Locals living around the crater once thought it to be haunted because of the many ancestral graves in the area, which was formerly called Gunung Sepuh (Mountain of the Elders). Patuha comes from the Sundanese word Patua, meaning ?very old man?. The beauty of the crater was brought to light by Dutchman Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn, who exposed it to the public in 1837.
History also records that the Dutch built Zwavel Otgining Kawah Putih, a sulfur factory, in the area. During the Japanese occupation of 1942-45, the factory assumed its Japanese name, the Kawah Putih Kenzanka Gokoya Ciwidey. Today, visitors to Kawah Putih can wade in the waters of Kawah Putih to cure minor dermatological diseases.
Gunadi Priyogo, 29, for example, entered the lake to get rid of the itchiness and bad odor of his feet.
?It is said the water here can heal rashes, even eczema and ringworm,? said Gunadi, who came from north Bandung along with his wife and his daughter.
To visit Kawah Putih, make sure that you get there before 10 a.m., because a mist descends in late morning, especially during the rainy season. The thick mist can obscure the beautiful panorama around the crater lake, the banks of which resembles a sandy beach. Here, strawberries can be bought for less than if you picked them yourself. Half a kilogram of strawberries costs between Rp 5,000 and Rp 10,000. In addition, you can also buy pepino fruit for Rp 5,000 per kilogram. This fruit, which resembles a pear or an eggplant in shape, tastes like a melon. The vendors usually tell you that a pepino is good for lowering high blood pressure or high blood sugar.
At Kawah Putih, you can also find a number of stalls selling bandrek, a traditional Sundanese beverage made of ginger and brown palm sugar. This beverage is highly suitable for cold weather, as drinking bandrek will warm your body. The most famous bandrek is the Abah bandrek, made by an old man who is a Ciwidey native. To the side of the entrance to Kawah Putih is a track for All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs), which you can drive for Rp 25,000 a person.
Leaving Kawah Putih, you can visit Rancaupas where deer are bred in captivity. Rancaupas, also a camp site, is located about 1 kilometer from the crater. The captive breeding of Sambar deer (Cervus unicolor), which can usually be called by whistling to them, was begun in 1980 by the area's tourism management, the West Java-Banten Forestry Unit III. The deer live on a plot of some 3.6 hectares, and visitors can watch them from beyond the property's wire fence in special huts.
After the deer, visitors can head to Cimanggu and Rancawalini , the latter also known as Ciwalini which have public hot-water pools to relieve fatigue. A common sight at the hot-water pools are women and men massaging their bodies in the water. Just like the water in Kawah Putih, the sulfur in the hot-water pools is believed to be effective in curing rashes.
