A Visit to Kakek Bodo Waterfall

Hellowww, everybody!

So, a few weeks ago my mum suddenly announced "We're going to a waterfall!" out of nowhere. I cannot remember for sure, but she said Baby Boy had never been to one, like... ever! But then we got busy with our own stuffs (my dad's birthday's on the 8th!) and kinda forgotten about it, until Au brought it up and then it's official, we're going to a (any) waterfall on the weekend!

I'm sure y'all know i've quite a wanderlust, and i actually inherited it from my mum. She loves loves loves to travel, but has a very strong self-obstruction-she's afraid of flying. So even though my childhood overseas travels were only limited to Singapore and Malaysia (oh, and a 17 days tour to China when i was 11), we have explored everywhere that can be reached by car! Oh yes, we drove everywhere. The non-stop picnic actually started way before i came into the picture (my siblings are 12, 11 and 7 years older than me) and continued well into my teenage years. We have like, hundreds of ancient photo albums of our travels still kept safely in my mum's special cupboard.

My mum actually wanted to go to this waterfall in Batu (dunno the name, she didn't inform me) but i strongly rejected because Batu's like 3-4 hours drive!!!! We're gonna stay at the waterfall for what, one or two hours max? Haissss, it's so not worth the journey! So i persisted that we go to Kakek Bodo waterfall in Teretes (around 1 hour drive) instead.

Errrr, yea-we actually came in the wrong season. It's still very dry in East Java (but it's been raining since yesterday! Finally!) so the waterfall was very small and slim hahahaha

We stopped by Ayam Sri first for an early lunch and thank God for that because hunny and i didn't have breakfast and it turned out the journey to the waterfall was quite long and steep! My dad kept on telling us (but nobody reacted LOL) about it, i've been there a few times but i really can't remember much *horrible memory* about it and i was so not going to drive (well, hunny drove, so i meant ride then :p) to Batu-so i didn't take no for an answer! My dad *who had a bypass surgery when i was little* sat out the journey *and rightfully so!* and opted to wait in the car instead.

The view that welcomed us to the area

Hiking began now, and plenty more to come hehe

The waterfall's actually located in Pasuruan forest, but it's now very well developed since it's such a popular tourist (mostly locals, i'd say 99% haha) destination-and thank God for that because that means all the road leading to the waterfall had been paved to make the journey easier!

We once went to Pulau Sempu (Sempu island) with L and her friends which was like a totally raw, non-developed protection forest. The way was super duper slippery, muddy, hiking was hell and i totally gave up not even half way through! It was a super tough, more than half day worth of hiking to get to the beautiful "The Beach" lookalike area and it was just not for me *LOL*. Even L who's like, 10x stronger than me had to pay to be hauled by the guide because she almost fainted! And what's crazier was we actually brought a 6 or 7 months pregnant LL! WTF! We must've lost our minds back then hahaha!

The youngster (my niece Au, nephew J, Baby Boy-trailed by his nanny) disappeared quickly while i-always a slow hiker-and hunny waited for my mum who pretty much crawled up hehe. She's not so young anymore you know (just celebrated her 64th birthday last month), it was quite an achievement that she was still able to hike so far up!

Anyway, like quarter way through (i was already sweating bullets that got into my eyes and made them super painful and cut of the tail of my eyeliner *sigh*. And the weather was actually quite cool! Compared to Surabaya, at least) we stumbled into...

A family of monkeys!

Can you see them?

Peek-a...

Boo!

LOL this one was busy munching on something (most probably a candy) while lying at the gazebo

Then sat and posed like a model! It was not scared of human as well, suddenly came up to us-much to my horror (i've been hopped on by a monkey in Sangeh, Bali when i was quite little and the monkey refused to let go of me-it scarred me for life *___*) and i hurried hubby along!

This one's not a monkey lah hor hahahaha

Continue the journey *hosh hosh hosh* and then we found the kids playing at a bridge near a tiny baby waterfall haha.

Well hello! Hunny quickly caught up to them

They jumped down the bridge to play at the stream. Baby Boy kept on insisting to join them, but he's a city boy and he's only 6 so i refused to let him go down! It's super slippery okay! And must jump quite far down

Hunny's signature pose : wiping his sweat #foreversweating LOL

We hiked some more and found a gazebo-like place. Kinda joked around *a bit rudely* while reading this placate that's telling the story of Kakek Bodo (direct translation : Stupid Grandpa) :

Then we realized that he's a real person and that little house was actually his tomb! This kind of tombs are everywhere in Indonesia-which is still very rich with supernatural powers and mystique. This grandpa supposedly had some magic powers and like many like him with special powers, they'd be respected and even prayed to in a ritual to ask for something-even after they are long gone. This place was named after is nickname (given by a Dutch family who called him that because he left their household where he worked as a domestic help to cast himself away from earthly life and purify himself) because this was his "Bertapa" (i have no idea what this is called in English *cries*, basically a person sit down in a prayer for a very long period of times, sometimes to ask for a power-sometimes just to be closer to God like what monks does. Is meditating the right translation???) place and also-eventually-his dying place.

Hiked some more and finally!!!!

It's close!

We're here!

Actually we're still a few quite a few feet away from the actual waterfall. We played at the stream below *with ice cold water, so cooling after sweating a bucket to get there!* for quite sometime. Later they went ahead and hiked up, but i gave it a miss because i wore a wrong kind of footwear (a jelly slipper that's good for long time walking but definitely not for hiking and slippery roads!) and also because the path up there was quite damaged, rocky and scary looking *LOL*

Looking very happy, didn't they?

Hahahaha, kids these days... Selca time!

Soon Baby Boy (who already started whining when he stepped into the rocky stream bare footed-it was painful and super cold he said) saw a few water bugs floating peacefully and began screaming because he's scared of them. *____* such a city boy. I definitely need to bring him to a more excursions like this!

It was really really really crowded T.T

We totally attracted attentions, not only because we're like the only Chinese  (therefore, striking and attention grabbing. Again, i'm not being racist or whatever, but that's just the way it still is in Indonesia) there, but also because we made so much noises about the cold water, the slippery and rocky stream, etc. LOL. So embarrassing.

Anyway, i know it didn't look like much (lots of people who just arrived voiced the same thing "WHY SO SMALL????") in the pictures, but this waterfall-on the right season-is actually quite majestic and impressive! In fact, a common joke for Indonesian tour leaders was tourists from Surabaya's reaction upon seeing the Jeju Island (South Korea)'s waterfall's this "WTH!!!! Is this Kakek Bodo's baby or something!!!!". Hehehe, no offence for Korean or K-Pop fanatics, it's the truth!If you're interested in seeing how amazing it could be, watch this video. It's not a fancy or very great quality one, but it did showed enough hehe.

Hahahahahah i told him to "SUCK IT IN!!!"

We stayed and played at the stream for quite sometime

And attempted making a dam using our feet :p

My fave pic, made our legs looked super longggg hahahaha

Then they hiked further up for a closer look :

Pffffttt this is like, 10% of the actual size of the waterfall during rainy season

Yeah, i waited there with my mummy

I wore the wrong outfit that day *___* (story of my life whenever i don't prepare my outfit like, days before!). I wanted something loose and comfortable so i threw on this tee (that i actually wore only once before and also to a WATERFALL! LOLOLOL, what is this a waterfall-specialist tee or something???) that i forgot to be super long paired with a shorts from Bali-that was quite SHORT-in the end i looked like i was not wearing any pants T.T. Not wanting to attract anymore attention that we already got, i kept on hiking *pun intended* my tee up to reveal a bit of the shorts! Combining that with the actual HIKE, well.... It was harder than it should be hahaha.

Getting ready to head back

Suddenly Au announced that she wanted to collect some sands dunno what for...

While Baby Boy, hunny, the nanny and i began the descending journey down...

Hunny was very attracted to the monkeys we saw earlier and was really regretful that he didn't bring anything for them before, so he purposefully purchased some peanuts to feed them. Much to his annoyance, we couldn't find the monkey family at the same spot! Just when we're about to give up we found these guys on a tree!

There were actually quite a lot of them in different levels of the branches!

Sadly they were not as friendly as the first ones we encountered because they didn't dare to approach us, no matter how we called, tempted (with peanuts that they eyed very interestedly in) and coaxed (at one point, when the rest had joined us, we even tried calling them using each other's names! LOL. My mum said #Pink was the smart one up there PFFFFTTTT. I'm not sure that's a compliment though!)! Too bad! Hunny just left like a handful of peanuts on the tree trunk lying on the ground and hopefully they'd get them when we left!

And that's the end of our mini get away to Kakek Bodo waterfall one Sunday afternoon, we were super super full after our Ayam Sri lunch and didn't think we'd want to eat again, but the crazy hiking proved to be enough to make us all hungry again! We stopped by and had some bakso, satays etc (same place where we went to on #Undecided's birthday!) and stuffed ourselves silly-once again!

It was pretty nice, sure a welcome break in our boring routine. Wouldn't mind going to many more mini getaways like this :D! Do you like going to touristy places like this as well?

#Pink