in Malang use truck as a common vehicle when they’re going for a vacation. They will put a sound system above the truck and you can enjoy the popular Indonesian hits song from their loud speaker.

My parents decided to enjoy the beach by sitting under the coconut trees and having a casual picnic. I’d rather walking and exploring the beach with my husband and my sibling. I was very curious to see the islands my sister told me before. We walked step by step enjoying the sand and constantly playing with the wave until we saw the island.

There are three small offshore islands on Balekambang beach : Ismoyo, Wisanggeni, and Anoman. Two of which are connected with a bridge while the other one is unreachable. On Ismoyo Island, you can find a Hindu temple which often mentioned as the replica of the Temple in Tanah Lot, Bali. Each year, Ismoyo temple is the venue of two big traditional ceremonies called Suro (Javanese New Year) and Jalanidhi Puja (Hindu ceremony).

The beach is supported with quite adequate facilities, you can find lots of toilet, souvenir shops, and small restaurants. There’s also an Information Office and Police Station nearby. If you want to stay at night, some simple bungalows is available. You can also built a camp in Scout camping ground.

Overall, I love this beach.  It’s a beautiful beach and I’m sure you will say the same when you see some of my pictures below :