We were here kind of by accident. We originally intended to stay in Jepara, but there was either nothing available for our dates, or it didn't come with much of a recommendation. So we picked D'Season. We knew it was a bit out of town. Actually, Bandengan is way out of town. But that hasn't been a problem. Seaside, fresh air, and nothing to distract me from finishing the next stage of Project 1 other than the racket from some ra-ra corporate event on Sunday.

We took the Daytrans bus from Semarang. It wasn't the most fortunate of trips. We left a bit late, got stuck in a huge jam, and then had a puncture. By the time we'd taken a Grab for the last little stretch to Bandengan, we'd spent five hours covering 80 kilometres...

Nice road, though. By Demak you're starting to see really pretty wooden houses, and as you go further, pretty, lacy ridge roof tiles (local samples below) become more frequent. As you near Jepara, the number of furniture shops grows exponentially. Many unoccupied plots of land are stacked high with wood.





We were the only two passengers on the little bus, and a little way out, the driver passed us his phone with a message on the screen: "Want to be human?" Heavens, what does he mean, we briefly thought. Do we look that bad? Then we realized he'd mistyped the Indonesian for "Where are you going?" ("mau keman" instead of "mau kemana"), and his translation app had creatively filled in the blanks. We reassured him we spoke enough Indonesian for that type of conversation, and told him we just wanted to be dropped off at the depot.

After a very late lunch at the hotel (starving by then), we wandered off to reconnoitre the beach. We shared a coconut, people-watched, and ended up following the sun's descent, on a bit of shingle studded with young couples getting some alone-time, and criss-crossed by browsing goats (our nearest was an adorable youngster, who spent quite a while working out that goats do not in fact eat anything -- stones are really out -- and then got spooked by his solitude, and started meh-ing for his mum in heart-rending fashion).







The garden is a nice place to spend an hour or to in the evening, and I can confirm the presence of lots of chocolate in a "red velvet" pool bar special.

Subsequent days involved similar components in different permutations. Walks. Work. Lunch at a simple warung by the beach. An evening spell in the garden. Very pleasant.













Bandengan is quite interesting sociologically speaking (and geographically speaking, too, as it looks as though a lot of land reclamation has happened at some point). The beach facilities are low-key and homely (mats and beach things to hire, simple food and drink to buy, and places on offer to rinse away the salt and sand you've accumulated after a spell on the seashore). Nearby are a handful of nice/very nice hotels (with more going up). Nearby, too, are some very simple houses, mostly consisting of plywood and fabric. Two different Indonesias.