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.
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.“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.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.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.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 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment