The Journey to Cisayong

Remember how last week I was writing about the beauty of Cisayong? Well that was only the jist of it.  The previous post was dedicated especially to Ecky and Sam, so this post will talk more about what we did in Tasikmalaya. ‘We’, as in Elyani, Parvita, Toni, Yefta and me.

Deciding on transportation was a bit of a fickle but once we were set, we were ready to go. Parvita agreed to ride with us in our tiny green Karimun Estilo all the way to Tasik, and Yefta agreed to drive. I told him earlier on that I’d gladly take turns with him but of course, he’d have none of it.

When we’re about to leave, and I was literally getting on the car, one thing crossed my mind and all of a sudden I freaked out; the cupcakes! Yes, Anita had ordered 53 cupcakes with messages on each especially for Ecky and she asked me to bring it to Ecky’s wedding, and they were supposed to be delivered at 8 in the morning, but we were about to leave at 9 and the cupcakes were nowhere to be seen! I seriously don’t want to imagine what would happen if I didn’t remember about the cupcakes. In the end we had to drop by at the bakery to pick them up, adjust them a little so that they won’t slide around in the back (there will be some crazy, sharp turns as we got nearer to Tasik, that was what I’d been told by Ecky)….

And then we were off. We stopped over at Bandung to have lunch (Parvita kindly showed the way) at Kabayan restaurant which had this yummy mango chilli sauce (I must get the recipe!) and then continued to Tasik.  Understanding the road signs was a bit tricky but we figured it out eventually.

Now here’s some funny things we noticed on our way there:

• We passed a lot of kids who looked like they were elementary students running on the side of the streets of Nagrek in their school’s sports uniform – under the direct sunlight. Maybe it was Friday and it was supposed to be a sport’s day, who knows? By the time we got to Tasik, we noticed the same view, except that this time the kids were running in opposite directions. The current joke that was running between Parvita, Yefta and me at the time was that these were some superhuman kids who could outrun cars and even planes – because when we were at Nagrek, they were going towards Tasik, but when we got to Tasik, they were already going back!

• During our stopover in Bandung we noticed some hilarious candidate posters – not because of the images – well, okay, not only because of the images, but because of some of the names these candidates had. Happy Bone Zulkarnaen was one of the names of the candidates that I noticed but missed by Parvita, who is probably still curious about it until this very moment, mostly because she had in her mind this very candidate posing with different types of dogs and winning votes from dog lovers due to his name alone. I seriously couldn’t imagine what kind of parents would name their child, Happy Bone. Apparently this one would!

By the time we checked in to the hotel, everything was fine and dandy, and I left Yefta for a while to have a rest while I joined Parvita at the hotel’s coffee shop. We were chatting and enjoying tea and coffee when Elyani phoned me to inform that she just got back after photographing Ecky’s Siraman ceremony. Soon enough, we were accompanied with Elyani and Toni who looked like they could use a few snacks. Initially, Parvita ordered more tea and coffee and banana fritters (which wasn’t in the restaurant’s menu but they made it for us anyway) and afterwards, we were all happily chatting. I woke Yefta up to join us, and we were there until around 7 pm, when Elyani said she had to go back to Cisayong to photograph Ecky’s Ngeyeuk Sereh ceremony.

So what is Ngeyeuk Sereh exactly? Read all about it in Toni’s blog – it’s in Indonesian but once you see the photos (which are awesome) I’m sure you’d know what it means.

What happened afterwards? Stay tuned, peeps, there are plenty more to tell!