Kinah (Bali) Rejo

Last Saturday (June, 8), after finishing all my take-home final assignments, I asked mas Dody to accompany me visiting Kaliurang. It's typically me whenever I feel stressed and bored with college stuffs, I have to go somewhere, a place with trees and fresh air. On the way, rain was falling down as if they want to greet us before we 'climbed' that hill. Fyi, Kaliurang is a small village in Yogyakarta that located in the slope of Merapi. The air is fresh because many trees are planted there. When I was in high school, I usually go to Kaliurang with my friends from Student Christian Community (we call it in Indonesia, Persekutuan Siswa Kristen) to hold our annual retreat. The last time I visited Kaliurang was for a Solidarity Night from SEXEN organization I joined in the first year of my college. If you are a person who looking for a peace and fresh air, Kaliurang is absolutely a must-have-visited place when you visit Yogyakarta.

Sadly, the scenery in Kaliurang now no longer as beautiful as it was. Because of Merapi eruption, which was quite big, in 2010, the trees there were destroyed by volcanic smoke that usually called wedhus gembel. Luckily, they are already recovered by now. Yey! :D

We ride our motorcycle around this village but we couldn't find our destination yet until mas Dody saw a board titled "Goa Jepang" and he insisted me to visit it! Hooowww crruueelll!!!! I already heard many stories about that spooky cave. My cousins visited that cave about couple years ago and they said they found many "uncommon" and unseen things there. Okay you may say I'm a coward but I'd rather back home peacefully than back home with a paranoid feeling. Anyway, we still visited that cave only we did not enter the cave, we only saw the scenery and we (me, actually) tried our best to stay away from the cave.

We couldn't find any interesting place in Kaliurang because we got there at around 4 p.m and many places were nearly to be closed so mas Dody asked me to go to Kali Adem in Cangkringan. I felt soooooo excited because I hadn't go to that place before.



When we got there, there were so many jeeps and trails motor for rent. Mas Dody wanted to rent a trail since it's his dream motorcycle but we didn't have enough money so we decided to walk until the peak of Kinahrejo. The journey was not easy, we had to walk with sandals on 45° road and our suffering was added with rain that fell down again! Whereas, we did not bring any umbrella at that time so we faced a dilemma between kept on walking or go back empty handed. Finally we decided to keep walking until mbah Maridjan's house.

We were lucky! When we entered a warung (a small shop that sell cheap beverages and snacks), the heavy rain was fall. And we discovered that the owner of the warung is mbah Maridjan's sister! We had a small talk with her at that time and I found this woman is amazing! She's really down to earth and humble, she greeted us first and gave us a sincere welcoming smile.

After drinking a glass of warm and sweet natural tea, we go on to look at mbah Maridjan's house and Kinah (Bali) Rejo museum. I was speechless when we got there, everything were dented and melted. Kitchen's tools, children shoes, a bottle, even a car and few motorcycles were shown there. There was a big poster telling about two volunteers who died in that place when they tried to save the villagers. They were died in the Suzuki APV car that attacked by awan panas or volcanic smoke. Honestly I was speechless and tried to reflect myself, if I were they, would I give my life to save people? I don't think so. And I was thinking about this universe and about God also, nowadays humans are trying to command this universe. In fact, we forget that we are weak if we compared ourselves with universe. We cannot command them actually because we live depend on them, on the universe and God.

On the way back to the parking lot, mas Dody told me something that he got from Sejarah Pemikiran Modern class. He said, he now knows what the meaning of iron cage after he saw people in the slope of Merapi. "I remember Mr. Sis told us about iron cage, about people who always seeking for money, for their own pride sake.  Forget their culture and religious value. Compared with people here, of course they still struggling to get money, but they have money for their life, to eat, to pay daily costs, not really for pride. They still live their culture and religious properly," said mas Dody.

Well, there is one quotation from mbah Maridjan that really touch my heart, he said...

Ajining menungsa iku gumantung ana ing tanggungjawabe marang kewajibane.

Kehormatan seseorang dinilai dari tanggung jawab terhadap kewajibannya.

An honor of a person is valued from his responsibility toward his duty.

CAPTURED MOMENTS:

We're going to reach that peak!

She is mbah Maridjan's sister

Mas Dody looking at a photography book of Merapi eruption

They sell CDs and DVDs about Merapi eruption

"Welcome to Kinahrejo!"

The most delicious tea  I've ever taste is a natural tea, like this one

This used to be mbah Maridjan's house

Kinah Bali Rejo museum

My house now remains memory

Everything dented

Even the glass bottle melted

Fog was coming down when we want to go home

p.s: Dear readers, actually I'm neither a native speaker nor writer in English so please kindly correct me if you find any grammar mistakes. Thank you so much! :)