Pantai Tiga Warna Malang Selatan Trip (Travel Guide, How to, Tips, Stories & Pictures!)

Hei guys!
Yesterday I went to this beautiful beach in south Malang, called “Pantai Tiga Warna” which translated “Three Colors Beach”. I went there with my AOC’s friends and had fun, fun enough to finally decide that I’m going to blog a post about it, haha.. So, if you’re curious about where is it, how to get there, how much you should spend for the trip, and tips along the way, stay tuned until the bottom of the post, okay!

Pantai Tiga Warna Malang Selatan

Why is it called “Pantai Tiga Warna” or Three Colors Beach?

Because the beach really represents its name where you can see the gradation of three colors on the water : the clear water, the green, and the blue. There is not much population of people here, because they limit the traffic to this beach, which is good, and you can also do Snorkeling. But before you go to this beach, YOU HAVE TO KNOW THAT : You need to book the beach first, and register yourself also your group to the Mangrove Conservation. You can’t go as you please. Okay?

Location and How To Get There?

Pantai Tiga Warna is located in the South Malang, where all the beautiful beaches are placed. To get there from Surabaya, you just have to go to Malang, and drive your way to Dampit (you can see from the board sign), then follow your way to Sendang Biru, after that, find a board sign that’s written : Celungup Beach, that’s where you have to park your car. And from there, you got to walk to the first station. If you’re going by motorcycle, you can still ride your motorcycle to the first station, park there, and then walk to the beach.

Make sure you and your group are capable to walk at a distance. It’s not too far for me, as I have already experienced Ranu Kumbolo, and the track is really easy. I only wear flip-flops (but it goes thin after I used them to walk such a distance, lol). You can wear shoes, but it’s going to be a hassle (in my opinion). Besides, who wears shoes to the beach anyway? ;p

Estimation Time & The Track :

From Surabaya to Malang, the average driving time is usually around two hours, but since the new toll has already opened, I think you can get there in less than two. After you arrived in Malang, you’ll have to drive another two hours to get to Celungup Beach, and along the way, you’re going to pass through two mountains (that’s what they said) which include narrow roads with winding turns. Make sure you have at least two skillful and experienced drivers in your car so that they can take turns in case one is tired. Prepare ANTIMO if you're easily get sick. So, from Surabaya to Pantai Tiga Warna, it’s going to cost you around four hours drive.

I went to Pantai Tiga Warna with 10 people (11 including me) and we were divided into two cars, both of them are Toyota Avanza, which is pretty convenient in terms of saving the gas. We started our journey around 6.30 AM in the morning with a prayer and arrived around almost 12 PM in the afternoon, LOL.

What took us so long?
Well, because we stopped at the rest area to buy some snacks first,
Then one of the cars got lost and we had to wait for them to get on the right track
And the last one was because we were renting an SJ Cam (some kind of Go Pro Camera) in Malang, and we have to wait for the person who rented us the camera to come to the meeting point, and listened to his briefing about how to use the camera and stuff, those took some hours of our time. 

So after we arrived, we parked our cars and used our first ten minutes to pour sunblock all over our bodies, after that, we gathered around, set up the SJ Cam and started walking to the first station. It was not far actually, only a ten to fifteen minutes walk.

At the first station, we met the Mangrove Conservation caretaker and his job is to record our data for safety and cleaning reasons. He wrote down such as how many people were in the group, and what stuff we brought, and he tracked all of it in detail!

One thing that I love here is that the people there are very strict about keeping the beach clean, so he asked all of us about how many water bottles we have, our snacks, cigarettes, and even our sanitary pads! LOL. He wrote it down on the paper, gave it to us, and later when we got back from the beach, he checked all our trash and it has to be the same amount as what we had reported earlier!

After being checked by the caretaker, we were commanded to follow the path and walk to Gatra Beach first. He said, on our way there, we were supposed to meet our Guide, Mr. Kuncung (unique name you got there, Mr.), he has been expecting us.

So we walked for about 15 minutes, passed through the Mangrove and Celungup Beach

celungup beach

There’s nothing really special about Celungup Beach, so we just walked past through it real quick. Not very far from there, we were expected by our Guide and he’s the one who lead us to Gatra Beach.

In Gatra Beach, there were so many local people, and it was pretty crowded everywhere. Not very convenient for me, especially because of those “behave-less humans” (only if you know what I meant). So we took some pictures there, and we continued our way to the Pantai Tiga Warna.

Actually, there were several beaches in that area, and Mr. Kuncung has offered us to visit those beaches, but some of us aren’t that capable of walking too far. Besides, we were afraid we were going to run out of time if we visited the other beaches, so we just went straight to Pantai Warna Beach instead.

After walking for about twenty minutes, we finally reached Tiga Warna Beach!

The first thing that I noticed there was the very soft sands! Totally different from Gatra Beach, the sands in Pantai Tiga Warna was so soft and clean. 

Then I started to look around, and realize that it really is three colors! 

I saw there was a short cliff on the left side of the beach, so I climbed up there and tried to take better pictures of the beach. 

After that? We just had fun!

I almost canceled my plan to go into the water because the first plan was to swim with the crop tank top I wore inside my loose outers, but since it’s a crop top, it’s going to show off my belly button. While the reaction that I got from the local people there before I even took off anything was pretty unpleasant (So weird, I know right?). But then I saw the life vest that we were renting for snorkeling was quite covering, so heck it, I’m going in! #lifevestsaveslifeindeed

One of the highlights of this trip was when I tried snorkeling for the first time! Honestly, I’m very scared of the sea, I’m terrified to see what’s inside the deep water. But just for the sake of trying something new, I threw the fear away, brace myself up, and dipped my head into the water. Yay for another “first time” this year!

I screamed and freaked out at the early 20 seconds, hahaha.. What the heck that I just saw….. But right after that, I kinda refused to lift my head up, I kept on looking for another coral, too excited I didn’t even realize that I reached the deep sea and I was already far from the shore.. Creepy! But worth it..

It is true that time really flies when you’re having fun. It was almost five in the evening and I still wanted to swim around, hahah.. But it was time to go home because we had to walk for more than 30 minutes to get to our parking spot. We didn’t want to walk around the forest after the sunsets of course, lol.

Some of us (including me) were all wet, and we couldn’t find any bathroom or toilet or even a room to change our wet clothes. Because unfortunately, they were running out of clean water that evening and decided to lock all the toilets there. So we were in some kind of a bad situation at that time. The result? yes, I got a bad headache, and Ivan catch a cold. But no worries, we all survived.

TIPS! What to wear ?

The most comfortable beach outfit, but not too revealing (don’t get too sexy, girls, okay? No bikini!) Why?
Because we are still on Java Island, not Bali or Lombok or places where a lot of foreigners visit. The people here are still not very open-minded, and I might say some of the visitors might have fewer manners (sorry, but it is true). I went there wearing a loose tank top and ripped jeans hot pants. My loose top, the side cut was pretty low, I was about to wear my bikini inside the loose top at first, just like the people in the US on their summer days, but I changed my mind. Instead, I wore a tight crop top inside and it was the best decision I made that day. I knew it was not going to be ‘appropriate’.

When we arrived at the Beach, a lot of the local (guys) visitors were staring at me and there was this one particular group, filled with teenagers that kept on shouting my position according to the clock, like : “Hey look at your one o’clock, bla bla bla (talking in Javanese)” and as I walked by. they shouted again, “Now at your twelve o’clock bla bl bla” and so on and on. They shouted at each other like I was some kind of a show. And when I was about to get pissed off, my friends said, “Chill, they just never seen anything as hot as you” Alright, I kind of understand that, and I also thought it would be very stupid, if I fought against them. It could put me and my friends in danger, I don’t want that, so I just walked away and pretend they don’t exist.

SOME TIPS & WHAT TO BRING?

• Make sure you bring your car charger, it helps you to charge your phone in your car
• The most powerful provider there : SIMPATI
• Bring your favorite CD’s or put it all in your USB that can connect to your player in the car, because once you drive from Malang to Celungup, you will lose even your radio signals.
• Leave early!
• Eat before you leave and bring your lunch with you, there will be no people selling food on the beach
• Bring wet tissue and dry tissue for your hygiene
• Bring clothes and underwear to change if you’re thinking about going into the water
• Also, bring clean water for you to clean up after. They tend to run out of clean water in the evening. So just in case, they run out of it, bring your own clean water, just to wipe away the salty water from your hair and your skin so that your skin won’t be sticky.
• Bring a towel to dry out your hair and body. 
• Bring first aid & medicines in case number 8 and 9 happen, well you have to be prepared for anything! I got a headache because we couldn’t find any bathroom as they were running out of water, so I couldn’t clean my hair and my head, I just let it dry by itself. One of my friends catch a cold because he couldn’t dry himself as they locked the bathroom as well, so we couldn’t change our wet clothes. And another friend of mine also got a cut on his feet because of the reef. In these cases, Tolak Angin, Aspirin, Pondstan, and band-aid would help.
• Bring a flashlight if you’re going to play until the sunset, or just in case for anything. just bring it.
• Bring lots of plastic bags for your belongings, for your trashes, and for your wet clothes.
• Bring a power bank to keep your phone charged
• Bring a wide fabric : it can be used as your blanket in the car, as your mattress on the beach, and as your coverage when you can’t find any place to pee
• Bring a Go Pro or Camera plus an extra battery for it.
• If you’re going with two cars or more, a walkie-talkie will help! You can coordinate with the other cars while you’re driving, keep the other drivers awake while driving or do fun stuff in between lol.

How Much did I Spend on this Trip?

Rp. 10.000,- Tour guide (100k/10 person)
Rp.  5.000,- Entrance Ticket per person
Rp.  6.000,- Snorkeling (15k each)
Rp. 60.000,- Gas & Toll Fee (300k for the gas & 50k for the toll fee)
Rp. 18.000,- SJ Cam Rent (around 180k, includes the waterproof cover and the monopod)
Rp. 99.000,- 

A little downside about the trip :

• Pantai Tiga Warna is actually not as pretty as I thought. It was still beautiful, but actually, the water wasn’t that clear, lol. I still edit the color with VSCO Cam. Nothing too breathtaking, but at least it’s one of the nicest in South Malang, this beach is not as far as Bali, Lombok, or Karimun Java, right?
• Regardless of how strict the caretaker keeping the beach clean, if the visitors (or the locals) don’t have the willingness and the commitment to keep it clean, it will be a waste too. I still found plastic bags around the beach and the cliff. I even found A FREAKING BABY DIAPER floating around the beach water (what the heck?!). Not only that, I also found Indomie’s plastic wrap floating (I took it out from the water), and the worst thing was : there was a lot of soil floating if you’re swimming further from the shore (plus the soil bottles!). I guess it’s from the boats that are going back and forth around the beach. But still, the soil stuck on my hair and on my body and it really stinks!

But after all, what makes the trip meaningful was the people you’re going with. No matter how bad or how good the place is, if you’re going with the right group, it will be fun all the way! Vice Versa. So thank you so much Ganda, Vincent, Shandy, Marbol, Nonik, Nia, Vena, Anita, Ivan, Rachel for making this trip so much fun. And thank you to you guys who read this post, I hope this post is helpful for you, don’t stop traveling! <3

Go Pro Rent : @Ridhanjindo 081322556604
Booking the Beach & for the guide : Mangrove Conservation 082132677713