First Trip to Sampang, Madura

I have the opportunity to make a trip to Sampang Regency, in the Madura island East Java. It’s not an excursion, but I enjoyed the short visit. The thing that I want was crossing the Suramadu Bridge, which is the longest bridge in Java. Unfortunately, I was not able to take photograph of the bridge.

My trip started from Jogjakarta. I choose to make it a la backpackers. Took promo flight from Jogjakarta to Juanda Airport Surabaya which is not too expensive. The flight took about 45 minutes or less. From Juanda Airport, I took Damri bus to the main bus station Purabaya.
Waiting about one and a half hours at the Purabaya bus station, made me rather bored. Luckily there was a music show in the station. It’s entertaining me and other passengers. Dangdut was the genre shown on the stage. Dangdut genre can be said as the folks music in Indonesia (there is a song titled ‘Dangdut is the Music of my country’).
Finally, my bus was coming. To be more comfortable during the journey I took express bus (it’s called PATAS in Indonesia). The economy and express class was only IDR 5000 difference in ticket price
(US$ 1 = IDR 9000). It was much more faster than the economy class and air conditioned.

On the way to Sampang, nothing interesting except the houses with white bricks. It’s different to houses in the Java mainland which are using red bricks. White bricks are made from white stones cutted in rectangular shape. Two and a half hours I had to sit on the bus until finally I got to Sampang.
Hotels in Sampang are relatively cheap. The price range is from IDR 150.000 – 250.000. I took the a hotel priced IDR 185.000 per night, which was a ‘VIP’ room (do not imagine like VIP room on stars hotel).

                                              source:http://discover-indonesia.com

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