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Updated: May 22, 2025
The ascending road commands superb views of the mountain chain, and the rambling two-storied hotel, widened by immense verandahs, stands opposite cloud-crowned Gedeh, half-veiled by the spreading column of volcanic smoke.
But the excursion to be taken by everyone who stays at Sindanglaya for any length of time is to the falls at Tjibeureum, Kandang Badak and the crater of the Gedéh. Ladies may make the trip in sedan chairs; gentlemen on foot or on horseback.
By far the most interesting incident in my visit to Java was a trip to the summit of the Pangerango and Gedeh mountains; the former an extinct volcanic cone about 10,000 feet high, the latter an active crater on a lower portion of the same mountain range. Tchipanas, about four miles over the Megamendong Pass, is at the foot of the mountain.
As there was now a thick mist and drizzling rain, I did not attempt to go on to the summit that evening, but made two visits to it during my stay, as well as one to the active crater of Gedeh. This is a vast semicircular chasm, bounded by black perpendicular walls of rock, and surrounded by miles of rugged scoria-covered slopes. The crater itself is not very deep.
The sudden passion of tropical rain dies away, leaving an atmosphere of unearthly transparency. Gedeh, carved in amethyst, leans against a primrose sky, streaked by the puff of white smoke from the crater.
Tufts of red-stemmed Banka palms cluster on the green islets of lake and river, vista after vista opens up, each mysterious aisle appearing more lovely than the last, and luring the wanderer to the climax formed by a terraced knoll, commanding a superb view of Gedeh and Salak, the twin summits of chiselled turquoise, gashed by the amethyst shadows of deep ravines, with Gedeh's curl of volcanic smoke staining the lustrous azure of the sky.
The hotel, which consists of one main building with a number of small detached pavilions surrounded by roses and other flowers of the temperate zone, is situated on the slopes of the Gedéh, and is 3,300 feet above sea level.
Buitenzorg occupies an ideal position between the blue and violet peaks of Gedeh and Salak, the guardian mountains of the fairy spot, perennially green with spring-like freshness, from the daily showers sweeping across the valley from one or other of the lofty crests, and possessing a delicious climate at an altitude of eight hundred feet.
All have their own attractions for invalids, and the hotel accommodation is spoken of in terms of the highest praise by all who have been there. When we drove away from Sindanglaya at seven o'clock on the following morning, the white crater wall of the Gedéh stood out like a huge lump of marble in the morning sun.
The appalling stillness and solemnity of the dense jungle appears emphasised by a solitary brown figure, with pipe and betel-box, beneath a thatched shed at an angle of the narrow track, where he presides over a little stall of cocoanuts, bananas, and coloured syrups, for the refreshment of coolies on their way from the Tjibodas garden to villages across the heights of Gedeh.
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