Traditional Village of Tepal - Sumbawa

On August 24th 2013 (which was also my 23rd b’day) I went to Tepal, a traditional village on a mountain area in Batu Lanteh District, Sumbawa. I heard a lot about this place (saw it a lot on TV) and always wanted to go there. After failed 3 times, I finally went there with 2 other friends, Yanti & Zaki.

In the morning at 7am, we left my house to “Sering”, this is where the jeep parking, these jeeps are special for going to Tepal and you can find them there everyday. It is only about 500 m from my house, we took horse cart to get there (we paid Rp. 10.000 for 3 of us).

I didn’t know exactly what time they left, so we went there early. Some people said they left at 8am. We were there from 7am, didn’t wanna miss the jeep, but in fact, we still had to wait for other passenger and some other stuff, we exactly left at 10am -_-. We paid Rp. 70.000/person (one way).

So,,people always say that the road to Tepal is sooo horrible and it’s difficult to reach there. I always ask them how long it takes to go there but they always give me different and unsatisfying answer, so it was time for me to prove by myself.

The good thing was, even before we left, already some people offered us to stay with them. ‘cause yea don’t expect there will be any hotel or guesthouse, every visitor could stay with local villager. We planned to stay in village mayor’s house. Till we met a nice guy on jeep.

So this guy said”I’m from Tepal but it’s been 3 years i never back to Tepal, i now live in Sumbawa Besar, and I’m back to Tepal because tomorrow is my wedding day, I wanna invite you to my wedding ceremony and stay in my house:

And we were like “oh yeaaa sure, that woul be great :D”

Anyway, our jeep brought so many stuff, sacks of cement, rice, coconuts, etc, with about 10 people -_-. And umm I don’t wanna say the road is horrible, it’s just challenging. For me it’s not as bad as people said. I even fell asleep when I was on Jeep. Along the road, we saw a beautiful natural scenery of forest, mountain, and sometimes we have to get out of the jeep when there was a long and high climbs because the jeep was too heavy.

So we finally arrived around 3 pm, so it took like 5 hours on jeep (8 hours since we were waiting from 7am -_-). It was cool that when we arrived some people especially kids run over us and starring at us :D and then we went to the nice guy’s house, oh his name is Hasa, and his family welcome us and help us to bring our stuff. His sister was so friendly . So his house is a traditional wooden house and so many people there when we arrived. They lift the partition among the rooms so it was a one big room where people sit and cook in one place. We were for 5 minutes and then they offered us to eat. The food was so simple but delicious, with a kind of vegetable I never seen and their special sambals made from salt and cayenne pepper which was so so hot.

Well we actually wanted to go to see the waterfall, but people were so busy and we didn’t get much info about that. So we just walked around the village and everyone couldn’t stop smiling and looking at us. Seriously!i felt like an actress :D….OR alien -_-

Oh and this village is very famous with their coffee, they produce Luwak, Arabika & Robusta coffee. There was coffee everywhere we go, I also got a chance to grind the coffee beans from a nice old woman who has smiling face :D

In the night time, they held some idk,,like ceremony before the wedding. One thing you should know that people here are so religious, every girls wear hijab, even the wedding is kinda complicated they said. Actually the wedding party is on Monday Aug 26 and other ceremony will be really finished on Wednesday, so people there asked us to stay till Wed which we couldn’t do because we had to work, but it was hurt and sad to see they kept asking us to stay but we couldn’t, they said they would hold many traditional events on the wedding so we should see that. They even said “I hope no jeep tomorrow so you guys can’t go home”, “I hope it will rain tomorrow”, “I’ll call your boss that you will be here until Wednesday” -_-. It was difficult to resist, really, especially when we know how nice they were to us. They prepare us food like 4 times a day and other snacks too.
Oh the water there is sooooo cold, no one of us wanted to take shower, also the villagers -_-.

So we didn’t go to the waterfall, we just stayed at the groom’s house and met like most of the people in that village. The treated us very special. And it was more than I expected. We even forgot about the waterfall but so thankful for meeting all these amazing people. Some people also gave us coffee as a gift.

So on Sunday we were back to Sumbawa. We asked the jeep driver (another one) how much to go to Sumbawa and he said “how much you paid for coming here yesterday”

I said “Rp. 50.000 (which was a lie because it was Rp. 70.000, it is bad so don’t do that).

And he said “okay so Rp. 50.000”

We stayed one night only there. But I learn a lot, they live a very simple life, but they help each other so much, everywhere we go, they all just talk about the wedding and get involved. The thing I never forget is that they are so happy and grateful for whatever they have. Especially that they only have electricity in night time or they can’t really get so much things since it’s difficult to reach that place. If they want something they have to get in the jeep n go to Sumbawa.

I really like being there and plan to go there again soon ‘cause still many things I wanna explore there. I especially wanna meet more people and go to other villages after Tepal. Well it was a perfect birthday for me surrounded by nice people who treat me nicely. Big thanks for everyone there. Much Love ^^