Wulandari Robyanti: Abroad

7 Days China Trip (Itinerary & Budget)

By Wulandari Robyanti - June 04, 2019

I can say that traveling to China is one of my bucket list. Somehow, I just admire its nature, heritage, empires, culture, also its histories. At the end of 2018, one of my traveling partners shouted in our WhatsApp group, there was a promo return ticket to China. Always, cheap tickets teased me so well. Without thinking any longer, we bought the return tickets for IDR 1,9 mio. Actually, there were IDR 1,4 mio, way cheaper. But unfortunately, the cheapest ones were sold out.

Since traveling to China already crossed my mind, I can’t get out of picturing it till I finally bought the return tickets! BUT, the problem was, I bought the ticket to (and from) Guangzhou! And, I just realized that Guangzhou is FAR AWAY from any destination I pictured about. Really wanted to go to Beijing, was already dreaming about going to Great Wall, otherwise, the distance itself was about 2.133 km, 23 hours ride by train. Flight tickets were double expensive than our return ticket from Jakarta. So, how? In this post, I wanna tell you that nothing is impossible...IF YOU ARE CRAZY ENOUGH. Here is my itinerary (in recap) for going to my dream destinations from Guangzhou.

Travel Itinerary

Day 1: Arrived at Guangzhou at 2 am. Took asleep and planned to stroll around Guangzhou in the morning. Turned out, sleeping is all that we need!! Just wake up at 11 pm, getting ready and went to Temple of Six Tree Banyan. Not far from the temple, accidentally we were crossing the bazaar street, you can buy some stuff like Chinese tea and their pretty ceramics.

Temple of Six Tree Banyan

Day 2: Was planning to wake up at the earlier morning, like 5 or 5.30 am, to go to Guilin. But again, we were all tired and we slept till the 8!!! And guess what? We missed our train. Already booked it for the 8am ride, turned out we just woke up at the same time.
Therefore, we bought the tickets again and continued our journey to Guilin, to a small town called Yangshuo to be exact. We arrived at 3 pm at Yangshuo train station, continued to ride the bus, and arrived at 4pm at the central bus station of Yangshuo. We went to Yulong River straight away with our carrier bag on us. The operational of Yulong River will be closed in the near time, so we decided to rent Tuktuk from the station to the river.

Yu Long River

We went to the hostel after that, stayed at Yangshuo Sudder Street Guesthouse, strolled around the city with a bicycle, looking for the dinner.

No words to describe how happy we were to stroll around the city in the late night.

Day 3: We woke up very early, to feel the ambiance of Yangshuo in the morning. Also, we need to check out any sooner because we wanted to move to another city. Yes, that’s why I call this trip as a “Genie itinerary”. We were just moving away from one city to another in the counting of hours!

Saying goodbye to Yangshuo with a heavy heart:( will come back to this place!

We took a taxi from the hostel to Yangshuo Bus Station. After that, we continued the ride with another bus to go to Guilin Railway Station. From Guilin Railway station, we took the fast train we booked before, it was 3 hours ride heading to Changsa since the train will stop there and we will transit for two hours. From Changsa, we were moving to Beijing by train, slow train exactly. Spent 16 hours on the train, just to go to Beijing City!

Day 4: Finally arrived in Beijing at 9 am! It was such a long journey, but because we are moving from one ride to another, we didn’t feel that bored, only when 16 hours long on the train. Yas, 16 hours. On that day, we planned to go to Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, after checking in to the hotel. Btw, our hotel was in Wangfujing, it’s a good and very strategist area! You can only by walk to get to the shopping center, whether it’s mall or bazaar, and it was very near to Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square too. We're planning to get there at noon, BUT WE FELL ASLEEP AGAIN. It’s the third time we changed our itinerary just because we were sleeping. The conclusion was: we just simply were tired...

To kill the time, we went to Miniso (seriously!) near our hotel, bought some cute things. And we strolled around Wangfujing main street, there were some people dancing in front of the church following the music. And like the locals, we danced too! Although it was tiring day, we were feeling so happy at that time.

Day 5: ANOTHER LONG JOURNEY AWAITED US. We wanted to go to The Great Wall of China, but from what side? That was three option to get to the great wall, but the most authentic was in Simatai Great Wall. Nonetheless, Simatai was the farthest one, located 120km from the city. We took variances of public transportation. The city bus, subway, transit to another subway, riding an express bus from the station, switching to another bus, and it took around 3-4 hours to get there. The entrance was in Gubei Water Town. And yea finally made it to Great Wall. From Simatai, we took the bus straight away to go back to the city, and went to Donghuamen Night Market. When we were looking for bus halte to go back to the hotel, tuned out it’s just a walk away from the main street we strolled around last night, and we walked our foot like a lot on that day.

Not regretting at all to visit Simatai, even though it was far and expensive enough for me

Day 6: Went to Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, it was near the Donghuamen so we came back to the bazaar again after that. Checked out the hotel and go to the train station AGAIN to go back to Guangzhou.

Was a great empire.

Day 7: Still on the train.....

On the train..

Eat antimo

Sleep..

Sleep again

Eat

Repeat

Watching Netflix

Going to another episodes, another film..

Editing photo

Talk to the strangers

Laughing with the locals

Struggling again with language barrier

Ask it ask that
In the total, it was 23 hours of the ride! The longest ride I’ve ever been. Can you imagine how did it feel to get to a train for 23 hours nonstop?!?! In China?! Where the sanitation was quite dirty?!?! But you also have to take a pee, right?!?! Of course not forgetting to cleanse the face, at least? That’s how we felt for the long ride on our last day in China. And finally, we arrived at 5 pm on the next day. Straight away to Guangzhou Airport after going to HC Inn first to pick our luggage we left there, and go to Jia Mei hotel to meet our (supposed to be) teammate, we planned to go to Guilin together but they couldn’t make it due to the engine problem with their plane. It was our last day in China, our plane take-off to Malaysia at 2am. Time to say goodbye to China!

That’s a wrap about my itinerary! Gosh..writing about it and imagining it again already makes me tired, can’t believe WE DID IT! Thanks to my crazy traveling partner, for accompanying this crazy idea to explore China mainland right to the city of Beijing!

Budget

Disclaimer: it is based on my experience, I believe that my budget compared to another's will result in some differences. The budget below is described as if you are traveling with a buddy, of course because we shared a room for two and shared our cost for meals. I may forget about some expenses that were not recorded, but I can say that how much we spent on this trip is around this budget. Our biggest expense was in train transportation to connect us from one city to another, followed by hotel expense. So, to answer some's curiosity about how much I spent in China, here you go to the details!

DAY	Cost per Person	Notes
DAY 1
Flight return tickets Jakarta-Guangzhou	IDR1.900.000
Bus from Airport to Station	CNY 24
Taxi from Station to HC Inn	CNY 44
2 nights stay at HC Inn	CNY 200	Family room (Was planning for 4 person including me n 3 of myfriend)
2 pax Chicken Wings McD	CNY 20
DAY 2
Fast Train to Yangshuo	IDR 390.000	All the train tickets, we booked it previously via trip.com
Bus from Yangshuo Railway Station to bus station	CNY 20
Rent Tuktuk to Yulong River from Station and drive us to hotel	CNY 50	100 for 2 people
Rent the Boat	CNY 80	160 per boat, because there were 2 of us, so each will pay 80
Taking photos while in the Boat	CNY 20	Each person pay 20
Tip	CNY 7,5	We gave 15, the officer will ask us for tip and we can’t refuse
Hostel	CNY 40	Yangshuo Sudder Street Guesthouse
Dinner	CNY 19	We pay 38 for two, that was sharing meal because the protion itself was so big
DAY 3
Rent car from hostel to bus station	CNY 10	The actual cost = 10x2
Bus from Yangshuo to Guilin	CNY 17
Fast train from Guilin to Changsa	CNY 261
Slow train from Changsa to Beijing	CNY 200
DAY 4
2 nights stay at Wangfujing Jade, Beijing	IDR 386.193	Traveloka paylater promo. It should be IDR 700k-ish for one night. Lucky us to have iy 770k-ish for 2 nights.
DAY 5
Bus from Beijing City (Dongzhimen Station)	CNY 17	Around that price, kinda forget
Bus to Gubei Water Town	CNY 25
Simatai Great Wall and Gubei Water Town entrance + Cable car return ticket	CNY 288
Go back to Beijing by direct bus	CNY 40
DAY 6
Entrance to Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City	CNY Free	Not going to the inside of the palace
Slow train from Beijing to Guangzhou	CNY 192
Taxi to Jiamei Hotel	CNY 6	Where my friends stayed
Subway to the airport	CNY 7	Spare at least 2 hours long because of transitting one to another
CNY TOTAL	CNY 1.587 x IDR 2120 = IDR 3.364.440
IDR TOTAL	= 2.676.193
ALL TOTAL	= IDR 3.364.440 + 2.676.193 = IDR 6.040.633	EXCLUDE CITY BUS AND SUBWAY TOTAL COST, EATING KFC, AND SHOPPING

When in China, we took the city bus and subway as our main transportation. Couldn’t recap it all how much we spent on that, but for all every city bus we took, each of us only spent CNY 2 per ride to go everywhere. For subway (metro), it was costed from CNY 1 till CNY 7, fares depended on the distance we will up to. Yes, it was that cheap to travel on public transportation!

We usually ate oatmeal with another food we prepared from Indonesia. If we ate outside, we frequently ate KFC like a lot. I couldn’t remember how much we bought it since it was the only one we knew clearly and the taste is so-so... One pax of chicken breast was costed around CNY 12 or around IDR 24k.

Couldn’t make it clear how much it was costed for shopping, every single of us has our preferences in claiming how much spending on shopping is considered as a tolerable cost.

I think that's all to sum up my itinerary and budget to explore China mainland, if there is any question, feel free to contact me here. Hope it helps, and thanks for reading!

Every good wish,

@wulandarirobyanti

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Abroad

Traveling in China: Things to Know

By Wulandari Robyanti - May 23, 2019

Gue selalu kagum sama suatu bangsa yang memiliki sejarah dan kebudayaan yang kuat, salah satunya ya kepada China, salah satu negeri yang memiliki peradaban tertua di dunia. Istilah “Belajarlah sampai ke Negeri Cina” itu bukan hanya sebuah ungkapan belaka, tapi tercetus karena peradabannya yang kaya dan lebih maju dibanding bangsa-bangsa Asia lainnya. Jaman dahulu, China adalah bangsa yang paling dominan di daerah Timur Jauh (The Far East) atau Asia Timur. Sebut saja Korea dan Jepang, sebagian besar kebudayaan mereka pun mewarisi kebudayaan China.

The Great Wall of China

Banyak yang bilang “Ngapain ke China? Emang ada apa?”, atau “Ih Lan, China kan jorok!”, bahkan “Kok lu eksplornya ke negara-negara yang ‘aneh-aneh’ sih, kemaren India, sekarang China, mending ke negara lain gak sih?”. Menanggapi hal itu, gue punya satu slogan “To travel is to prove”. Hal itu bisa ditafisrkan ke beberapa hal, mulai dari membuktikan kemampuan diri sendiri dalam beradaptasi dan mengenal lingkungan baru, serta membuktikan kondisi dan fakta sebenarnya tentang suatu daerah tujuan kita. Tulisan ini akan gue bagi dalam beberapa poin, isinya tentang highlight selama di sana yang gue ambil dari pengalaman gue sendiri.

Salah satu tempat yang gue temui di China, Gubei Water Town.

1. Transportasi Antarkota

Ada beberapa hal yang gue kagumi selama gue berpergian di China, salah satunya ya sistem transportasi di China yang menurut gue keren banget. Bagi gue, salah satu indikator majunya sebuah negara bisa dilihat dari ketersediaan infrastruktur yang menghubungkan dari satu daerah ke daerah lain. Bayangin ya, China itu bener-bener daratan besar, tapi jalur transportasinya bener-bener menjangkau ke seluruh daerah. Pernah bayangin gak sih di kereta 2 hari 2 malam atau sekitar 48 jam? Itu semua bisa kalian jumpai di China, mereka punya transportasi untuk menghubungkan setiap daerahnya tanpa terkecuali, dengan harga yang terjangkau serta bisa diakses oleh semua orang. Bahkan mereka punya bullet train yang dengan kerennya bisa memangkas waktu perjalanan jadi lebih singkat. Coba deh ke stasiun kereta di kota-kota di China, bener-bener besar banget kayak airport, gue kagum! Gak bisa tuh mepet-mepet kayak ke Stasiun Gambir, harus spare waktu sangking besarnya itu stasiun.

Engga punya foto stasiunnya, ini lagi nunggu kereta kita datang, akhirnya kali ini engga buru-buru!

2. Transportasi Dalam Kota

Untuk transportasi dalam kota pun lengkap banget, bus dan subway (atau disebut juga metro) bener-bener menjangkau ke seluruh sudut kota. Pas banget buat kita yang berpergian dengan backpack dan berniat memangkas biaya, karena selain lengkap, ongkos sekali jalannya juga tergolong murah banget. Untuk bus, cuma bayar 2 CNY alias sekitar 4k IDR untuk jarak tempuh jauh ataupun dekat. Untuk subway, tarif beragam mulai dari 2 sampai 7 CNY bergantung jarak tempuh. Selain itu, mereka punya trotoar yang lebar dan nyaman, jalur sepeda dan motor dipisah dengan jalur bus. Yang lebih keren lagi, di sana pakenya e-bike atau sepeda motor listrik! Jadi mengurangi polusi dan menghemat bahan bakar.

Diambil di perjalanan 16 jam Changsa-Beijing via kereta.

3 3. Kemegahan Negeri China

Tentang kemegahan negeri China, bisa dilihat dari megahnya sisa-sisa kekaisaran china, istana mereka megah banget. Dibangun dengan detail yang cantik dan di atas tanah yang luas. Belum lagi The Great Wall of China, itu keren banget! Gimana mereka membangun tembok dengan panjang sekita 21 ribu kilometer, di tengah kontur pegunungan, dan masih kokoh sampai sekarang. Kalau datang ke tempat-tempat bersejarah, gue suka ngebayangin bagaimana kehidupan dibangun di masa lampau. Di saat alat-alat masih sederhana, mereka mampu ngebangun peradaban mereka sendiri dan masih bisa kita nikmati hingga saat ini.

Bentuk bangunan sebagai salah satu simbol peradaban dan kebudayaan.

4 4. Masalah Kebersihan

Banyak juga yang tanya mengenai sanitasi di China, tentang kebersihan di sana dan apakah sama joroknya seperti yang orang-orang katakan. To be honest, gue hampir selalu buang air di hotel aja, karena engga berani untuk ke toilet umum di China. Tapi ya, pada akhirnya, karena gue naik kereta dengan durasi yang panjang, rekor naik kereta 23 jam dari Beijing ke Guangzhou, enggak mungkin kan engga pipis selama perjalanan! Toilet di kereta merupakan satu-satunya toilet umum yang gue masukin, bahkan katanya sih toilet umum yang biasanya tuh engga ada pintu, engga ada sekat. Dan bener sih, di toilet kereta kemarin, gue heran kenapa semboyan “Siapapun yang habis buang air, yang nyiram orang setelahnya” tuuh terus dibudayakan sampai jaman sekarang! Masuk toilet bukan sekedar bau, tapi juga lo akan ‘bertugas’ untuk ngeflush bekas pipis atau bahkan pup orang lain supaya lo bisa pakai toilet itu untuk diri lo...

5. Language Barrier

Selain masalah toilet, tantangan yang akan lo jumpai sehari-hari adalah kendala bahasa. Aplikasi translator harus banget kalian punya selama di sana, karena hampir semua orang di China enggak bisa bahasa inggris! Mungkin pertama kalian akan capek sendiri ngomong sama orang sana, tapi lama-lama seru aja kalau dinikmatin! Karena meskipun engga bisa bahasa inggris, rata-rata mereka mau dan berusaha untuk mengerti kita ngomong apa, some of them were really helpful! Tapi jangan kesel kalau ada yang langsung nolak untuk bantuin kita, karena gak semua perjalanan itu mulus, engga semua travel stories itu joyful dan comfortable!

Salah satu officer yang kita temui saat cari cara ke Temple Six Banyan Trees. Awalnya sangat sulit berkomunikasi dengan beliau, tapi justru dianterin ke stasiun subway dan diarahin langkah-langkah selanjutnya. Keterbatasan bahasa bukan halangan untuk berbuat baik.

6 6. Biaya Hidup

Mata uang di sana adalah CNY atau biasa juga disebut RMB, keduanya sama hanya beda penyebutan. 1 CNY berkisar di angka 2.100 IDR. Walaupun ongkos transportasinya murah, tapi biaya hidup di sana agak sedikit lebih mahal daripada di Indonesia. Satu paket chicken wings di McD, berisi 2 potong sayap kecil, dihargai sebesar 20 Yuan, atau sekitar Rp.40rb-an. Makan di restoran pinggir jalan berkisar 30-50ribuan per menu, tapi porsinya besar bisa untuk berdua. Hotel di Guangzhou harganya standar. Di Yangshuo, banyak ditemukan penginapan murah berupa hostel tapi nyaman dan kekinian, hostel yang gue book harganya Rp.80ribu per bed. Hotel di Beijing hampir semuanya mahal-mahal, gue book kamar dengan rate 700ribu per malam di daerah Wangfujing, daerah super strategis karena bisa jalan kaki kemana-mana, tapi itu pun standar banget. Bahkan, sejak pertama kita datang toiletnya masih bau pesing walaupun bersih. Untung dapetin hotelnya dengan promo paylater yang bikin harga jadi super miring, jadi enggak sakit hati amat hehehe. Engga kebayang kalau hotel 100ribuan di Beijing, katanya banyak tentara koneng!:(

7 7. Sistem Pembayaran

Kalau kalian pernah dengar tentang WeChat, aplikasi tersebut bukan hanya untuk berkirim pesan, tapi juga bisa sebagai alat pembayaran. Ada juga AliPay, mostly semua konter dan vending machine bisa dibayar melalui scan barcode via aplikasi tersebut. Pembayaran dengan mesin EDC di toko tertentu bisa menggunakan kartu debit dengan logo Visa/Mastercard, waktu itu gue bayar pake kartu debit CIMB Niaga. Tarik tunai di China bisa melalui atm dengan logo Visa/Mastercard juga, gue dan temen gue masing-masing tarik duit pake kartu debit CIMB dan Jenius, keduanya bisa dan ratenya bagus.

8 8. Internet di China

Mungkin udah banyak yang tau kalau Google, Whatsapp, Instagram, dan sosial media lainnya diblok di China. Kalian harus setting VPN untuk tetap connect internet seperti biasanya, bisa download aplikasi VPN di Appstore/Google play. Tapi, gak perlu repot-repot untuk nyalain setting VPN kalau kalian bawa Wifi Portable selama di sana, kemarin gue pake Wifi Portable dari @bawawifi. Internet unlimited dan batre awet seharian, cocok dibawa jalan-jalan dan tetap bisa update sana sini!

Always connected even at Yangshuo, a small city in Guilin.

Selama di China, gue mengunjungi 3 kota, yaitu Guangzhou; Guilin; dan Beijing. Semua transportasi antarkota ditempuh via darat, tepatnya kereta. Untuk transport dalam kota, selalu menggunakan bus dan subway. Bisa sih pakai taksi, tapi gue lebih milih uangnya dihemat untuk yang lain, seperti entrance ke Great Wall yang harganya lumayan menguras kantong!😂 Tentang itinerary dan budget akan gue tulis terpisah, kalau gue enggak mageeer😅

Overall, gue sadar bahwa bangsa China sangat ‘kaya’, baik budaya dan teknologi. Mereka punya aksara sendiri dan tetap dipakai hingga saat ini. Mereka punya tradisi minum teh dengan segala perlengkapannya. Mereka punya teknologi yang mutakhir dan semakin berkembang hingga sekarang. Banyak hal yang bisa dipelajari dan dialami selama di China, karena gue percaya bahwa setiap orang adalah guru; setiap tempat adalah sekolah; dan setiap hari adalah proses belajar.

Sampai jumpa di kiriman selanjutnya!

Every good wish,

@wulandarirobyanti

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Abroad

Traveling to Kashmir, a Piece of Heaven in The Conflict Area

By Wulandari Robyanti - October 13, 2018

I never noticed about Kashmir, until I decided to buy the cheap return tickets due to a mobile app's promotion to a country named "India". I was looking for some places to visit and I found a state named "Jammu and Kashmir". And here I was, going there with two of my friends, all girls, and this is the story about our trip.

The pines, the river, the hills, oh, hello Kashmir!

Welcome to Kashmir! Some of you might already know that Kashmir is a conflict area, they are fighting for their freedom for decades. The first time you step your feet here, you will notice there is a lot of soldiers, every 10-50 meters. My friend in Kashmir said that they are “security”, but with guns. Even in the road, I found a vandalism said “Free my Kashmir!” with a drawing of a gun sign. Also, a truck that we passed by in the street, they wrote some words behind it: “Stop the innocent killing in my Kashmir!”.

Do you dare to go to Kashmir?? The answer is definitely “Yes! Why not??”

Here is the thing, there might be a conflict area for decades, but it is safe for tourist. There might be a lot of soldiers that scares you, but the Kashmiri people was so nice to us. There might have one or two stories of chaotic conflict that you ever heard, but the view that Kashmir has to offer is worth a visit.

Whenever I said to people in India that I want to go to Kashmir, they said “oh, that’s heaven!”. And they were right, Kashmir was so beautiful, calming, and relaxing. Even I promise myself to go back when it comes to winter. It will be more magical, the mountains will be covered with snow and the river will be frozen.

The layered hills locted in Nara Nag

How to Get There

You can take a flight directly from New Delhi, costed around 700-800k, or may be less than that if you don't hunt the tickets in the near time like me and my friends did. Search the available flights on skyscanner first. I recommend you to go by IndiGo airlines, nice service with a good price. I went by plane because I didn't have much time. Should you have more time in India, I recommend you to take a train because you won't miss the view along the journey with a train! But, booking a train ticket for us the foreign tourist is quiet tricky, I hope you are lucky enough!

What to Do

Actually, my to-go-list was about Gulmarg, Pahalgam, and Sonmarg. But, none of that three was visited by me. How funny, when you really wanted to go to some places, you took flight so far from Indonesia to India, had a local flight from Delhi to Srinagar, but things did not happen like you want! Hahaha, it was not a sad one tho, we substituted our destinations with others that not less beautiful.

We could not go to Gulmarg, Pahalgam, and Sonmarg due to a holy ceremony that was held when we were there. Therefore, most people didn’t recommend us to go. Actually, it was okay to go to Gulmarg. But.. Gulmarg was so expensive, yet we don’t get what we want. Our goal to go to Gulmarg was to have a snow experience there. Unfortunately, it was raining season, the snow has not appeared even on the peak of Gulmarg. We thought, someday we want to go back to Kashmir, so why don’t visit Gulmarg at the right time? As its alternative, we went to Nara Nag and Droo Padi, also had a local sightseeing tour in Srinagar.

At Pari Mahal, a garden located near from the city

Kashmiri Traditional Clothes

Srinagar Local Sightseeing

In Srinagar City, there were a lot of gardens, from small gardens till the big ones. We visited some of them, but unfortunately, we could not go to tulip garden because it was not blooming for this time. The photo above was taken at Pari Mahal, a garden in Srinagar, and I wore Kashmiri traditional clothes there.

After that, we went to a garden which I forgot what was the name of it, it had a flowing spring water there. We could wash our face with it or directly drink it, and it was so cold and fresh!

One of photos with the locals, taken at that garden.
Kashmiri people were just getting excited when meeting a foreign tourist. Unfortunately, the original file was lost, so I took from my Instagram story. Get to know more about my Kashmir trip on my IGS @wulandarirobyanti

About the photo above, me and my friends were taking photos in the garden and immediately one and two kids gathered around us, and the numbers of people were going on and on, seems like all of them went to us and just smile and laugh with their language. We couldn’t communicate with each other because they didn’t speak English at all. Hence, all we could say was “Hi, assalamualaikum, nice to meet you!” with a happy smile and hope that they will understand hahaha.

A mosque we stopped by

After strolling around Srinagar, we stopped at a mosque because one of our friends wanted to do jumat prayer. FYI, woman in Kashmir also doing salat in masjid at that time, on Friday. I am not sure it is the same salat with the man do or not. They don't use mukennah, they just use their clothes because it is already the long ones and all of them wearing hijab. When I use mukennah in the houseboat, the houseboat staff was amazed by it, they said "Nice Dress!" lol xD. Since most of all Kashmiri people were Muslim (I mean, the point is: they can eat meat!! xD), I was so happy because of yeaah no vegan food with curry cuisine anymore! Hooraaay!

You also can visit Dal Lake when sunset or sunrise comes. It is like a big lake in the center of Srinagar city. We chose to stay at a houseboat so we can enjoy the Dal Lake view directly from the boat where we stayed. This is one of a photo captured from my houseboat. My morning view, my evening view, even if we were coming in winter, the mountains around Dal Lake would be covered by snow!

View from the houseboat where we stayed

Camping at Nara Nag

The next day, we went to Nara Nag. It was quite far from the city. We passed the winding rock with pines in both roadsides. We did a road trip with two friends from Kashmir, named Javed and Shafi. This is a view that welcomed us at the first we stepped the campsite. You can see, there was the layered hills, a bunch of pines, and fresh air with a sound of a flowing river below us.

This is where we built our tents and we camped here

We built the tents, cooked, chilling, and taking some photos; definitely!

After that, we did tracking in Nara Nag, we visited a temple and explored Nara Nag a little further. With a good weather, we took a walk till it was 6 pm or 7 pm and went back to the camp. In there, the sun went down at 8 or 9 pm. It was a perfect night with good friends, good food, good music, good weather, good vibes, and also good view at the sky where the stars were so much and the moon shined brightly without any fog.

One of view we crossed through when we did tracking in Nara Nag

In the morning, you will find the horse, cow, sheep, that feed their self in our campsite. The sun rose from behind the layered hills. What to do was just chilling and enjoying the view with a cup of chai.

Waking up with a view!

Switzerland View!
Going back from Nara Nag, we were heading to Doodhpathri. It was like a Switzerland kind of view! Lol, but seriously I never thought that this kind of place was able to see in India. Like, bud, what I thought about India was just the Taj Mahal and another pretty building and monuments, I got it wrong. India for me was a pretty big country with a complete tourist attraction that India had to offer. Amazing!

Doodhpathri for me was like a common Bollywood scene back then when we were kids! Don't you feel the same? Anyway, so many horses to be ridden by us there, with a little payment of course. I just paid around 50-150 rupees or maybe less than that, because we did bargaining so hard hahaha! This view was one of my goals to seek in Kashmir. It looks like Pahalgam or Sonmarg, but nearer from our previous destination. Go to Kashmir when winter, and you will find this place more beautiful!

About the Cost

I can declare that living cost in Kashmir was quite cheap! I went there for 5 days and only expended around IDR 850k, including local transportations, meals, and houseboat. About the cost of meals, it was the same price with how you spend your money to have a lunch in your cafeteria at your campus, no worries. The transportation itself, I rent my friend's car, Javed's car, he drove us everywhere. It was not expensive tho, we only spent INR 300 for each person to be driven all day long when we were taking Srinagar local sightseeing tour. To go to Nara Nag, we spent around INR 2000-2300, including all of you need to camp: transportation with his car, meals, tent, and they were so kind to us!
About the houseboat, you can stay at Shamus Maqbool Houseboat, go to booking.com to make a reservation. It is owned and managed by my friends that I mentioned above, Javed and Shafi. I was amazed by the place where we stayed. Very good price with a good quality. Located at Dal Lake, you will get the best morning experience, a cold morning, foggy, and calming. In the evening, the sun will be warmly shining, such a perfect time to close the day with a glass of Kashmiri Kahwa and some biscuits.

I don't have any photo of the houseboat. But I recorded the video about it on my Instagram story. If you are interested to know about the details of this houseboat, kindly jump to my Instagram story highlight named "Kashmir". For the houseboat I mentioned above, I spent just about IDR 100k for 4 nights! A veeeeery good price! We rent a room for 4 nights, 3 persons, just about INR 1920. You guys can take a note to this houseboat if you are planning to go to Kashmir.

Anyway, this long blog post is written in a coffee shop in Senayan, Central Jakarta, a city where I live my life for now. And this time, inside this mini coffee shop, all I am thinking about while sitting on my desk is my heartwarming experience in Kashmir: the shikara ride we took, the foggy morning we met, the sunset at 8pm, the cinnamon in our Kashmiri Kahwa, and the people who greeted us nicely with "Assalamualaikum" ☺.

Feeling grateful for this experience. Thank you and see you again, Kashmir!
PS: Most of the photos uploaded above taken from my Instagram account, several photos that still safely archived because it was uploaded on Instagram. I have a bunch of photos there, but I lose my phone, so yeah bye bye for some photos. The photo might lose, but the memory stays forever!

Thank you for reading, ya!

Every good wish,

@wulandarirobyanti

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