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Bandarlampung is the transport hub for stepping into Sumatra from Java and used to see a lot of coming and-going foreigners. But plane travel now whisks backpackers away from more-northern latitudes. Today visitors come on package tours to Way Kambas or Krakatau arranged in Jakarta.
Orientation
Bandarlampung is something of an administrative creation and the now massive, sprawling city has no real heart. Most places of relevance to travellers are in Tanjungkarang, including the train station and the bulk of the hotels. The Rajabasa bus termin al is 10km north of the town centre; the airport is 24km away.
All the major banks have branches in Bandarlampung, and there are ATMs all over town. 4
Arie Tour & Travel (Jl Monginsidi 143) A helpful travel agent located outside the city centre.
BCA bank (Bank Central Asia) Jl Raden Intan 98 (Jl Raden Intan 98); Jl Kartini (Jl Kartini) Offers the best exchange rates.
Sleeping
Bandarlampung has a nice selection of midrange hotels that line Jl Raden Intan, within walking distance or a short ojek ride from the train station.
Hotel Purnama (Jl Raden Intan 77) The best option in this price range. It is well managed and maintained, with big comfortable rooms.
Kurnia Perdana Hotel (Jl Raden Intan 114) Clean, comfortable rooms with TV, but no charm.
Hotel Arinas (Jl Raden Intan 35) Central with clean, comfortable, modern rooms, all with TV and hot water.
Marco Polo Hotel (Jl Dr Susilo 4; d from 250,000Rp; as) Loads of character are permanent guests at this atmospheric old gent. Rooms are spacious and many have views of Teluk Lampung.
Sheraton Lampung (Jl W Monginsidi 175) An impressive place, the Sheraton is the most stylish hotel in town and offers a range of sporting activities onsite.
Indra Puri Hotel (Jl W Monginsidi 70) Perched high on a hill, the Indra Puri has beautiful rooms with excellent views of the bay.
Eating
The market stalls around the Bambu Kuning Plaza offer a wide range of snacks.
Pondok Santap Dwipa Raya (Jl Gatot Subroto) An upmarket Palembang-style place. It serves a delicious sayur asam (sour vegetable soup).
Pondok Iviet Grill and Barbeque (Jl W Monginsidi 64) A meat lover’s paradise, with lots of steaks and grills to choose from.
European Bakery & Restaurant (Jl Raden Intan 35) For those in need of a sugar fix.
Begadang I (one of four in town) and Sari Bundo are a couple of popular Padang restaurants near the markets on Jl Imam Bonjol.
Shopping
Lampung produces weavings known as ship cloths (most feature ships), which use rich reds and blues to create primitive-looking geometric designs. Another type is kain tapis, a ceremonial cloth elaborately embroidered with gold thread.
Mulya Sari Artshop (Jl Thamrin 85) A good collection of both ship cloths and kain tapis can be found here.
Getting There & Away
AIR
The airport is 24km north of the city. There are flights every day to Jakarta through Merpati, Sriwijaya, Adam Air and Riau Air. Riau also flies to Palembang twice a week. Do note that Merpati flies to Halim Per- danakusuma Airport not Soekarno-Hatta airport. Arie Tour & Travel is a helpful travel agent.
BUS
There are two bus terminals in Bandarlampung. The city’s sprawling Rajabasa bus terminal is 10km north of town and serves long-distance destinations. Panjang bus terminal is 6km southeast of town along the Lampung Bay road and serves local and provincial destinations.
From Rajabasa, buses run to Palembang (10 hours) and Bengkulu (16 hours), but most people heading north go to Bukittinggi (22 hours).
You’ve got several bus options for getting to the Bakauheni pier, where boats go to Java. If travelling from central Bandarlampung, the most convenient option is the Damri bus-boat combination ticket (8 to 10 hours). Damri buses leave from Bandarlampung’s train station at 9am and 9pm, shuttling passengers to the Bakahueni pier, and then picking them up at Java’s Merak pier for the final transfer to Jakarta’s train station. Damri’s office is in front of Bandarlampung’s train station.
TRAIN
The train station is in the town centre at the northern mouth of Jl Raden Intan. Sumatra’s only convenient rail service connects Bandarlampung with Palembang (10 hours) and then beyond to Lubuklinggau (14 hours).
Getting Around
All opelet pass through the basement of the Bandar Lampung Plaza on Jl Raden Intan.
To reach the Rajabasa bus terminal, take a green opelet. To reach the Panjang bus terminal, take a green opelet to Sukaraja and then transfer to a red opelet.
This national park is one of the oldest reserves in Indonesia. It occupies 1300 sq km of coastal lowland forest around Sungai Way Kambas on the east coast of Lampung. What little remains of the heavily logged forests is home to endangered s pecies of elephants, rhinos and t igers.
It is believed that close to 200 wild Sumatran elephants (Elephas maximus sumatrensis) live in the park, but reliable estimates are uncertain and poaching and development pressures are constant. The Sumatran elephant is a subspecies of the Asian elephant and is found only in Sumatra and Kalimantan. Another rare but endemic creature in Way Kambas is the Sumatran rhino, the only two-horned rhino of the Asian species. Its hide is red in color with a hairy coat.
The area around Way Kanan, a subdistrict of the park, is frequently visited by bird-watchers. Of the most remarkable species, white-winged duck and Storm’s stork get the binoculars fogged up.
For some time an elephant training center operated in the park and served as a major tourism draw. The centre was cre- ated to rehabilitate wild elephants that were threatening farmer’s crops. It was hoped that training the elephants for jobs in the logging or tourism industry would resolve the conflicts created by diminishing wild lands. But the elephants, like many of the island’s human population, had a hard time finding work and caring for a large population of animals proved too costly after the monetary crisis. As a result many of the elephants have been moved elsewhere and the ones who remain are used to carry tourists on jungle treks.
Also operating in the park is the Sumatra Rhino Sanctuary, where four rhinos formerly held in captivity are introduced to more wild surroundings in the hopes of successful breeding. The Sumatran rhino is a solitary animal and its habitat in the wild is so fractured that conservationists fear the species will die out without intervention. Breeding centres for rhinos are a controversial component of species-protection cam- paigns as they are expensive to maintain and have reported few successful births.
Visiting the Park
For the average visitor not engaged in wildlife conservation, a visit to the park is a nice break from the concrete confines of Jakarta, but it’s not a true wild safari. Most visitors are led through the forest on elephants or by canoes on the Sungai Way Kanan and surrounding waterways. The most com- monly spotted animals on the tour include primates and birds. Herds of elephants are seen here from time to time but sightings of the Sumatran tiger are extremely rare.
Bandarlampung-based tour agents include Arie Tour & Travel (Jl W Monginsidi 143) and Krakatau Lampung Wisata (Sheraton Lampung).
You could visit the park independently, but transport is limited and expensive. To strike out on your own, hire an ojek from Rajabasalama to Way Kanan, where you can hire a guide and arrange transport.
Sleeping & Eating
Tourist facilities within the park are limited. About 13km from the entrance to the park is Way Kanan, where there are a collection of simple guesthouses on the banks of Sungai Way Kanan. Food stalls nearby cater for day-trippers and close after dark, so you’ll need to bring food if you’re staying the night.
Getting There & Away
The entrance to Way Kambas is 110km from Bandarlampung.
There are buses from Bandarlampung’s Rajabasa bus terminal to Jepara (2½ hours). They pass the entrance to Way Kambas, an arched gateway guarded by a stone elephant, in the village of Rajaba-salama, 10km north of Jepara. Alternatively, you can catch a bus to Metro (1 hour) and then another to Rajabasalama (1½ hours).
From the park entrance, you can also hire a motorcycle to take you into the park and to pick you up.
Kalianda is a quiet little town overlooking Teluk Lampung 30km north of the Bakauheni ferry terminal. The main reason for passing through is to visit Krakatau, but the town can also be used as an alternative base to Bandarlampung. Nearby are pretty white-sand beaches and simple fishing villages. Jakarta weekend refugees fed up with Bali have begun small migrations to Kalianda.
Sights & Activities
Overlooking the town is Gunung Rajabasa (1281m), an easily scaleable volcano. After-wards you can soak in the hot springs at Wartawan Beach, just beyond Canti. Beaches around Canti have relaxing sea breezes.
Off the coast Pulau Sebuku and Pulau Sebesi have s norkelling and swimming. Cargo boats leave from Canti to these islands, or you can charter a tour from the local fishermen.
To reach Krakatau, stop in at Hotel Beringin and ask about organised tours or head down to the Canti harbor on weekends to pair up with local groups chartering boats.
Sleeping & Eating
Hotel Beringin (Jl Kesuma Bangsa 75) Close to the centre of town, this is an old Dutch villa with high ceilings and languid fans. The hotel has lots of information about local attractions and can arrange trips to nearby attractions.
Kalianda Hotel. On the way into town from the highway, this is a more upmarket choice.
Laguna Helau (Jl Sinar Laut 81, Ketang) Just outside town, this oceanside resort has cottages inspired by stilt-frame fishing villages nestled between a private beach and palm-fringed lagoon. Larger bungalows have four bedrooms and kitchen facilities.
The food stalls that appear in Kalianda’s town centre at night are the best places to eat.
Getting There & Around
There are regular buses between Kalianda and Bandarlampung’s Rajabasa bus terminal (1½ hours). Most buses don’t run right into Kalianda, but drop you on the highway at the turn-off to town. From there, simply cross the road and wait for an opelet into town. There are a few direct buses from the Bakauheni ferry terminal to Kalianda, but it’s usually quicker to catch any north-bound bus and get off at the junction for town.
There are regular opelet from Kalianda to Canti and along the road that rings Gunung Rajabasa via Gayam and Pasuruan.
There are also cargo boats from Canti, a fishing village outside of Kalianda, to nearby Sebuku and Sebesi. Canti can bereached by public bus.
Krakatau might have come closer than any other volcano in recent history to destroying the planet when it erupted in 1883. Tens of thousands were killed either by the resulting tidal wave or by the pyroclastic flows that crossed 40km of ocean to incinerate Sumatran coastal villages. After-wards all that was left was a smoldering caldera where a cluster of uninhabited islands had once been. Perhaps peace had come, thought local villagers. But Krakatau, like all scrappy villains, re-awoke in 1927 and resulting eruptions built a new volcanic cone since christened Anak Krakatau (Child of Krakatau).
Tours to the island launch from West Java or from Kalianda on the Sumatran coast. Hotel Beringin (left) in Kalianda might also be able to organize a tour.
You can also join up with weekenders chartering boats from Canti, a fishing village outside of Kalianda, or from Pulau Sebesi.
BAKAUHENI
Bakauheni is the major ferry terminal between Java and southern Sumatra.
There are frequent ferries between Bakauheni and Merak, Java’s westernmost port. A fast ferry runs between the two ports every 30 minutes from 7am to 5pm; the crossing takes 40 minutes. A slow ferry runs every 30 minutes, 24 hours a day; the crossing takes two to three hours.
The journey between the two islands sounds like a snap until you factor in land transport between the ferry terminals and the major towns on either side. Bakauheni is 90km from Bandarlampung, a bus journey of about two hours. Buses to the port leave from the Bandarlampung town centre or from the Panjang bus terminal. In Java, the bus transfer from the port of Merak to Jakarta is another two-hour journey.
BUKIT BARISAN SELATAN NATIONAL PARK
At the southern tip of Sumatra, this national park comprises one of the island’s last stands of lowland forests. For this reason the World Wildlife Fund has ranked it as one of the planet’s most biologically outstanding habitats and is working to conserve the park’s remaining Sumatran rhino and tigers. The park is also famous for many endemic bird species that prefer foothill climates, and several species of sea turtle that nest along the park’s coastal zone.
Of the 365,000 hectares originally designated as protected, only 324,000 hectares remain untampered. The usual suspects are responsible: i llegal logging and plantation conversion, and poachers are also at work.
Tourist infrastructure in the park is limited and most people visit on organized tours. The easiest access point into the park is through the town of Kota Agung, 80km west of Bandarlampung.
Kantor Taman Nasional Bukit Barisan Selatan (Jl Raya Terbaya, Kota Agung; h8am-4.30pm Mon-Thu, 8am-noon Fri) sells permits into the park and can arrange guides and trekking information.
Less-accessible access points are Sukaraja, 20km west of Kota Agung, and Liwa, the northernmost entry way.
Kota Agung has several basic hotels and there is a campground near Suk
araja. There are frequent buses from Bandarlampung to Kota Agung.
