Top Ten Thing to Do, See and Eat in Bandung, Indonesia

When my friends found out i was going to Bandung for holidays, most of them asked me “why Bandung?” or “what’s there to do in Bandung?”. Bandung, nicknamed Kota Kembang, is a fantastic holiday destination, but isn’t well known outside Indonesia. While researching for this trip, I also found out that info on the Net about Indonesia’s 4th largest city is pretty scant, so I decided that I’d do a list like this after coming back, so here it is. Bear in mind this is based on my family’s short experience there, there are definitely many more attractions there that we didn’t have time to take in.

The list is divided into 3 general sections: What to see (the natural attractions), what to do (shopping) and what to eat (the food, of course). We’ll start with the biggest attraction of them all:

1. Tangkuban Perahu
Its visible from anywhere in Bandung, and takes an hour’s drive to get up there. It’s cold like Camerons there, and you can look down on Kawah Ratu, the largest of the few volcano craters there. Even from a distance of about 200m, its breathtaking. You can also hike down to see the crater of the live volcano up close, but its a long way down and you have to pay for a guide. The downside is the touts constantly pestering you to buy their trinkets.

While here, you can also check the Sari Ater (or Ciater) hot springs, owned by a private resort. But not much to do other than touch the 35 degree water.

2. Kawah Putih
This is another crater in a different location, but its atop an inactive volcano. Its also cooling due to the high altitude, and i have to say to sight of the turquoise sulfur lake surrounded by grey rocks is something to behold. You can walk up close to the lake edge, but you can’t touch the water. Downside – Its a 2 hour drive here, and not much else to do.

(That’s mean pretending to throw my kid into the sulfur water)

While here, you can also check out Situ Patenggang, a lake surrounded by tea plantations. You can go boating, but my wife said “its just like Taiping lake“.

3. Saung Angklung Udjo
In the midst of the bustling narrow roads and cramped shops in the city center, there is a bamboo covered sanctuary built by the great angklung master Udjo Ngalagena to celebrate the craft and music of the humble bamboo musical instrument.

There is a theater here where you can watch a daily performance of Sundanese music, dance and culture. We only caught the rehearsal here, but the 5 year old performers are extremely talented.

And then we have the shopping, the biggest attraction of Bandung for most Malaysians.

4. Jalan Dago / Riau
This is where most of the factory outlets sell the sisa ekspot garments. Make no mistake, its NOT like Malaysian warehouses, these are upmarket outlets beautifully decorated for you to shop in comfort. You name it, they have it – clothes, jeans, leatherware, bags, shoes, toys, but mainly clothes. And UNBELIEVEABLY cheap.

5. Rumah Mode
This is one of the outlets, but it deserves a special mention. It is the most beautiful outlet, and by far the most popular one. Rich Jakartans (and Malaysians) flock here every weekend to shop for the latest in trendy clothes and high fashion. If you only have time to go to one, I recommend this one. Downside, its in Jalan Setiabudi, far from the other outlets.

6. Jalan Cihampelas
Another street packed with outlets, but here its more catered to teenagers and kids. You can find any and every kind of jeans and tee shirts. Another feature is the statues and decor they use to attract customers. Downside, some shops sell poorer quality stuff here.

Now we move on to the fine dining and local cuisine. Fine dining in Bandung is VERY cheap, you can eat in the classiest restaurants here and the price is only half of what you’d pay for in Malaysia.

7. The Valley

This is the Western spot best we tried. It located on the hilltop, the view is excellent especially at sunset. The food is great, but the ambience is better. It’s in the same area as other restaurants such as The View (we also tried it), the Peak and the Stone Grill.

8. Kampung Daun

This is another must-try for anyone going to Bandung. It’s a kampung-style dining set in a cultural centre, and you get to eat in your own private hut surrounded by rockface and trees. Food is a combination of Sundanese, Western and Chinese cuisine. On the downside, its quite far from the city centre, plus I’ve read some complaints about the service.

9. Atmosphere

If you’re looking for the most happening Western restaurant, its at Atmosphere. Here you can eat in a hut surrounded by a pond filled with koi and gigantic Amazonian arapaima. The food is not as good as the earlier two mentioned, but the ambience is one of its kind.

10. Local Cuisine

Of course, you can also try the melting pot of local cuisine, Javanese, Sundanese and Chinese. We tried the Sundanese restaurant DapurKu, it was cheap and delicious.

They also sold puffs filled with chocolate or durian, also very tasty.

Or you can try one of the thousands of carts selling bakso and mie and other stuff, or the small nasi padang eateries at every street corner.

Another delicacy is the brownie kukus, which we didn’t have the opportunity to try.

Notable mentions: There were lots of other stuff we managed to cram in our 5 days there, but didn’t make the list. There are many historical sites (like Gedung Merdeka) around the city, worth a look if you are into it. Also along Jalan Braga there are lots of art galleries, and teenagers gather on weekends with cars and play music.

The major attractions of Bandung

Finally, a place that shopaholics, nature lovers and culture enthusiasts find agreeable.

SEAFOOD is hard to come by in Bandung. Situated on a plateau in the magnificent Parahayangan Mountains, 700m above sea level, the city is four hours’ drive from the closest beach.
However, what Bandung lacks, it makes up for in character: lovely art deco architecture, wide tree-lined boulevards and friendly faces, all set against the backdrop of mist-cloaked mountains and shockingly green paddy fields.
Don’t get me wrong. The food — usually hearty, home-style Sundanese fare like nasi timbel (steamed rice in a banana leaf roll), sayur asam (sour vegetable soup) and lalapan (raw vegetables) — isn’t too bad. Just be sure to have a glass of ice-cold water at hand, lest your eyes start to water and your ears start to smoke from all the sambal dadak.

Children playing at the hotsprings located at the foot of Tangkuban Perahu.

As someone who grew up on a staple diet of chilli padi, I had a ball in Bandung, where almost every meal is accompanied by the veritable red sauce. Yes, the Sundanese take their sambal seriously, and my tour guide, Budi Triono Assor, a Javanese by birth but a Sundanese at heart, is no different.
“Each time I go to a restaurant, I make a mental note of how good the sambal is. I discovered there are 44 variations in sambal in and around Bandung because each eatery has their secret recipe. It can make or break the business,” remarked Budi, grinning.
“It’s also a well-known Sundanese fact that if a girl is good at making sambal, she’ll have lots of suitors knocking at her door.”
But the Sundanese aren’t united only in their quest for mind-blowing, earth-shattering sambal. As the second-largest ethnic group in Indonesia, they share a unique culture and language that distinguishes them from other Indonesians.
“The Sundanese language is not intelligible to the Javanese,” said Budi. “Some say that the quickest way for a foreigner to identify a Sundanese is through the refined way he speaks. They’re more easygoing and polite.”
So there is no need to freak out should a stranger flash his pearly whites at you and drawls, “Sampurasun.” I’m told it’s a traditional greeting roped in to replace “assalamualaikum” over the years as more and more Sundanese struggle to preserve their culture.
“We rarely say good morning or good afternoon or good evening. Usually, we use the word sampurasun, and the other person has to reply rempessss, which means good,” advised Budi, sounding somewhat Mexican with his tongue rolls and hissing.
“But what if I don’t feel rempes?” I felt compelled to ask.
“Well, I don’t think a word for that exists,” answered an amused Budi after a moment’s deliberation. “The Sundanese try to avoid tension and conflict whenever they can, so they’ll always say ‘yes’ or ‘fine’ even if they think otherwise.”

Picture-perfect scenery, Bandung.

Less talk, more shop
Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Bandung is its impressive number of colonial buildings. They were built by the Dutch, who founded the city in 1810 and intended to turn it into Indonesia’s capital. For a moment, the city was dubbed Paris Van Java (or “Paris in Java”) because of its excellent infrastructure and resort-town atmosphere.
Those who were wealthy enough travelled to Bandung to shop, eat and relax. Unfortunate­ly, everything came to a halt during the Japan­ese Occupation in 1952.
The Dutch left Bandung in droves and, as a result, the buildings became ghostly spectres of the past. Bandung might have remained a ghost town but for the recent Asian-African Conference. The city was picked to host its 50th anniversary there in 2005, so to prepare for the large-scale festivities that would ensue, the government constructed highways, restored old buildings and dusted off the streets.
“Everything changed,” said Budi. “Tourism spiked, and we now receive plenty of local and foreign tourists who come here mainly to shop. Malaysians, especially, love shopping so much that they hardly do anything else when they’re here, except sleep and eat.”
Yes, this once-quiet town has found its niche in fashion, of all things.
However, the look the city has embraced is more high street than high fashion and more capricious than classic. The best thing? Prices are cheap.
There are factory outlet stores, international boutiques and even a whole road dedicated to jeans. There are discount shoe stores, street­wear shops and a one-stop shopping mall that stocks all manner of textiles. As I passed my third roadside vendor — this one with the phrase Jual Jaket Kulit scrawled onto its cheap, zinc roof — I began to panic, as a kid would in a super-sized candy store.

Tangkuban Perahu, an active volcano 30km north of Bandung.

Where should I start? What do I buy? Do I have enough cash?
Tourists are advised to pick and choose their battles. One wrong stop could cost money or, worse still, precious time.
“There are three main areas for factory outlet stores, mainly Jalan Riau, Jalan Dago and Jalan Setiabudi, where the famous Rumah Mode is. That’s where you can buy your Tommy Hilfiger and Booberry. Locals flock to Pasar Baru for beautiful, cheap fabrics, and Jalan Cihampelas for denim,” advised Budi.
It’s difficult to imagine that congested, chaotic Cihampelas began like many other shopping zones in Bandung — with just one boutique.
“More and more residential areas are being used for commercial purposes. Businessmen are snapping up these properties and turning them into restaurants, boutiques and even hotels,” Budi said.
It was, in a way, tragic. The bungalows looked more elegant prior to the transformation. They were the reason architecture students from all over Indonesia flocked to Bandung. Everybody wanted to study their perfect symmetry, to copy the undulating curves and razor-sharp edges of zigzags and trapezoids. Stripped of their sweeping lines and geometry, these buildings have now been reduced to shells of their former selves.
Nobody really knows when this large-scale makeover will stop; only that at this rate, Bandung will be a very different place in another few years.
For now though, a good number of these beautiful buildings still stand. There is the Institut Teknologi Bandung with its striking Javanese roof, Government Companies, with its blend of Italian Renaissance style and Thailand’s pagoda-like structures as well as Gedung Sate, the governer’s office named after the distinguished small satay-shaped structure on the roof.
The city lanes are still narrow, public transport remains patchy, and poverty is still rife. Budi himself holds three jobs (manager of a car rental company, lecturer and tour guide) to get by. Across the street, a man gets his pet monkey to perform for money.

Dinner, Bandung style.

More to love
If not for one man by the name of Udjo Ngalagena, Bandung’s economic growth would rely solely on the retail sector. But the late Udjo was an indefatigable champion of culture and arts, and he had a vision back in 1966 about the angklung, a musical instrument.
Made entirely out of bamboo and used by the Sundanese of yore to signal the time for prayers, the angklung was said to be the pride of every Sundanese — until it became uncool in the eyes of the new generation.
To rectify this, Udjo, together with wife Uum Sumiati, established Saung Angklung Udjo (SAU), a place for performance and education. They taught children from nearby villages to play traditional and popular Indonesian songs on the angklung and, soon enough, the group found a willing audience in Western tourists.
Udjo may be gone but his legacy lives on in a big way. SAU is doing remarkably well under the guidance of Udjo’s son, and what was once a roof-less, floor-less place is now a full-fledged concert venue constructed entirely out of bamboo. Tourists come in droves from near and far. Performances have also been expanded to include all manner of traditional Sunda­nese arts, from wayang golek to mask and peacock dances.
The highlight of the show, however, is still the angklung. We even got to try our hands at it.
“Shake your wrists, not your body,” instructed a little girl shyly, as she watched me engage in a losing battle with the instrument. Umi, 10, is one of SAU’s 500 students. The number may seem like a lot, but this number only makes up a small percentage of children in Bandung.
You see, the number of kids below 12 has risen sharply due to a population boom in recent years, putting a strain on education, health services, natural resources and housing. To get from one place to another, our bus had to whiz dangerously past the many makeshift homes that have sprung up along the city’s already crowded urban strip. These little ramshackle huts looked hastily cobbled together to accommodate a family as large as eight members.

The writer posing as a Sundanese.

The elderly, meanwhile, hardly have any space to themselves. Since few green spaces remain within the city limits, they sit on plastic chairs by the roadside, wistfully watching the world go by. Just a few blocks away, the retirement parks (or “Taman Lansia”, for lanjut usia or old age), are almost always filled with screaming kids and amorous couples.
The government is well aware of this problem, of course. Outside the city, big billboards blaring public service announcements like “duanya sudah cukup” (“two is enough”) greet passing vehicles and horse carts, a mode of transportation that’s been around since the 18th century.
The people, however, are unruffled. Over the weekend, they depart en masse to scenic spots like Tangkuban Perahu, an active volcano 30km north of the city, or Garut, a former Dutch hill station, with several kids in tow. Life, though hard, can be happy.
Budi brought me to Tangkuban Perahu the next day.
“Oh, we should’ve gotten the pawang hujan today. The Sundanese pay him to move the rain clouds on important occassions,” remark­ed Budi, as he gazed at the dark clouds looming above us.
Tangkuban Perahu certainly isn’t the only active volcano found around Bandung (there are dozens) but, to the locals, it’s the only one worth visiting. Legends say Dayang Sumbi, a beauty who lived in West Java, cast away her son Sangkuriang for disobedience, and in her sadness, was granted the power of eternal youth by the gods.
After many years in exile, Sangkuriang decided to return home, and fell in love with his own mother. But after failing to marry her, he kicked a boat he built for her, resulting in severe flooding and the creation of Tangkuban Perahu, or “upturned boat” in Sundanese. To this day, the locals believe that the vapours emitted by the volcano signify the unrestrained lust of Sangkuriang.
The journey to Tangkuban Perahu was equally fascinating. As we drove up the winding highlands, we passed million-ringgit villas built by the German spy Bereti (“who used to host a lot of parties for the Dutch here because that’s how he got top-secret information from them,” said Budi) and mom-and-pop cafés selling ayam gantung (hung chicken), sate kelinci (rabbit satay) and sate biawak (monitor lizard satay). There are also several universities and colleges in Bandung.
“Bandung takes its education seriously,” said Budi. “We have some of the best universities in Indonesia. The village people have a folk song about sending their kids to study here.”
It was also in Bandung that famous political figures like Sukarno, Suharto, Habibi and Megawati got their education. Past and future politicians breeze through the city like dynamic apparitions, ready to take on the world after wisening up amidst beauty and ugliness.
The light that burns brightly in Bandung has not yet faded, after all.
GETTING THERE
Malaysia Airlines offers daily flights to Bandung, and economy class travellers are entitled to 20kg check-in luggage and 5kg hand carry, so shopaholics can shop to their heart’s content!
ACCOMMODATION
Budget: IDR100,000 (RM35) for a standard room in Cassadua Residences Splurge: IDR1028500 (RM360) for a deluxe room at Hilton Bandung
TRIVIA
Mention air bandung to any Sundanese and all you’ll get is a quizzical expression. The sugary pink beverage is actually a Malaysian concoction and can’t be found in Bandung. Some cafés do serve teh tarik, however.