Hello there!
Having completed my earlier travel posts on Japan (Tokyo, Osaka and Hokkaido) and Maldives, in my previous posts, we have moved the journey of our exploration to Indonesia, and covered mostly about Bali. You can find the posts here:
In my previous posts, I shared the magic of Bali's beaches and temples.
Indonesia - Capturing The Magic Of Bali’s Beaches
Indonesia - A Trip To Taman Ayun Temple In Bali
Indonesia - Watching The Sunset At Tanah Lot
Then we moved on to another place in Indonesia, and that's Yogyakarta! Yogyakarta is a very interesting city because there are a lot of heritage stuff within the city.
Indonesia - Discovering Borobudur, The World's Largest Buddhist Temple
Indonesia - Discovering Prambanan, Where History Lives
Other than the amazing Borobudur and Prambanan, Yogyakarta also has other amazing stuff! So let's continue our journey!
One of the activities visitors to Yogyakarta can participate in would be a cave adventure at Jomblang Cave. I never thought I would do something like this, but because my friend wanted to try it out, so I just didn't think too much and went along with it.
The adventure started with a 60 metre descent to the bottom of the cave and this was actually the structure that was used in the descent. On my first look, I was quite shocked because the structure looked so simple, compared to some of those in more developed countries. Anyway, we had helmets, harnesses and boots, and as the preparation went on, I kind of felt like the local guides knew what they were doing. And since so many visitors have been here before, I guess I should be safe.
And here we go! The descend was quite gradual, and I just enjoyed the ride and held on tightly while I got lower and lower.
Once at the bottom, one could see that even though it's a vertical cave, it's pretty much covered by vegetation and leaves. It's also much cooler beneath. Safe and sound!
I was one of the first few, as I thought it was always better to do it first than to feel anxious at the top while waiting for my turn. Here's a photo of other visitors in the group coming down.
Once down, the ropes were withdrawn back up to fetch the next group of people.
Once everyone was down, we slowly made our way across the terrain to the cave. That's the dark hole right ahead!
OH MY! It was pitch black inside the cave! Thankfully there was still some light from the entrance so I could still take some photos. The most "unpleasant" part of this experience actually was that the ground was very muddy and slippery. I guess that's why we were given boots. To help us balance, there was actually a rope for everyone to hold on to, to prevent us from slipping. I didn't know it was going to be like this, and I was actually wearing white shorts. So I was extremely careful, but it was really too slippery at some parts, and I still fell once so my shorts were all dark brown and muddy.
Because it was so dark and I was trying to keep my balance, it was also very difficult to take photos because I was afraid of dropping my camera into the mud and in the worse case, I might not be able to find it because of the darkness.
Those who have walked in mud would know that it's quite tiring because every step required us to lift our foot with some force and then go to the next one. After a while, I was sweating so much but we started to see the end point, which was what we were here for!
The light rays! Some websites have called it the "Heavenly Lights" or "Light Of Heaven". I snapped this photo while waiting for my turn to climb onto the rock, which was the ideal photo spot!
So what was the source of the light rays? At the other end from the hole that we came down, there's also another hole at the top. Because of the branches and leaves partially covering the top, the sun rays that came through formed this mesmerising sight.
Even though we were all quite exhausted, all the fatigue was temporarily forgotten when we saw this. Nature's indeed so magical and there's so many beautiful places on Earth waiting for us to explore.
Alright that's was my cave adventure at Jomblang Cave! It was a little scary during the descend, extremely tiring walking through the mud in pitch black darkness, but it was all worth it in the end.
So the question was, how did we come back up? We had to walk through the same path where we came in and we were then brought up with the ropes. Double the tiredness. But a good exercise I guess. Haha.
So that's all I have today! Have you been to Jomblang Cave before? Let me know in the comments below!
Finally, thanks for reading my post in the community under World Map Pin!