Pilgrimage in Kuningan, West Java, Indonesia

I have heard of pilgrimage tours you can do in Indonesia. However, because I live in Europe near the famous pilgrimage sites such as Lourdes, St. James Way or the many smaller pilgrimage sites near my home town, I have never shown any interest in a pilgrimage tour in Indonesia

In early June 2016, I was invited to join a pilgrimage tour by the local parrish St. Ambrosius, Melati Mas, near Jakarta. The location was in the area of Kuningan near Cirebon, very close to the border from West to Central Java. The cost for the tour, food, drinks, tour leadership, entertainment was IDR 100.000 or 8 EUR,-. The duration of the drive was about 6 hours one way, most of it on the newly built toll road between Jakarta and Cirebon

The bus trip
We had a couple of committed volunteers who took over entertainment, organisation like ordering buses, ordering and distributing food. So members of our parrish were invited to share their story about God, their life, an important person in their life or just sing a song with the group. In fact all the participants of the tour shared a bit of what they have with the other members of the parrish. It was really something that Jesus taught us and our parrish put it in practice. We all tried to help the engaged members to distribute the food and drinks we pre-ordered beforehand. The toll road was newly built, smooth, going through rice fields and mountainous areas. Different from the older toll roads, there were no tellers on the gates and we need to use a bank card.

Our parrish sharing experiences and songs in the bus

The pilgrimage venue in the village of Cisadana in the Kuningan area
Before we realised, we had reached the village of Cisadana on the foot hill of Mount Ceremai  where the worship cave is located.. It is called Gua Maria Sawer Rahmat or Mother Mary's Cave spreading grace in abundance. From the legends I heard that the village was once very poor and the crop failed every year. After the Holy Cave was finished and active, the village farming crop started to flourish due to the grace spread by the cave. Another reason for this might be the touristic significance of the village and the very famous culinary specialties in the area

Climbing the steep steps of the passion walk

We had to climb up the steps of a fairly steep hill to get to the Holy Cave. It was a little bit slippery after a prolonged period of rainy days and I can't imagine what it would be like if it had rained the day before. I pretty much admired the elderly and frail gentlemen and ladies who managed to climb up without complaining. It seems that their strong belief in God made them strong and able to do things they otherwise cannot do, like climbing a fairly long steep hill. This is normal for a seasoned trekker like me but certainly not for a less physically active and frail elderly person.

These are the good angels who did everything to make the tour a great experience

There were a couple of worship stations where we were about to contemplate Jesus Christ's passion walk to Gogotha. Jesus had to bear his cross, Jesus was flogged and insulted, Jesus fell down  and a stranger had been commanded to bear the cross, the woman who cleaned His face and Jesus' face was printed in the cloth. This cloth is still guarded in the Museum of Vatican. Finally we reached St Mary's cave, a worship venue with a small fountain. We met the priest who was scheduled to hold a service in the chapel. He invited us to attend the service which we did.

Our late lunch in Cirebon 
We were later than usual due to some traffic jam and the additional 2 hours that we attend the beautiful Holy Mass. Our lunch in Cirebon became nearly an early dinner. As we entered the restaurant, it looked smaller than it was and the appearance was not very impressive. Just after we entered, we noticed that the restaurant had 3 levels and we were seated at the upper level. From here we could have a breath-taking view on a vast area of rice terraces and being located on a hill, we could view the city of Cirebon from up high. The restaurant itself was nicely appointed, with wooden floors and chairs in traditional Sundanese Style

View from Kelapa Manis restaurant on the rice fields and the city of Cirebon

The local pastor Santo who unexpectedly invited us to the service in the chapel

Last station: Trusmi batik in Cirebon
A 3 hour stay at Trusmi Batik was planned but it had to be shortened to barely 1 1/2 hour due to the unexpected events we had. I thanked God because I have been warned that Trusmi Batik was very touristy, expensive and crowded on the weekends. The Trusmi street is a well-known culinary area in Cirebon where you can sample a numerous selection of cheap traditional foods. We arrived around Iftar time during Ramadhan, so we could experience the rushing traffic and people who came to the area to buy their food for Iftar(break fasting during Ramadhan). Unfortunately we all had just eaten at the restaurant and nobody was hungry. Besides, crossing the street with the crazy traffic made me fear for my life. I just had a relaxing break and a glass of freshly squeezed frosty juice, a very well-known Iftar beverage in Indonesia.

Tip: Avoid the Trusmi Batik shop and instead shop at the neighbouring Batik shops in the same street. They are cheaper, less touristy and at least of the same quality.


The trip was the highlight of my stay in Melati Mas. I must say thank you to all the people who took so much time and effort to organise the tour. Our parrish community leader Pak Sandy and his wife, former leaders Richard and Rudy and their better halves, a lot of other comitted Christian people that I met on the prayer evenings in Melati Mas. This tour is not only a nice trip to a beautiful area on the border to central Java, it makes you contemplate about Christ's passion and his suffering, is a good exercise for young and old, a lovely tour through the mountains and rice terraces to the village of Cisadana on the foot hill of Mount Ceremai.

Members of our parrish spent a whole day on a marvelous tour, shared experiences and knowledge together,  came closer to each other and practiced the teachings of Christ in their day-to-day life without any special effort

Life in Melati Mas and Tai Chi at Medika Hospital

Grocery vendors in Melati Mas sell about everything from fresh fruits and vegetables, tofu, tempeh, chicken and fish. I was quite impressed by this energetic and humourous young woman. If you buy prawns in Indonesia they will peel it for you.

Everyday I joined a group of Tai Chi practitioners and we practiced nearly every Saturday in either the Medika or Eka Hospital in BSD City in the Tanggerang area. Indonesian groups are a little bit more restrictive than their Western counterparts. Even just in normal exercise, they prefer to see you wearing their uniform.

Please build more foot paths and bridges in Melati Mas

Sometimes I really wondered about Melati Mas. The private developers only catered the area of Melati Mas to the needs of the wealthy people. The pedestrians were considered less than second class citizens. Most of Melati Mas residents owned at least one car. And as usual the needs of pedestrians were being stepped on and treated as garbage. Different from other parts around Jakarta, Melati Mas had not bothered to build a side path for pedestrians. The streets were very broad and geared to cars but opportunities for pedestrians were not in their calculation scheme.

The only thing which looked like a sideway was a bumpy path of grass. Due to the fairly wide street, the amount of cars and motorcycles hitting from behind had expanded to 5 rows of reckless vehicles.It was neceesary to publish a number of blogs and daily newspaper articles until Melati Mas finally started to build the first pedestrian bridge over the Serpong Highway! Before, it was simply impossible to cross this highway and a few pedestrians lost their lives or their limbs!

Everytime when I passed the Jalan Melati Mas Raya or main road in Melati Mas I prayed Our Father at least 3 times. My heart started to throb faster from the time I turned into the main road of Melati Mas. There was a school and 2 medical practices near the police station. All these cars simply blocked the narrow grass path intended for the pedestrians.If you walked around the back of the cars, you had to walk directly on the busy street. In this case I was not sure whether a car or motorcycle would come from behind and instantly transform me into a nice serve of minced meat.

If I walked in front of the cars, I would have been hit by them and may have ended as meat curry for the nearby restaurants!!!! Most pedestrians have simply accepted this and I think they were just too used to being voiceless. Residents of Melati Mas: Please voice your opinion and demand changes. I'm already afraid that despite pavement, the cars wouldn't stop to park there. Drivers, please be more considerate towards pedestrians.

People who understand English probably have no empathy because they drive cars, those who don't drive cars probably don't speak English. Who is going to help me to translate this into Indonesian????

Food in Melati Mas, Tangerang

You can really enjoy food in Indonesia for barely 1,- €. There is a nice restaurant in Melati Mas called Jes Jos. My favourite dish for Rp 15,000 or a bit more than 1 € is a big serve of nasi goreng pete(fried rice with meat and "stinking" peas pete). It is a real clean restaurant and they deliver everything to your place for free.

Would you like to have a good breakfast?
Before I leave the house about 6.00 am for the internet cafe to do my both offline and online work(offline is cheaper BTW), I have breakfast first. Ah Lim, located at the corner of Jalan Raya Melati Mas(main road of Melati Mas) sells the famous steam mee for Rp 9.000. The ketoprak vendors or Indonesian salat with rice noodles and peanut sauce start to sell around 9 am. You can get a nasi uduk(rice steamed in coconut milk) for Rp 3000 without meat but you need to come before 8 am.

The hygiene especially in the charts of the street vendors leaves much to be desired. One morning I saw the village people doing their morning business in the river where they got the water for coffee about one hour later. I have watched some people using water out of the gutter for cooking or to prepare salad, the cleanest one was actually somebody who used water to wash the cars. My tip would be to choose the small street restaurants or stalls instead of the vendors. But the Tahu Sumedang or freshly fried tofu cubes cost so little and you can get it piping hot from the vendor.

Even a restaurant with a karaoke is not particularly expensive. The Furami or Nyonya Suharti restaurant is reasonably cheap and you can sit in a clean and cosy environment. For fried carp with sauce you pay around Rp 30000 or € 2,- for a huge serve with a delicious sauce. Apart from this furami serves sumptuous dinners and karaoke singing if you wish. At night you will see a BBQ seafood stall in front of the BSD shopping plaza.

What can we do to avoid a serious bug like typhoid, salmonella, clostridium difficile and all those lovely pets? Of course we are all better off with immunisation and this can be very cheap in Asia too. A strong immune system is paramount and about 70% of it is located in the digestive system. We need enough sleep which is sometimes not easy, especially when you are couchsurfing. Aa positive attitude and healthy food supports our immune system. About 10 days prior to travelling and during the whole travel period I start to take prebiotics from the pharmacy on a regular basis. Perenterol has significant studies and it worked well for me. This increases the amount of natural intestinal flora which are well-known to deflect germs.

Use your eyes to judge the food - you wouldn't regret it!!!!

Public transportation in Melati Mas, Tangerang, Indonesia

We arrived at Sukarno Hatta Airport in Jakarta around 10 pm. The first thing we needed to do was to look for a taxi. There was a taxi counter where I met a Dutch backpacker couple. A taxi to Jakarta costed Rp 200.000,-- or € 13,-. Not too much for European standards.It was late and not too many taxis around and the few which were there were firmly in the hand of touts.


In order to catch a proper taxi we needed to go on the street and wave a taxi. The touts screamed very agressively at us because they felt their business slipping through their hands. They offered the taxi to a family and they were gentleman enough to leave us the taxi.

Different from the well-known registered taxi companies like Silver Bird and Bluebird, these taxidrivers are not always trustworthy. And they deliberately drive slowly to increase the price, so the best way would be to negotiate the price in advance. We agreed on Rp 70.000, less than half the price of the agency. As these taxis didn't have a GPS we needed to guide him through to Melati Mas near BSD city in the Tanggerang area.

I lived in a fairly new and quite safe area in Melati Mas. You need to pass a guarded barrier to enter the area. There were just few shops around and quite a few street vendors selling vegetables and meat. Since our house was in a very new street, the vendors didn't show too much interest to come directly to our house. The supermarket "Giant" and the other shops and restaurants were located about 1/2 hour walk from our house. Somewhat tiresome from somebody who is vision impaired with arthritis.

The main road to the shopping complex was busy and the pavement started just close to the supermarket. At the beginning of the street cars were just parked recklessly on the pedestrian path. Pedestrians didn't receive much respect from cars and motorcycles, so if you walk around these cars you very well end up as minced meat.

Taxis refused to ride such a short distance and there were no bajais, a kind of motorised rickshaw in Jakarta. The only means of transportations were the ojeks or motorcycle taxis. They did not wear helmets and drivers were usually very uneducated and agressive. Where ever I walked, they offered their ojek in a pushy manner and if you ignore them they started yelling at you.

I spoke to many well-to-do Indonesians who just hopped on and off their Mercedes. They had no understanding for the pedestrians and could not imagine the hardships they had to endure to cross the street.

Every morning I used to walk to the internet cafe or warnet because I needed to do my online and offline work. This internet cafe was open for 24 hours, quite convenient where the client had their own cabin with a fast operating system. The food was excellent and incredibly cheap, so normally I could survive on roughly 1 € per day