Nice Touring Cilegon – Kuningan Via Ciater

CIATER SPA RESORT


Ciater Spa Resort is laid in Ciater - Subang - West Java. It is provided for everyone who wants enjoy staying submerged in the natural hot spring water pool.


On last week, 13 - 17 August 2008, we were going to attend my brother in law marriage in Kuningan, West Java. Usually, if we went to Kuningan, we took “Cikamurang” route. However, last week, I insisted my wife to go to Kuningan via Lembang, Subang - West Java. According to my wife’s friend, if you through this way, you’ll find lots of beautiful sceneries, although you must carefully drive in the curves road. My wife didn’t want to go to this way, since she was afraid that we would be lost somewhere in the place that we don’t familiar. However, I convinced her, that we have our GPS with us. So, after had some arguments, we decided to go to Kuningan, with our first destination is Ciater Spa Resort, Subang – West Java, may be we will try to Ciater Spa Resort, that the place only I know from the website. Yes! It’s time to try the GPS! I had installed the Garmin maps on my nokia E65 and bought GPS receiver “Navibe”. The GPS receiver is quit cheap enough, I think, only Rp. 600.000 (about USD 60).ay to go to Lembang. However, due to we want to enjoy the beautiful scenery, we exit in the Sadang toll gate and continue drive to Subang. In Subang city, turned right to go to Subang – Ciater road. Exit the Subang city, the road is very good, clean and smooth, although it is curves road. No wonder, I think, it is the tourism lane, so the government city will always provide good infrastructure. Soon, we also smell the fresh mountain air surrounding us.


To go to Lembang, the Garmin showed us route via Cipularang toll road, may be it is the short way. Far away, we could see the high mountain standing. May be it is Mount Tangkuban Perahu, but I’m not sure. Along the road to Ciater Spa Resort, there are tea plantations in our left and right side. Hmm, the air is so fresh! We opened the car window, let the wind blew inside our car. It’s so fresh and chill. The view is very magnificent, sometimes, in the green of tea plantation, we watched there are trees with red flower bloom. Beautiful combination! Green tea plantation, the blue of mountain and red flower bloom on the high trees!


Near the tea plantation, there are always some places to rest. These stalls provide some food for the tourist or sightseer who wants to take a rest and take some food while enjoy and feel the fresh air and the green tea plantation. Usually these stalls sell boil noodle, fried noodle, coffee, tea, etc. However, due to we were in rush, we didn’t stop awhile although we really wanted. Next time, I said. We must hurry to Ciater Spa Resort.

Then after about 5 hours driving from Cilegon, we arrived at our first destination, Ciater Spa Resort on the left side, surrounding by the green hill of tea plantation and slope of Mount Tangkuban Perahu.

Well, the enter gate to Ciater Spa Resort is not describe the luxury of this resort. We hesitated to go inside, but then we decided to enter the gate. The road inside is rough and slope down, and then we met the second gate entrance where we must pay for the ticket. It is quite expensive entrance ticket, Rp. 14.000/person (USD 1.4/person) and for the car Rp. 11.000 (USD 1.1) since we had to buy ticket also if we want to use the hot spring water pool, Ciater Spa Resort. The road to the resort now is quite good with the nuance village inside and chill wind. Inside Ciater Spa Resort, we can feel that it is absolutely managed well. Flower bloom everywhere, colorful; luxury wood house; and sometimes, we met horse riding renter in passing on the resort.


The entrance ticket to the natural hot spring spa water pool, Ciater Spa Resort is Rp. 25.000/person (USD 2.5/person), children Rp. 15.000/child (USD 1.5/child). The price of the ticket is different when weekend. We bought 2 tickets for me and my daughters – Azka and Aqeela. Actually we should bought 1 ticket for adult and 2 ticket for children since my wife didn’t swim she didn’t necessary to buy ticket. However, the ticket officer said, they made it 2 tickets for adult.


After getting the tickets, we continue to the hot spring water pool. Inside we noticed that there are four pools in Ciater Spa Resort hot spring water pool. It could be seen the water steam came up from the hot water in the pool. Due to, the weather was cloudy, the steam was clearly seen. The Japanese tourist we met there kindly told us that the 2 pools near the entrance are not too hot, so the children can enjoy submerged.


Not so many people in the pool in the time of our visit. May be because it was still workday. There were only 1 Japanese tourist who were so kind to us, and in the back pool, there were 3 western tourists had a chit chat while put their leg into the hot water. However, then came up a couple tourist, I don’t know for sure where they came from, I thought from Greece because they didn’t speak English. Wow, it seems that most people come here are international tourists, we probably in the wrong pool? We couldn’t take a swim and submerged any longer since the rain was start to coming. The weather became more chiller than ever. So, although my children, Azka and Aqeela still want to play in the water pool, we must finish since the rain became harder.


While waiting the rain stop, we took dhuhur prayer in the mushola that provided near the hot spring water pool. Then after took some lunch, we continued to go around the Ciater Spa Resort area. Oh, in fact, that in the east of this area, there are also hot water pool and a large area playground and small lake which is usually used for outbound activity, e.g. playing fox, etc. In the playground there are many facilities for children to play, like swing, water bike, sliding, etc. I think children will be happy in this place. If you want to ride a horse, there are some people offering riding horse. The cost is not too expensive, you can ride a horse with only Rp. 20.000/horse. The hot water pool itself was still in reparation, so it was closed when we arrived there. Near the playground, there is a camping ground and also Kunang – Kunang café. But the café was closed, again may be because it was not weekday. It is very beautiful area, next time I want to go to Ciater Spa Resort again.