Bandung and Its surrounding

Bandung is always full of memory for me. I like it a lot how the people here dress, very stylish. Its climate is just perfect, not too cold and not too warm as other Indonesian big city. Bandung has Indonesian favorite name calls Paris van Java, I guess this means the Paris in Java. Maybe it associates with its fashion, its climate, or maybe its love. You can just easily falling in love with this tiny little town, with its food, its people, just an expression of love here and it is not so far from Jakarta.

How to get to Bandung ?!?!

Since the opening of the highway, in 2005, that connected Jakarta and Bandung directly, you can easily be in Bandung from Jakarta for around 2 hour at a good traffic. Alternatively, there are some flights that fly to and from Bandung. You can get to Bandung from Denpasar, Yogyakarta and internationally from Kuala Lumpur and Singapore directly. To get around Bandung city, you can easily take taxi, you can use these Cipaganti Taxi or Blue Bird, otherwise if you prefer travel like the local does you can take Angkot, public transport, everywhere in town that connect from the very north part to the very south part of the city and also from the west to the east. Everywhere in Bandung is accessible with Angkot. I personally prefer to rent a car when I’m there or bring driver from Jakarta, it is so much easier and comfortable. If you are in a big group, at least 3 people, renting a car is really worth the value. It will cost around 40USD for 10-12hours inclusive driver and petrol. How fantastic is that 😉

What to do in Bandung ?!?!

Two days, at least, is the best amount of time to visit Bandung. Arriving in Bandung at very early morning is the best way to start your day. It depends how you get to Bandung. In the case of arriving from Jakarta or from Bandung Airport, the best way is by hitting straight the 1st destinations. Drive up all the way to Tangkuban Perahu Mountain. There you can see the spectacular crater. Enjoy its view from your door step when you park your car, Kawah Ratu. Kawah is a bahasa word for crater.You can also walk to nearby crater where you are able to see Kawah Ratu from different perspective and be in between Kawah Ratu and Kawah Upas. If you wanna do a lil trekking, you can walk all the way down to Kawah Domas, which some people bring their own eggs to boil them with the high temperature boiling sulfur water down at Kawah Domas. Ask your driver to pick you up down at Kawah Domas parking area instead of waiting for you at the main parking space. By doing that you can walk one way and carry on your trip to the next place.

Around noon time you can carry on your trip down to the city. If you are fancy of sausage, we are in Indonesia, so, only beef or chicken sausage, you can stop by at Rumah Sossis (Sausage House) at Jalan Setiabudi. You can also heading down to Rumah Mode ( Mode House), one stop shopping for factory outlet and also a variety of Indonesian food, typical from Bandung, and a really nice Java Bean Coffee. Tired of shopping, as this is already almost dark, time to check in to hotel of your choice. Holiday inn in Dago always be my favorite here. It is simple, clean and at affordable price. Location is just superb.

In the evening after you rest a bit , you can head up to Dago Pakar area for your dinner, or just simply having dinner at Jalan Ir. Juanda aka Jl Dago and do some more factory outlet shopping here. If you decide to have dinner at Dago Pakar area, I suggest to go to Stones or the Valley. Both has nice view and relaxing Bandung. Price is between mid to top range for Indonesian rate. It’s holiday anyway, so doesn’t really matter 😉

About night club or pub, I’m a bit lost here in Bandung, as everything change. from the time when I was living there with nowadays after 10 years. Well, you can check your lovely guide book, maybe they have some suggestion. I suppose place like in Braga area, Cihampelas and nearby Dago have some choices.

The next day, You can visit Bandung Institute of Technology, ITB, one of the oldest university in Indonesia. Once, the 1st president was studying there. This university also has a free gallery at its faculty, Fakultas Seni Rupa dan Desain (Art and Design Faculty), you can get to know some of its students art work. And the building of ITB after all is really nice combination of local art and technical stuff. Then, you can head to the Alun-Alun, the city center, to see where in the former time the local actually did their trading, socialize with their friends, etc, etc. There is a fascinating huge mosque here as well, and you also can stroll to the infamous Braga street. Some Saturday and Sunday, they usually have event and festival here.  From there, you can make your way to visit the local coffee shop, Kopi Aroma, to see its production process until packaging and selling it to the customer.

By afternoon time you should catch the Angklung performance at Saung Ujo at Jl. Padasuka 118, around 7km from Bandung. The performance start at 3.30pm and will cost 8.5USD for foreigner and 5 USD for Indonesian. It is great performance. The performance lasts for 1hour 30 mins, then you can head up to the Riau street to do some more factory outlet shopping, that’s what Bandung is famous for ;). It’s already late evening, if you have not enough time, then it’s time to be back to Jakarta or catch your flight.

Otherwise if you have longer time and more into nature person, the next day you can heading to Kawah Putih at the South part of Bandung. Depends on which day you go, on Sunday, traffic can be really bad as you will have to drive up together with other Indonesians having their Sunday Family Fun up there. Anyway, it takes around-3 hours to reach Kawah Putih from Dago, around 1-2 hours to enjoy the view. Take the toll from Jalan Layang Surapati straight to the direction of Ciater. All the way up to Kawah Putih, you will see strawberry farming every second house and also tea plantation, very beautiful there. Further up 5 km from the crater you can visit the lake, calls Situ Patengang and Ciater Hot Spring. Your whole day is already gone.

Bandung is combination between nature, shopping and eating. It is located between two highlands, as mentioned before, thats the reason why Bandung has a chill climate.

Some pictures from Bandung and around!!!