I visited Bandung, Indonesia last February. It was great. Bandung is the capital of West Java province in Indonesia.
My trip to Bandung was well planned and coordinated by my wife. There were 13 people in my tour group. Family trip actually. I’d never been to Bandung before. It was my first trip and naturally I was excited after I heard and read so much about it. It was the Dutch East Indies Company centre of administration when they colonized Indonesia 60 years back.
I landed at Husein Sastranegara International Airport, Bandung on 20th February and unexpectedly at the arrival counter, I got fined by the Immigration officers because my two maids did not have international exit stamps on their passports. It was 100,000 rupiah each and no receipt was given to me. To avoid any unnecessary problems I just paid it. My wife called it ‘pure and raw corruption’ by the officers. What a grand welcome from Bandung people!!
Bandung is also known as ‘Paris van Java’ or Paris of Java, I heard many beautiful and fashionable ladies are here, this is their playground to show off and showcase their fashion. During the weekend this place is full with rich people from Jakarta.
The whether was great, not too hot and not too cold (22-23’C). Just nice for my children. I wore jacket most of the time though. Bandung is surrounded by volcanic mountains. The land is very fertile and you can grow almost anything here. Actually the Dutch turn Bandung into tea plantation areas. At tea plantation area, I saw resort homes, golf course and unique bungalows there.
My main activity was shopping and window shopping all over Bandung town. Factory outlets are a lot, they are every where, they spoilt my choices, relatively their prices were more or less the same. One after another I visited but I only bought a few pieces only. Not enough money actually.
Overall food in Bandung was good mostly sundanese food but I preferred malaysian style food. I visited and dined at one Kg Daun Restaurant, it was very unique concept kind of restaurant, it should be tried by everybody, the food was superb. Service was also great.
My hotel ok lah, Grand Serela, 3-star, what do I expect, but I liked it coz it is near the many factory outlets. One thing I could not miss though was batik jawa, I bought several batik shirts, batik sarong and other batik products.
As regards the people in Bandung, mostly sundanese, there were more poor people than rich people. I saw many super rich bungalows. I was impressed with old Dutch colonial building left by the Dutch, especially the governor mansion, Dutch architecture. It was very big.
Bandung is the education hub for Indonesia, there are countless colleges and universities here, the famous one is of course ITB or Bandung Institute of Technology which is established in 1920. I heard former Presiden Soekarno studied here and he became an Engineer before he went into Politics.
I also visited Tangkuban Perahu (literally means 'up-turned boat') mountain, it was so damn cold but I was disappointed with the hawkers and salesmen who harassed and pressured tourists like us to buy their souvenir products. I was not able to really enjoy the great view and its volcanic environment.
After that my group dropped at Sari Ater hot springs. It was very clean and well maintained place. I would recommend this place to other tourists. Then from my moving rented van, I watched tea plantations all the way back to town.
I stayed 4 days 3 nights in Bandung, then drove to Jakarta through Puncak and stayed in Jakarta for one night at Mangga Dua Apartment. I checked in at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport on morning 25th January. Again I got fined one more time, this time 1 million rupiah each for my two maids. They called it ‘fiscal tax’ to leave the country. After negotiation, I managed to reduce it to 200,000 rupiah each.
My flight in and out of Indonesia, I took Airasia as it was cheap and no frills.
That’s all folks for now.
