Trip to Dieng - Dieng Culture Festival 6th

There are few things that made this place are so special on this trip. Dieng is located at 2000m above sea level and especially during Summer, Jun-Aug, the temperature can reach minus 2 degree celcius. And during our travel period, there were a festival, Dieng Culture Festival 6th 2015, famous with ritual haircut for dreadlocks, thousand lanterns to fly and watch jazz performance named jazzatasawan means jazz above the clouds. I went with my ex. officemates and joining an open trip with them by paying Rp 885.000 for all in, organized by Bandar Wisata, and I'm quite satisfied with the organizer. This open trip held on 31 Jul - 2 Aug 2015 to Dieng, Central Java.

Day 1 - Friday, 31 July 2015
Left by Elf on Friday night around 6 PM (late from schedule 4.30 PM), there were around more than 20 ppl on this group, so there were 2 elf. It took about 12-15 hours to get there, as usual if night trip we couldn't have a good sleep but we tried so we could start new day with many cool activities ;) our driver was really fast so we thought we are going to arrive around 8 or 9 AM but we arrived at 5.30 AM and the weather were so cold, we were freezing.

Day 2 - Saturday, 1 August 2015
Welcoming August with foggy day in the early morning and freez....ing put my gloves, scarf, jacket, socks to make myself warm. We went to the top to see a great view and no wonder if this place been mentioned as a world above the clouds. Gotta pretty much time to explore Dieng Plateau and I realized Dieng was not very big area, all of places are in one area.

Arrive at Dieng ;)

World above the clouds~

awesomeee

We got a nice house to stay, we took some rest a bit and later we went to Kawah Sikidang (Sikidang Crater) actually it is a volcano area that still active until now. From that crater we went to Telaga Warna & Telaga Pengilon, it is a lake that most ppl called it changing lake cause the colours looks changing often, i suggest you to go to Bukit Rata, from entrance you can turn to the right and going up, i kinda regret that i didn't going up cause if you go there you can get specta view from the top, and you can see the colours of the lake clearly. We also visit some caves, there were few caves with each of them has different stories. After explored some places, we went to a shop to buy some gifts and actually that shop was quite nearby our homestay. The famous things in Dieng is a fruit named Carica, the shaped looks like papaya but small one. I bought some that already made a sweetness things, i do call it manisan in bahasa.

our homestay

Sikidang Crater

first time riding a horse!!!

Carica~~

Wanna try some egg??

Telaga Warna

i just love it!

lol xDD

Back to homestay and we got few stuff that already included on Dieng Culture Festival package such as ID Card, T-Shirt, Batik, Keychain and some leaflet that packed inside the red bag. We also got a lantern for tonight event, at night we went to Arjuna Complex area to join the crowd for lanterns festival, it was my first time to flew some lanterns, there were lots of ppl that made us hard to get in the area..i heard this year get crazy increasing from 2.200 ppl to 5.000 ppl. Too bad the lanterns event not as expected, i thought we will ready with all our lanterns and we will releasing together but it wasn't. But i still find it interesting things to do at that night ;) 

fireworks & lanterns

ready..set..

GO!!

the crowd

Day 3 - Sunday, 2 August 2015
We didn't take a chance to see sunrise at Bukit Sikunir, if you go there try to go to Sikunir Hills to see beautiful sunrise. Kinda laying back at homestay, sooo cold in the morning that you didn't feel want to get up and stay away from blanket and bed. No need aircon, the weather hit minus 2 degree celcius at dawn, no wonder if we felt so cold at night. If you happen to go to Arjuna Complex around 4 AM the local said you can see ice covering that area. we didn't join the carnaval so we went straight to Arjuna Complex to see the event called Pemotongan Rambut Gimbal(Haircut for dreadlocks) , it was a ritual for some children that had uniqueness with their hair/dreadlocks to get haircut for it, some ppl believe if that child is special. To get their haircut on this ritual, the child have to make their own request and in return they will have a wish that will be granted, some child request to their mother or father etc. There were 10 children who joined this ritual, the event started from 11 AM, the children got to washed before this ritual with another ritual that we didn't see cause we want to have a good spot to see this haircut ritual. They said if the child wishes didn't granted exactly like their wishes, the hair will grow back to before, gimbal again. So they should granted exactly like their wishes, the wishes from them like gold necklace, gold bracelet, a cycle, 1 basket of apples that just came out from refrigerator, 3 goats, Dancers of Traditional Dance from Dieng ( forgot the name of dance), Getuk (one of traditional snack Indonesia) the getuk one was made us like..wow..he only wishes for getuk while others have another big things. One more thing to do the ritual is you have to make sure the wish from that child wouldn't change since beginning until the ritual was held. Thousand of ppl gathered there to see this ritual, the guest which specially came there and bought ticket or local ppl or ppl from another city. That was interesting thing to see and happened once a year. From there we went back to homestay, get ready & prepare to go back to Jakarta. It was too crowded and we stuck due to traffic, we left at 1 PM and arrived at Jakarta on 4.30 AM on Monday..that was crazy..about 15 hours more. The bad news was I need to go to office on that Monday ;( I only got 2 hours of good sleep on that day. But that was a really nice weekend getaway.

view in front of our homestay

on the way to Arjuna Complex

totally in love with the sky

Place for ritual cleaning up the dreadlocks (shower)

look closer

t-shirt, batik, id card

take your spot!

wefie! febri, me, nelly & lucky

healing..namaste ;)

packed of people!!

the kids

the ritual is starting..

first kid

ready to cut it..

got her gift that she asked

another kid

boy who asked the dancers ;p

Mie Ongklok

hello sunset ;)

Tips :
1. Perfect time to go there Jun - Aug
2. Wear a thick jacket or long john or things to make you warm cause the weather would be so cold & freeze

Here is the itinerary :
31 Juli 2015
16.30 : Meeting Point at Dunkin Donut Plaza Semanggi
17.00 : Journey to Desa Dieng Wonosobo

01-Agust-15
05.30-08.00 Arrived at Dieng Plateau at Explore it
09.00-12.00 Breakfast & Rest
12.00-14.00 Sikidang Crater, active volcano
14.00-16.00 Telaga Warna, Telaga Pengilon
16.00-17.00 Shop for souvenirs or snacks
17.00-17.30 Back to homestay
17.30-19.00 Dinner and Shower time
19.00-23.00 Lanterns at Arjuna Complex
23.00-02.30 Sleep

02-Agust-15
02.00-05.00 Sunrise at Bukit Sikunir (Tentative)
06.00-08.00 Breakfast, Shower
09.00-12.00 Going to Arjuna Complex and get ready to see the ritual of dreadlocks
12.00-13.00 Back to homestay and packing
13.00-13:30 Back to Jakarta and happy-not-happy-actually 15 hours...huhuhu

Since we only got 3x meals so sometimes we have to buy our own meals. The Dieng Plateau area is already quite established since there are many nice homestay, mini market even atm. Try to visit it to have interesting experience staying 2000m above sea level ;) Well, thank you so much for reading and see you on my next trip that will happen pretty soon, one of my bucket list. Yeay!