Is there any of you know about sawarna?No one? Sawarna is a beach which located near pelabuhanratu, Banten.

It will take 6 to 7 hours to travel from Jakarta to Sawarna by car. I went there to celebrate my committee dismissal in college. Many of my friends were really excited to go there. They said that it is a hidden paradise as it has great scenery and still virgin. Modernization and commercialization tourism industry hasnt touched this beach. But the problem is; I didnt like to go to the beach. Because it would give me a sun burnt and ruins my hair. Its out of my comfort zone which was caf and malls. In my opinion, the excitement wouldnt longer than the first 15 minutes and the rest will be boring. Because of that my friends called me a queen bee as I like to sit in my clean nest and let the working bee to do the dirty job. I really hesitated to go to Sawarna. My excited friends tried to change my mind by saying it wouldnt be boring as we can do tracking, caving, playing with the wave. I replied oh my God, If we want to do tracking, why dont we just go to Senayan and do it as much as we want without make my hair sticky and my skin burnt. Then, they tried to selling it another way by asking me to remember our great moments, our smile, tears and sweat to make the event success and all of the friendship stuff. Long short story, they succeed to persuade me to come to Sawarna. Yet, before I went there, I did a little research about Sawarna and I thought it wouldnt be really different with Bali. Though, its still out of my comfort zone, so I prepared myself with my survival kits i.e. sun block, sun glasses, beach sarong, big umbrella and a hand fan. I believed that those things would keep me above the water. But it wasnt when it came to the caving part. The journey to get to the cave was like a training to be a ninja. I had to walk around 30 minutes passing the unstable bridge, big paddy field, footpath paddy field, and bridge again, forest, burial ground and wet paddy field to get to the cave which is dark and surrounded by water or river perhaps. I and 5 other girls chose not to enter the cave and waited outside instead. The plan was we were waiting in front of the cave and after my friends done the caving we will continue to go to the beach. Actually, we were waiting a little beside the cave instead of as we assumed that they had to pass this way if they wanted to continue the journey. After waiting like 1 hour, we didnt meet them. Instead we met the group of stranger who was behind us and just came out from the cave. They told us that our friend was already arrived before them. At first we were very angry and disappointed by being left behind. Then we realized that we were lost literally lost, and literally in the middle of nowhere. I realized that my 5 lovely friends were as queen bee as me. One is a model, two are using soft lens to the beach, and the rest is not really different. So we were in a big trouble.

We lost for almost 1.5 hour and if i said that my previous journey was like training journey to be a ninja, so this journey was like a training journey to be the ninja guru. This route was way more difficult than the first one. We chose to go together with this stranger as they were heading to the same beach with us. We passed through the mud from brown one into the grey one, from a little mud hole into river which height is this high, from the a stable footpath into unstable one which if you misstep you will die. We had to climb the steep mountain which I used to think that only ghost farmer who can pass this way as it is really steep. I had to be rational to handle my emotional friend who was crying and screaming that she wants to call his father to take her back to Jakarta by using helicopter. And shes not alone, all of my fellow queen bee friends were crying. I had to ask them to stop crying as we need to be focus to think the way out. And to make it perfect I had to do all of this by using sandals and carrying my survival stuff and valuable stuff of my fellow friends who entered the cave like wallet, hand phones, cameras, SLR, tripod etc. Even though this journey was really draining emotionally and physically, it changed me. I used to be a queen bee who afraid of trying new things and getting dirty. Ive never known that I had the strength to cross the river, climbed Steep Mountain, and creative enough to use the umbrella as the hiking stick. I didnt know that I had that emotional control as I used to be one the drama queen. The most important thing is I realized that even though we had much money and many valuable things, sometimes money couldnt help me out of trouble. So people, sometimes we hesitate to get out of our comfort zone. But based on my experience, we may want to give it a shot. Perhaps we could find our hidden strength, better emotional control and change our point of view to see life. So pack your stuff and try the new zone.