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Updated: May 12, 2025
The Governor-General of Java, whose stipend is of double the amount received by the American President, owns a country palace at Sindanglaya, in addition to the splendid official residences at Batavia and Buitenzorg.
If it were beautiful in the evening, the scene was enchanting in the morning, and it was with reluctance that we obeyed the summons to early breakfast, and followed our barang into the kreta to begin the journey to Sindanglaya. It was half-past six o'clock when we were salaamed out of the courtyard of the Bellevue by the hotel "boys." The kreta was not a handsome affair.
We have seen paved mountain paths in China more inaccessible, but not much, and when we dashed up to the Sindanglaya Hotel at 12.15, we thought more highly of the team that had pulled us over the Pass than we could have believed when we formed our first early morning prejudices. Needless to say, it is not a road for a motor car.
Having travelled over the road from Buitenzorg to Sindanglaya by the Poentjak, without reserve, we advise pilgrims to Sindanglaya to patronise the road from Tjiandjoer. The local guide book remarks with truth: "The main road to the Poentjak being very steep, it does not afford a quick mode of travelling.
We did not stay a sufficiently long time to experience any wonderful changes on the lake itself, but the surroundings are loaded with charm. The visitor to Sindanglaya should certainly not neglect to make the trip to the lake. We would recommend an excursion on foot from the hotel.
It is the unexpected that happens. We got to Sindanglaya without any more serious damage than a bottle of Odol distributed amongst our best clothes. Governor-General Daendels seems to have had a high opinion of this remarkable highway. We read: "The obstinacy with which he carried through his scheme of constructing the main road to the Preanger Regencies across this summit is really amazing.
Generations of later inhabitants, dwelling in flimsy huts of bamboo and thatch, regarded the mysterious ruins of the Tankahan Prahoe as the work of giants or demons, and the haunted hill as a mysterious resort of evil spirits. In lofty Sindanglaya, the swaying palms of the lowlands yield to glorious tree-ferns, shading road and ravine with feathery canopies of velvet green.
Everything suggests beauty and peace and contentment, and as one drinks in the scene it is borne in upon one that the comparison with the Garden of Eden is not inapt. What could one wish for more than a beautiful, bounteous land and a happy, contented people! On the Road to Sindanglaya Long before sunrise, the sound of merry voices arose from the valley.
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.
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.
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