Friday, March 25, 2011

Vacation to Bandung

Last 2 weeks on 11 Mac 2011, my family & I went for our school break's vacation at Jakarta/Bandung Indonesia for 5 days and 4 nights. First and I hope not the last vacation in this 2 years because we did renew our pasport RM100 for 2 years (sponsored by Dad). :D We went there by KLM Airline. The airline was awesome because they have screens in front of you where you can watch movies, playing games etc. You can also adjust your seats a bit not like AirAsia where eveything is fixed. I am satisfied with KLM Airline. Maybe later if you wanna travel to Jakarta Indonesia, you can choose KLM Airline. The price is reasonable, the service also is ok. :) We departed to Jakarta at 5.10 p.m and arrived at Jakarta airport at 6.10 p.m (local time) because the difference time is 1 hour appart. Indonesia is early by 1 hour from Malaysia. After we reached the airport, we have to que long for pasport stamp & pass the immigration. Jakarta's airport not that nice as compared to ours in KLIA. I can say that KLIA is the best airport so far compared to other airports that I've visited. Big thanks to Mahathir (previous prime minister) for creating such world class airport that we can be proud of as Malaysians. :) Ok back to the story. After we have took our the bags, we went out & meet with our liason Mamat & Dadan who is responsible for our trip at Bandung. Cut the story short, we went for our dinner at Jakarta town & have some city tour. Jakarta is a big town & packed just like in KL. They also have heavy traffic jams. The drivers were insane. And the common car I can see is Honda City & Toyota Vios for their taxi. OMG! In terms of car, the smallest is Toyota Swift. No Perodua Kancil or Myvi. After our dinner & city tour, we continued our journey to Bandung. It is approximately 2 hours travel from Jakarta to Bandung using highway just like our NKVE. Mostly we slept all the way & stopped for coffee at their R&R. They have the biggest & greatest R&R that I would have seen in my life. It was so OMG! They have everything at their R&R. You named it, they have it. We arrived at Apartment Aston Braga Bandung around midnight if I'm not mistaken. We have been given a 2 bedroom apartment as what is arranged by Dad previously in Malaysia. The room was ok. But later on Day 2 got some leaks in the room & we switched to other room in Day 3.

Day 2 began with breakfast then we visited places like Tangkuban Perahu (inactive volcano), Sari Ater (hot spring water park), Factory Outlet Dago and Matahari Mall. On the way to Sari Ater we ate "jagung bakar". It was the best "jagung bakar" I've ever had. Usually I do not eat "jagung bakar" but there the "jagung bakar" is delicious. :) Tangkuban Perahu is a nice place to visit. But when you go there, remember not to see or say "nanti2" when the sales person trying to sell their thing/souvenirs because they will stay with you until you buy their item that they are selling. Most of the souvenirs you can get elsewhere which is cheaper. Sari Ater also have the same method of selling their goods. They will follow you all the way trying to sell their goods. But at Sari Ater not souvenirs but ICE CREAM. Lol right ? But it's true. :D In Bandung we tried all their famous Nasi Padang. There are 3 famous restaurant there. First Simpang Raya, second Sederhana & third Karamba. Karamba is a bit different where they served Sundanese cuisine whereas Simpang Raya & Sederhana served Nasi Padang cuisine. Their method is a bit different where when you arrived at Simpang Raya or Sederhana, they will serve to you all kinds/variety of food in plates. You eat what you wanna eat. They will charge you accordingly for which plate you have eaten. If you do not want the dish, do not touch it, just leave it alone. When it is the time to pay, they will see which plate that u have eaten the dish, they will count for that. They are smart because they just served the dish & the customer just eat. The dessert also like that. Sometimes we thougt it is free but actually it is not free, later they will charge after you finish eating. In Bandung, to look is FREE but to taste even a bit, you have to PAY for it. :) Last but not least is Matahari Mall. It is just an ordinary mall. Nothing interesting there. We had our coffee & donut eating at their famous J.Co. Here are some pictures from Day 2.

Tangkuban Perahu View 1
Tangkuban Perahu View 2


Tangkuban Perahu View 3
Tangkuban Perahu View 4


Sari Ater View 1
Sari Ater View 2


Sari Ater View 3
Sari Ater View 4
















Simpang Raya Restaurant

Nasi Padang Cuisine















Day 3 began with breakfast then we went to Pasar Baru, Toko Tiga and Jalan Riau. Pasar Baru is a place where they sell mostly Telekung (Muslim women wear it for prayers) & Kain Ela where you can buy to make baju kurung or baju kebaya etc. They also sell Bandung t-shirt, handbags, shoes and lots more. The quality of the handbag like LV, Chanel, Coach etc are not so good. From far looks like ok but when you come closer, you can see the materials & details of the handbag is actually an immitation. Inside the bag also just some PVC cloth, no label of the brand. Things that worth buying in Pasar Baru is Telekung because you can get cheaper rate compared to Malaysia for a good quality of Telekung. Mom bought one. But that one Telekung also is hard to find because they are lots of shop selling the same thing. You have to know how to choose & bargain everytime you want to buy something so that you get a reasonable price for things you buy. Toko Tiga is a shop actually who sells jeans. All type of jeans like Levi's, Lee, Calvin Klein, Burberry, etc. They sell also shirts & blouse. But people go there for their jeans. It's cheaper compared to Malaysia but as usual you just have to know how to pick a really good ones. Sadly we did not buy any jeans there because the sizes is different, not like the size in Malaysia. I did try my size but the jean is too small. When I tried bigger sizes, the jean can fit but it has large waist where when you sit, other people can see through from your back. I pass. :) My advice to women who have small figure down waist (lucky for them), Toko Tiga is the place where you can shop for a good quality of Levi's jeans. For lunch we ate Nasi Padang Sederhana. Next is Jalan Riau where it is a street where the shops along the street are selling Factory Outlet goods just like Jalan Dago. It is a mixed brand shop just like our F.O.S in Malaysia. The street is a busy street & you can see many people, not tourist but mostly their people go shopping. We did not buy anything because nothing is interesting to us except for Mom & Lil Sis bought pyjamas and also Mom bought a dress for Sarah. After finish sight seeing, we went for dinner at Karamba to try their Sundanese food. Here are some pictures from Day 3.

Pasar Baru
Toko Tiga


Jalan Riau
Jalan Riau















Sundanese Cuisine


Karamba
Before
After
 Day 4 began with breakfast then we visited places like Kawah Putih, Strawberry Park, Cibaduyut, Rumah Mode and Cihampelas Walk. Kawah Putih is actually an inactive volcano filled with water. I'm not sure why there is water but the scenery is always fog looked like the air is white so does the water. The scenery is magnificient. One place not to be missed when you go visit Bandung. It's about 1-2 hours journey to Kawah Putih. Before we proceed to our next destination, we ate jagung bakar down at the Kawah Putih entrance. Then we continued our journey to Strawberry Park where we plucked our own strawberry to eat. This is just like what we had in Cameron Highlands Malaysia. Because of the cold weather, they can plant strawberries & lots of vegetables there mostly cabbage. After that we went to Cibaduyut. Cibaduyut is a place/street name where most of the shops sell leather shoes. But the leather is not from the good quality ones. Then we had our lunch at Sederhana. After that we rushed to Rumah Mode. My favourite place of all time for shopping. It is worth buying. There are lots of branded clothes at quite a reasonable price. :) Last but not least we went to Cihampelas Walk. It is basically a street of a place or I can say behind the street there is a mall named Cihampelas Walk. The street is not so nice but the Cihampelas Walk is a nice place. Unfortunately it is situated at the back of the street. We had our dinner at KFC. Their KFC does not have mashed potatoes or coleslaw. The set consists of chicken (ori/spicy), carbonated water and rice. You can change the rice to small fries by adding 5000 Rupiah. They also do not have any Snack Box like what we have here in Malaysia. I guess in Indonesia they prefer rice. Here are some pictures from Day 4.

Kawah Putih
Kawah Putih View 1

Kawah Putih View 2
Kawah Putih View 3

Kawah Putih View 4
Jagung Bakar




Restaurant Sederhana
Masakan Padang
Strawberry Park
Strawberry View
Rumah Mode
Strawberry
Cibaduyut Shoes
Cibaduyut View 1
Cibaduyut View 2

Signboard near Cihampelas
Cihampelas Walk
Cihampelas KFC
Cihampelas Mall

































Last day, Day 5 we went straight back to Jakarta early in the morning because our flight is at 7.10 p.m (local time) and we planned to have one last tour at Jakarta. The plan for that day is after breakfast at R&R, we went to Taman Mini Indon and Ancol. Taman Mini Indon is their park that have historical houses like in the museum but bigger ones till the entertainment house like Disney World. They also have theme park in there. I can only see their wet theme park, not sure they have dry theme park or not. We went for a ride with the cable car to see the whole park & it is very very very big park. Ancol is also a big big big park like Taman Mini Indon that provides entertainment. Here they have roller-coaster etc. You can also enjoy the view of their ocean while eating. At Ancol we went for their Seaworld (most glamour ones). It's amazing. They have different types of fish from the smallest like seahorses to the biggest like sharks. They have pythons, alligators & also turtles. They have Touch Pool where you can actually touch the animal such as turtles, starfish, sharks and stingray. Lastly we checked in at Jakarta Airport. Our flight is delayed 1 hour, not sure why. When we arrived at KLIA, everything is back to reality again. Here are some pictures from Day 5, our last day at Indonesia.

West Sumatera
House of Sumatera



Sumatera House
Papua House



Papua House


Cable Car
Disney World


Bali House


Small Monas Monumen


Taman Mini Indon Entrance





Sea World Indonesia
Fish Tank
Giant Python Sign
Giant Snake Python


Touch Pool
Touch Pool View

Alligator
Turtle

4 comments:

  1. jakarta sukarno hatta was the best airport in 90s, won aga khan architecture award...of course it loses to more modern airport like KLIA, Changi, etc.... But now the gov't is building a brand new airport, much more modern than KLIA..then it's time to KLIA to become obsolete :D look even AirAsia will have their regional office there...:)

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  2. i guess life is like that, there's always things newer...makassar, surabaya have already had their brand new int'l airport, and now bandung, bali, medan, etc are constructing theirs...KL has monorail and LRT, but Jakarta has BRT and ready to construct their MRT next year... not only that, Makasar and Bandung are constructing their monorail in 2012...beside that, 5 Indonesian cities outside Jakarta have already had BRT... I hope Malaysia is also developing public transport of cities outside Klang Valley...it's good if we maju together...:)

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  3. forgot to say, you have a great blog! i love to read your story, it's as if i followed you in person to bandung! :)

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  4. wow, izit ? but i think we still can be proud of our klia no matter what. ;) yep, i agree to what u're saying that it's great if we can maju together so that it will be fair to other people in different state also. awwhh, thanx for the compliment! keep reading my blog eventho currently i seldom updated it. :p

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