Pekalongan, More Than A Batik City

As an archipelago land, we absolutely know Indonesia has many tourist destinations. From the islands spread around Indonesia, there are so many famous places. Unfortunately, there are also many unreachable ones, or to be exactly not well-known by domestic or foreign tourists. They mostly know about some common tourist destinations in Java island like Bandung, Jogjakarta, Solo, Tangkuban Perahu, Bromo, etc.

Some tourist destinations might be not well-recognized but exactly have very strong potential to show Indonesia’s origin in some ways. Therefore as we know them well, this could be a simple way to promote a place by the place itself has offered us what it has.

A place known well as The Batik City, people might be don’t know much about it than just a city where Batik is made. Pekalongan, a city in the north part of Java has so many attractive places people should visit, food and meal people should taste and things people should buy (if they are interested in).

Pekalongan, usually called ‘Kota Santri’ has several tourist destinations such as Linggo Asri, where there are a playground, pinery, mini zoo, cottage and swimming pool. We also could find a special culinary there called Soto Kebo which tastes good. Besides, there is also a beach called Pantai Slamaran or the natives call it Ngebum where people usually get there in the weekend to have a good time. Even though the beach has a myth of ‘Dewi Lanjar’ who known as the ruler of the northern coast, but still people get curious instead. Not only those, there are also Pasir Kencana, the beach which has pure white sand, Watu Ireng also could be a great destination, because as its name, there is a huge black stone which has a hole inside. The newest place people should visit is The International Batik Centre in Wiradesa, Pekalongan. It sells many kind of batik with various price and we could buy it as handicraft.

In Wiradesa, Pekalongan, we can find many home industries producing batik fabrics. We can see directly how employees apply malam (ink for coloring fabrics into batik pattern) on the fabric and the process of making batik pattern itself. It is a great chance for people who wonder how such that excellent batik is made.

As I told before, there are also foods and meal people should taste. I have tasted a special culinary of Pekalongan, called sego megono and pindang tetel and they were extremely delicious and so tasteful. The most famous one is Sego megono usually served on a piece of banana leaf with chopped jackfruit, rice, boiled egg, ikan asin or gereh (salted fish) and sambal. For those people who are vegetarians, they may choose kluban, or known as urap in West Java (it looks like salad without mayonnaise but with grated coconut on it).

There is also a  good menu for breakfast in Pekalongan, it is tauto. It consists of lontong (steamed rice wrapped inside banana leaf), noodle, tauco and meat. Different from tauto, pindang tetel is sort of soup which has meat, noodle and cassava’s leaf inside, we can add sambel to make it spicy and also kerupuk pasir. Pindang tetel is appropriate to be enjoyed in the afternoon. People should taste these foods because the foods are really deal with Indonesian’s taste.

Pekalogan has incredible things offered to people around Indonesia, and the world. This city where Batik has become the symbol of it, actually has a variety of valuable and attractive destinations. We could more love a city by knowing its quality and superiority. Therefore, people also need to know about Pekalongan to break their curiosity of Indonesian’s destinations around Java Island. Visit Pekalongan, and feel the atmosphere of the artistic Java’s culture.