It’s not very common for small ponds to have their own Instagram
accounts, let alone tens of thousands of followers, but then again Umbul
Ponggok is not your usual village pond.
Located in Indonesia’s Central Java region, Umbul Ponggok is a small
pond measuring just 20 meters by 50 meters, but boasting the cleanest
water imaginable. It is continuously fed with fresh water from 40
different springs, at a rate of 800 liters per second, so the water is
always crystal clear. It’s this fascinating property that makes Umbul
Ponggok an ideal location for underwater selfies, and in the age of
Instagram you’d best believe people are taking advantage of it.
15 years ago, Ponggok was a poor, obscure Indonesian village, and its
immaculate pond was a dirty, polluted cesspool where locals used to
bathe and wash their dirty clothes. Unemployment was high and locals
barely earned a living farming and mining in nearby quarries. Today,
that same village ranks among the 10 richest in Indonesia, unemployment
is almost non-existent, and tourism drives the local economy. And it was
all possible thanks to Umbul Ponggok and Instagram.
The rehabilitation of this underwater Instagram attraction can be
credited to Junaedi Mulyono, who took it upon himself to turn Ponggok
into a tourist attraction soon after he was elected village head, in
2006. He started by bringing in students from a university a few dozen
kilometers away and asked them to create a database of the village’s
problems, potential resources, and possible solutions.
Based on the information offered by the students, Mulyono founded a
village-owned business called Tirta Mandiri, and asked locals to invest
in it, promising that they would reap the rewards for many years to
come. While many were reluctant to follow his advice, of the roughly 700
families in Ponggok, 430 became investors. Those that didn’t invest in
the beginning changed their minds after Umbul Ponggok was cleaned up and
tourists started coming in.
Each of the families that invested in Tirta Mandiri put up 5 million
rupiah, and has seen returns of 400,000 to 500,000 rupiah per month,
for the past 10 years. The extra income has helped locals improved their
quality of life and offer their children better education. Plus, the
economy built around the popular village pond has all but eliminated
unemployment, with most of the available workforce having been absorbed
by Tirta Mandiri.
The South China Morning Post
reports that back in 2005 Ponggok had an annual income of some 80
million rupiah. Today, Tirta Mandiri’s annual revenue from its various
businesses – all centered around the pond – reaches 14 billion rupiah.
It has also become known as one of the must-see tourist attraction of
Klaten Regency, and a magnet for Instagram influencers in search of the
hottest selfie spots.
Thousands of people travel to Umbul Ponggok every weekend, and the
local authorities make sure that they are not disappointed. As
underwater selfies are the most popular among visitors, they’ve set up
all kinds of props on the bottom of the pond, such as motorcycles,
benches, even old TV sets, all things designed to make photos stand out.
And it even has its own Instagram account, with over 40,000 followers,
where the coolest underwater photos are featured.
Influencers from all over Asia, politicians and entertainers all
travel to this small Indonesian village to have their picture taken,
further boosting its reputation as a unique selfie destination.
To be honest, Umbul Ponggok does look like a very cool place, but I
doubt it would have become so popular if Instagram never existed. The
same can be said about other equally stunning destinations, such as Monet’s Pond in Japan, and some truly dangerous ones, like the Siberia Maldives.
