Exploring Ngawi's tourist spots...

Ngawi tour time! At around 8:00 in the morning of February 9, we, all of the international students and with the buddies, started travelling from Madiun to

Ngawi only to find out that we are to be accompanied by Ibu Lusi. After an hour and several minutes, we arrived at Trinil Museum, a site of human heritage about Homo Erectus and other relics.

Museum artifacts. Looking at the photos of the town during the ancient times, and some relics of animals.

According to source, Trinil Museum is about 15 kilometers from Ngawi City and near to the Bengawan Solo River. Indeed, the said river can be seen already when you walk in the northern part of the museum. The museum contains a collection of about 1,500 fossils, some of which are a million years old. As of 2013 up to 500 fossils had yet to be identified. In the late 19th century Eugene Dubois found Pithecantropus eretus in the Trinil area.

Lynton, Dream and I and the other international students were having so much fun as we were finally get to explore another city.

"Keeping ourselves free from stress as we embark in our journey."

Second, we went to the Fort van den Bosch, also known as Benteng Pendem which literally means “sunken fort,” located in Pelem Administration village, Ngawi Regency, East Java.

According to them, centuries ago, the Dutch established a defense center in the region of Madiun especially to cope with the Java War which was led by Prince Diponegoro.

The fight against the Dutch in each region was started by Regent Kerto Dirjo, and in Ngawi it was led by Adipati Judodiningrat and Wirotani (a followereof Diponegoro). In 1825, the Dutch managed to capture Ngawi, and thus ordered construction of a new fort, the Fort van den Bosch – it was equipped with rooms, cannons and cavalries.

During the Japanese occupation period, the fort was then converted into civilian camp for men and boys wherein Indonesian –Europeans were imprisoned due to refusing to swear loyalty to the Japanese authorities.

After sovereignty handover, the fort was briefly used by Indonesian Army before it fell into deterioration. After sovereignty handover, the fort was briefly used by Indonesian Army before it fell into deterioration.

And thus recently, Indonesian President Joko Widodo announced that the fort complex will be repaired and revitalized into near original condition for tourist destination.

To maintain our strength, we were treated for lunch at around 12 noon at a place called RAA Taliwang Resto. After, while everyone was still eating, I was one of the students who were given the chance to be interviewed and thus I was interviewed by Ana, part of the photography group of UNIPMA, about what we did today for their future purposes.

At 6:20 in the evening, I was invited by Nanas and Mei to go at the rooftop to see the sunset and surprisingly, pink shades were covering the skies. It indeed looked so amazing!