Cianjur Highlands

Sep/Oct 2018

I feel I’m running out of new places to explore within a couple of days ride from Jakarta. Nevertheless I’ve always gotten good vibes when passing through the Cianjur region so I headed for the hills.

Unfortunately there are no hills in Jakarta to keep me physically conditioned day to day and after riding over two 2000m altitude mountain passes for 14 hours, exhaustion had set in and the sun had already set but no viable camp options presented themselves. Luckily these cops let me sleep in their station.

The scenery improved on day 2 but the going was tough and the landscape truly rugged.

Towards the end of day 2 I headed down to camp at this waterfall, where many black monkeys (Javan lutung) would come down the cliffs.

The whole of the following day was spent climbing insane dirt tracks until I was finally at the top of Cianjur in some isolated and very rustic villages.

After a night of camping I headed out into the stunning morning light and was given breakfast in a cozy little house.

After that it was down down down and onto the long road back to Jakarta.

Here are a few of the super friendly people I met along the way who were always super keen to pose for a photo together: