Fazal Khaliq
Cave Pindul: It was mysterious but sensational adventure to travel with icicle and hundreds of bats overhead, cool river water flowing down, and wading through narrow dark cave by tubing in a group while wearing lifebelt, life vest and headlamp with a professional guide.
When I intended to visit Borobudur, a 9th-century Buddhist Temple in Central Java, Indonesia, I started surfing internet to find out some other tourists attraction in the region. Luckily, I caught a glimpse of a group of people tubing in a cave. Immediately, I noted down its address and details and decided to experience the tubing trip in the cave.
And the time came to do it after returning from the visit of Borobudur temple and staying a night in Yogyakarta; a famous city for its cultural heritage and traditional arts in Indonesia.
We reached the Bejiharjo village in Karangmojo, Gunung Kidul after traveling 50 kilometers in an hour by hiring a car from a tourist transport company operating for the purpose. The lush green region with thick forest kept our aesthetic sense busy throughout the journey.
It was a unique experience but a bit challenging, when we bought tickets and joined a group of 30 visitors. The organizers gave us special rubber shoes, a life vest and a big black tube to experience the journey in the underground river water. The guide first briefed us about the safety measure and the style of journey.
We went down the water one by one and laid on the tubes, holding ropes tied to the tubes of both sides making a long queue, started the journey to enter the cave.
It was really a heart-wrenching moment once we entered the cave floating on the tubes. The guide was briefing us, showing crystal moon-milk stalactites and stalagmites. Some of the women and children shrieked once they saw bats in the light of torch.
We passed through narrow lanes, huge pillar and then arrived at a place where the cave opened into a wide pool with a big hole overhead, throwing natural light from above.
Some visitors could not control their passion and yelled loudly, some jumped into the pool and swam while many others captured the moments in pictures.
At last, the guide once again formed us in a queue of round black tubes and showed us the way to exit from the cave.
We came out to a wide pool one by one, our tubes were taken back and the sensational short voyage ended. Feeling hungry, we ate Bakso in one of the shops outside giving us enough strength to go back happily.
Here I talked with some visitors about their experience in the cave.
Mrs. Hafis who had come to enjoy the exciting trip of the Pindul cave said, “We are so much excited to have entered in the cave that we feel we are having second honeymoon. My kid also enjoyed to see the cave and had tubing on the water.” She happily touched the water again and again.
Her husband Mohammad Hafis also enjoyed the experience and said he had heard about the cave from his friends and then saw its pictures on the internet . “We decided to visit the spot with my family and were much excited once we entered the cave floating on tubes,” he said.
He praised the management and said they provided all important lifesaving stuff before going into the caves. “They even provided safety stuff to our children.”
“However, the management did not manage the visitors properly to enter the cave. I feel that all the groups should not enter the cave at the same time as we were unable to hear the information delivered by the guard and could not enjoy the internal fun at the same time,” Hafis added.
Subagya, head of the Beijiharjo village where the Pindul cave locates said that the cave was opened to public on October 10, 2010. The major objective behind the opening was to provide jobs to the locals as they had no job opportunities.
According to officials of the cave, millions of visitors visit the cave every year.
