Goa Gong Pacitan - A Beautiful Marble Cave in Indonesia

Arisarmu - Descending into a cavern adorned with beautiful marble stalactites and stalagmites makes your vacation to Pacitan unforgettable.

Pacitan Regency, a place where a former President of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yodhoyono was born, is located in East Java province with Pacitan as its capital. The town has long been renowned as The City of a Thousand Caves.

As the most of its territory is limestone mountains, Pacitan is truly blessed with its potential underground landform and may boast with many amazing caves ornamented with stalactites and stalagmites from calcium carbonate forming produced through slow precipitation. And amazingly, the process ultimately forms marble. So no doubt that Goa Gong (Gong cave), with its marble stalactites and stalagmites, is stated as one of the most beautiful caves in Southeast Asia.

It is said that the cave was discovered by Noyosemito and Joyorejo in 1924 while they were searching for a spring water when their village was being hit by drought.
The name of Gong cave (Goa Gong) is derived from gong-like sounds when a big column, a union of stalactites and stalagmites, inside the cave is hit. While others name it because in certain nights there is a creepy cave noise which also gong-like sounds, it is a musical percussion instrument used in Javanese and Balinese gamelan ensembles.

If you plan on visiting Gong cave, it is simply a forty-minute drive (22 km) from the town of Pacitan, and take you approximately a two and a half-hour drive from Surakarta, and it is just a thirty- minute drive from the famous Klayar beach.

I arrived at the location around 9 am. Hiked up a bit through stairs, crossed a small long bridge above a ravine with lovely scenery of tropical vegetations until I ultimately reached in front of the cave where I met a local tour guide. She was one of some tourist guides who would guide visitors by providing information and history of Gong cave. If you need her service, in return you just pay her IDR 30k (USD 2.15) and you can also rent a flashlight for IDR 5k (USD 0.35).

Gong cave is illuminated by different colours, although some chambers still look a bit dark. There are also some "sendang" (spring wells). But I don't know exactly how deep is the cave, and in the end there is a big chamber with some big columns which one of them yield gong-like sounds when it is hit.