-8.273547, 113.951044 Kalibaru Cottages is located between the city of Kalibaru and the Garahan Kibul Baru forests on the Jember road. This is a large, well-run resort with facilities and a restaurant, 4km outside the city. The sprawling, manicured grounds with a T-shaped pool bordered by large palm trees is the main attraction. Parasols to shelter from the intense sun are lacking. Retreat to the veranda of your villa before you get sunburnt. In September 2023, our villa 214 had one double and a single bed, a television, good air-conditioning, intermittent Wi-Fi reception, a refrigerator and a semi-open-air hot shower. As always in Indonesia, hotel cleaning and maintenance was basic. Check your bed first. Continental and Indonesian breakfast is served. The restaurant is a bit pricey as it has no competition and serves unremarkable food, such as the sirloin steak (Rp90K). Kalibaru must be the next best Muslim town after Mecca. Imams see their duty to call their own congregation to prayer five times a day as a struggle for survival. Their competition is cut-throat. From the call before dawn, megaphones surpass other megaphones in volume and duration, not in minutes but in hours, sounding like migrating wolves in the forest. Even false-singing imams and children are called into action to call Muslims to prayer far beyond the borders of the city of Kalibaru. Use your earplugs. Kalibaru is a good resort outside the city, but not beyond the reach of imams.
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