In the mists of gede-pangrango

The Cibeureum Falls in the national park. [Photo by Chen Liang/China Daily]

Sitting under the shade of a big tree and overlooking the lake and the green valley, you can enjoy the cool breeze from the surrounding forest on the volcano of Mount Gede. For someone who has just arrived from hot and humid Jakarta, the stay in the garden can be exceptionally pleasant. Perhaps that is why the garden is so popular with families of tourists, many clearly from the Middle East.

I later discovered that the botanical garden dates back more than 150 years, founded by a Dutch botanist as a branch of the Bogor Botanical Gardens, the oldest botanical garden in Southeast Asia, with a history of nearly 200 years.

The garden is about 1,300 meters to 1,400 meters above sea level, which allows it to grow many plants exotic to Indonesia, such as huge coniferous trees from Europe and eucalyptus trees from Australia.

When I finally left the garden after sunset it had become a lot quieter, and when I arrived back at the hostel, dinner, Indonesia-style fried rice, awaited me.

Freddy and his wife are devout Muslims. He gets up at 4 am every day and prepares to go to the mosque. His wife prepares breakfast for guests, often early risers such as birdwatchers and hikers.

The next day I was one of those early birds, leaving the hostel at 5:30 and heading to the national park. I was at the ticketing office, along a road that runs past a golf course, 15 minutes later. My enthusiasm had obviously got the better of me, because no one was in the office, so I moved on.

There is just one trail that takes you to the summits of Mount Gede and Mount Pangrango and I planned to trek from the park entrance at 1,250 meters above sea level to the hot springs area at 2,150 meters. So I began the climb in darkness.

I passed Telaga Biru (Blue Lake) at 6:30 am and decided to leave the site on the lower section of the park for the following day. I walked onto a concrete boardwalk that crosses an open valley covered by dense reeds. There I could clearly see the summit of Mount Pangrango tinged by the sunrise under the blue sky. With dense forests sprawling below the volcano, the view is truly spectacular.

As there were no other visitors, I could sit on the boardwalk, watch clouds slowly moving up toward the summit and enjoy the serene moments in solitude. The boardwalk is the perfect place for view forest canopies in every direction.

Soon I found a flock of black monkeys feeding in canopies not far from the boardwalk. After checking a guidebook, I realized they are Javan langurs. I watched these energetic and creatures dexterously clamber in the treetops and gradually disappear into the forest.

Not far from the boardwalk is the junction of the main trail and a side trail to the Cibeureum Falls, which I decided to visit the next day. I followed the main trail, which climbs more steeply to the hot springs area. In the middle section of the mountain I was fortunate to encounter another primate species, grizzled langurs (leaf monkeys), which have a gray back and a white belly.