Bandung - 1st overseas family trip

Originally posted in my parenting blog iwannabeibumithali.blogspot.com on 21st Jul 2011.

We just came back from Bandung yesterday, so hopefully I can write everything about it before I forget. I'll divide them into these subtopics:

• Day 0 and about this trip
• Day 1: Children's fun day with Wiji n family
• Day 2: Pasarbaru and Dago
• Day 3: Are we different from other Malaysian tourist?
• Day 4: Hubby's day
• Day 5: Sickness day and Going home 
• On mathematics of currency conversion
• On language and vocabulary
• On shopping
• On food
• On the people
• On the businesses
• On the less fortunate people
• On taxi drivers and tour drivers
• Berjimat cermat at Bandung?
• On sickness
• On the children
• Things to remember - for future trips

Day 0 and about this trip

This trip is made because my husband had to present a paper in the ICEEI2011 conference in Institut Teknologi Bandung. As soon as he got notification of acceptance of his paper, we straightaway made passport and booked tickets. The conference took place on 17 Jul (Sun) till 19 Jul (Tue) so we made our trip to start on 15th (Fri) till 20th (Wed) so that we have ample time to enjoy Bandung. My hubby's friend Wiji from Jakarta helped us to book a hotel room for us, and it was Cihampelas2 hotel. This hotel provides free airport transfer.

We didn't prepare much for this trip. I read a bit about Bandung trips made by Malaysians, googled a bit of info, hubby bought a decent camera (because we currently use only handphones), and 'bought' rupiah from a money exchanger outside Metro Plaza Kajang. We got Rp8,350,000 for RM2,990. So our conversion is Rp2793 for RM1, or every 10k = RM3.58. In this article, 10k means Rp10000. Packing lightly starting on Friday morning, we made a last minute decision (which was a good one) to take along my netbook.

A KLIA limo invited us from home at 1530 (sharp!), we prayed Asar at LCCT surau, our flight was delayed for nearly 1 hour to around 2000, and a few hours later, we arrived at Bandung International airport. The arrival part of this airport was very basic. A driver from our hotel had already been waiting for us. He was a nice guy, and introduced himself as Ocen. On our request, he helped us to buy XL simcards from a small shop on the street. 15 minutes later, we were already in our room, but as Asma' refused to wake up from her sleep (she's been fast asleep since in the flight), so hubby took Aisyah only for dinner at the hotel's restaurant and ordered a dish for me to be sent to our room. The price of the hotel's restaurant food and room service food is similar to the price of Malaysian tomyam food stalls. Hubby chose not to find food from outside the hotel following his friends' advice not to explore the stalls food yet on the first days for fear of getting stomach problem. Solat jama' Maghrib and Isya', changing simcards, taking a view out of the window, and sleep for tomorrow. In my opinion, Bandung is a lively city. Our hotel was surrounded by houses, and far away were the mountains, and at that hour, there were lights everywhere even at the mountains!

Bandara Hussein Sastranegara International Airport

Day 1

Bandung time is different from Malaysia by 1 hour (GMT +7). So Subuh was around 4.50. Alhamdulillah I found both hubby and I did not have difficulty at all to adjust to this timing. About 3 azans could be heard from our hotel room. The nearest was from a Masjid Jami' which minaret was just several metres away from the back of our hotel. Another surau/masjid could also be seen around 100 metres from our hotel. After the azans, there were noises made by birds/animals as if they wanted to help waking people up for Subuh. The sound was like "guk-guk-guk" I don't know what animal. After reciting quran from my handphone app, I tried to use Internet. I didn't turn on my laptop because the power outlet here is round, our power adapter could not fit it. Wifi signal of this hotel could reach our room, and My Samsung Galaxy 5 running Android 2.2 Froyo 'refused' to get Internet connection from the XL simcard. However 3G could run okay at hubby's handphone so I connected to fb for several minutes. Then the phone ran out of credit, luckily there was a top-up stall just outside our hotel.

The guk-guk sound may come from the green area above, which is the Bandung Zoo

Far to the bushes is a masjid/surau, this one is the 2nd/3rd nearest to the hotel.

After breakfast at the hotel's restaurant (we had to pay extra 50k for having the kids joining), we were happy to start our first activity. Outside the hotel building, we were greeted by a few people selling things (key chains, fridge magnet, leather sandals, t-shirts, slippers) who tried to persuade us to buy. We only bought a canvas sling bag which became very useful during the entire trip. Then we walked along Cihampelas road taking some pictures, until Asma' complained of tiredness. So we went back, and on the way, Asma' stopped us to buy Minnie Mouse t-shirts she spotted at a shop. The shop lady refused to give much discount so we had an impression that Cihampelas was not a good spot to get a good bargain.

Many shops at Cihampelas has characters outside

SMA Pasundan 8 shares the same building and compound with SMA Pasundan 2. Can you draw a border between them? 

As Wiji had promised us to take us for sightseeing together with his family on this day, so we waited for him to arrive. Wiji told us that they were trapped in traffic jam that delayed them for a few hours. After zuhur, we happily boarded Wiji's MPV and headed towards Tangkuban Prahu. We had lunch at a Bento restaurant on the way as a treat for the children. It was not purely Japanese food, in my opinion, but local food modified into Bento style.

Hoka Hoka Bento provides children play area and serves 'children friendly' food like rice with scrambled eggs

The visit at Tangkuban Prahu was a brief one. We were greeted by a few people selling things again (fur hats, bamboo puppets, keychains). The guy that sold the bamboo puppet kept following us (even onto the gazebo) until finally my hubby 'surrendered' and bought two puppets. The price for both was around 30k, which I think was too expensive. My hubby later told me that the guy only followed us not Wiji eventhough Wiji also had his children along. So I think it means we looked different from Indonesian tourists. After some snaps near the signboard and on the gondola, we got back into the car and proceeded to D'Ranch.

Going up the hill

The crater of the dormant volcano.

Ocen told us that the ticket to go down this crater is too pricey. Better go to Kawah Putih (in the South of Bandung), it costs lower. But we didn't manage to go to Kawah Putih anyway.

Rooftops of the souvenir shops. Ocen also told us that these shops are expensive

Congratulations, your car has reached 1830M above the sea level.

Going down to Lembang

After riding horsecart, rowing boat, playing 'gold miner', I noticed that the game my children enjoyed the most was fishing the toy fishes! The fact that we already have the toy fish set at home made me think that that must be the most 'unneeded' game but I was wrong.. As they took too long to fish, I escaped to buy some clothes, 2 pairs of t-shirt+trousers and one hooded shirt, all for Alfatih, for 140k. Actually I mistakenly read the price label as 4k, 4k and 6k so I thought these were seriously cheap. You see, if you're in a hurry, you may read 40000 as 4thousands. But I don't regret buying those anyway as later I realized that Factory Outlets are actually way more expensive.

Cinderellaz

Our horse overtook this 'slow' horse

But Wiji's horsecart could not overtake ours coz our horse started to run faster!

Asma' and Aisyah 'betrayed' me when they stopped hand-cycling so I had to do all the hand-cycling myself! No wonder my arms became so muscular now!

Something special about that day was, it was 16 July which means Istiwa' A'zham, one of the two days in every year where the sun location is precisely on the Ka'abah at 1227 Makkah time. So anywhere in the world where the sun's shadow can be seen at the time, the shadow can be used to check the direction of qiblah. In Bandung it is at 1647 but it was cloudy that there were no shadows.

Oh yes, Wiji's wife also taught us how to make the most out of our XL simcards. Just dial *123#, and choose from the menu that appears. But we still need her help though in the first time, because there were Indonesian words that we didn't know.

Day 2

We managed to catch 'the sunrise'. Then we tried the 2nd method of breakfast as we didn't want to pay that extra 50k anymore. The hotel staff told us that there were no restaurants open before 9am. I think they meant the big restaurants. We walked along the street, and entered a small restaurant. Besides our order, we were served with unsweetened tea for everyone. I learned that this were the style meals are served here.

I think this is not the real 'fajr', because the sun has gone pass the horizon, we could only see it after it passes the mountain!

Houses at the back of Cihampelas road. Ocen said "yang cantik-cantik letak di depan, yang tak cantik di belakang..". These houses are not ugly anyway, only Ocen was comparing them with those big bungalows we saw while on the way from the airport

We took a taxi for Pasarbaru and arrived at 8+. Usually business here is 9am-9pm. But many shops in Pasarbaru were already open. The beginning of our shopping was not so pleasant though, as Asma' was crying all the way, maybe for about an hour. We managed to buy some Minnie mouse shirts and jeans for the girls, batik shirts, raya dresses for us, and a telekung (mukena/rukuh bordir) a friend asked us to buy. As we didn't look like locals (I think) and got children with us, we were often approached by people selling drinks on wheeled minicarts, and the price for each drink was 10k! And I easily gave in to my children's request to buy drinks, and there were 3 requests, so we spent 70k for drinks alone! Exiting Pasarbaru 3 hours later, the crowd was so immense! From here, waiting for taxi was longer, not like in Cihampelas.

At the hotel lobby my hubby requested for power adapter and he got one. Then it was resting time for everyone but me. I was unhappy because I still could not recharge my gadgets or connect them to Internet (My hubby was recharging the camera so I have to wait). There were no printed materials for me to read except the hotel's brochure which map was not helpful. All the TV's 65 channels were uninteresting for me. Only after my hubby left for ITB for the opening of his conference I could use the power source for my netbook, and successfully connected to Internet by putting the simcard in my 3G modem after registering for 7 days Internet using handphone.

At about 5pm hubby came back from ITB and we took a taxi to Dago Tea House, as recommended by an Indonesian student. We requested for a place where we could see the city landscape. It was near the stage - apparently Dago Tea House hosts art and cultural activities (but there was no activity at the stage at that time) But it was getting dark and the stage blocked us from getting the whole view. We enjoyed the food anyway, and it costed us 160k. Mine was Nasi Timbel Komplit, and hubby ate rice with some dishes - Kangkong (forgot what kind of cooking it was), Cumi bakar (oh we didn't know that cumi=sotong!), mutton satay, for the drink we had Bandrek (Bandung's popular drink - coconut drink with ginger) and another specialty (forgot the name) but it was santan with gula kabung, and the children had marqueissa juice.

Dago Tea House. On that day, other people had their meal in the pondok in the garden downstairs, so only us were here  upstairs

It was getting dusk so the city scenery was not clearly recorded in this picture. The stage also blocked our view

Let them play at the spectators' area before Maghrib

There must be some other place to view the city? We found it the next day

We asked the taxi driver to drop us at Cihampelas Walk (Ciwalk) and we'd walk to the hotel. We tried to find Gunung Agung bookstore at Ciwalk (as recommended by an Indonesian friend) only to be informed that it was closed, so we walked back to hotel.

Day 3

That day we tried the 3rd method of breakfast. First hubby and I took turn to have breakfast at the hotel restaurant while the children were still sleeping. Then hubby bought a pack of bread and drinks for the children from a convenience store just beside the hotel.

We booked Ocen for the day for 400k. Our plan was a nature park first, then bookstores, then factory outlets.

We asked Ocen to take us to Maribaya as recommended by a friend. Ocen told us that it was not so much a tourist spot. He took us there anyway. We went through Lembang again, the town that we have to got through to reach Tangkuban Prahu. In the town I noticed a person walking wearing ape-like mask. My question about what the person was doing was answered later in the day. The trip was worthwhile, because the scene was beautiful and the children enjoyed the nature very much, unlike the previous day when Asma' kept crying and Aisyah kept fighting with her sister. We hiked along the hilly route to reach the waterfall of Hutan Raya. It was an awesome scenery, except that there were rubbishes in the water. After enjoying the view, we treated our tastebuds with 5 pieces of jagung bakar and ketan bakar, together with some drinks, they costed us 81k. On that Monday morning, there were only 2 other families, a couple and a lady enjoying the waterfall. I explained to Ocen that we came to Bandung not only for shopping but to enjoy beautiful landmarks and getting things that we could not get in Malaysia as I noticed that Ocen was like feeling we were a bit different from other tourists who used tourdrivers' service. Later in the day, Ocen would see how weird we are :-)

Up-up the hill

At times like this, I wished I had the skills and tools of a pro photographer. Our camera could not record the beauty as good as our eyes did

The sky view of Bandung from Ciumbeleut

The yellow flowers at the right..

Aisyah is a very brave girl

This is not the main attraction of Maribaya waterfall

Let's follow this route to get to the main attraction of Maribaya

They were too happy

Here's the main attraction, pic taken from another bridge

Taken from the bridge above the waterfall - the side where the water has fallen onto

The other side of the bridge, where the water falls

The other bridge, taken from the bridge above the waterfall

Only one food stall was open. It was Monday morning. The lady selling the food waited for us at the picnic area with a mat as soon as we reached that area.

Ketan bakar = pulut

Jagung bakar was really juicy

Leaving Maribaya, we had lunch at one of a unique kind of restaurants by the roadside of Ciumbeleut. These restaurants offered better view of Bandung compared to Dago Tea House! We ordered a lunch which costed us 80k. I tried to snap panoramic picture of the city from there but found out later that I did it wrongly so none of my panoramic snaps were saved. At the time we were about to finish our lunch, a group of Indonesian tourists came. Then I heard a sound of percussion to see two children wearing ape masks, one was doing the percussion, another was 'dancing'. Ocen explained us that they were school dropouts, and by making this kind of performance, they could easily earn 5k from anybody. Yeah but 5k is not that much right?

View from the restaurant

The rice in the basket was red-purplish

One plays percussion so that people will look back

.. and got a surprise when looking at her masked friend just behind them

After praying at a masjid jami' across the road, we continued to Palasari. The first bookshop, the one nearest to the parking lot, happened to be the one that offered the best price. Then we scouted other bookshops and finally reached Palasari's BBC (Bandung Book Centre). As hubby had some more books to find, so we asked Ocen to take us to the next bookstore. Hubby decided to find it at Tobucil (Toko Buku Kecil). We didn't know anything about Tobucil, except that one of my fb friends mentioned it as a nice bookstore. Hubby managed to get its address and phone number using 3G from his handphone. After half an hour of roaming the city, we managed to reach Tobucil.. and we laughed to see how different it was from hubby's expectation. Not buying anything from Tobucil but using its toilet, then we proceeded to the last bookstore - the biggest in Indonesia - Gramedia. But Gramedia Bandung might be small if compared to its Jakarta main store. Here again hubby found nothing to buy. I spotted Gunung Agong signboard on a shopping mall opposite Gramedia, but hubby said that probably the books will not be there as they were not even sold in the bigger Gramedia. So that was the end of our book shopping in Bandung.

BBC the biggest bookstore @ Palasari. Palasari hosts many small bookstores selling discounted books. BBC has many stores throughout Bandung.

Tobucil is in one of the bungalow lots at Jl Aceh

It's selling art n craft materials for hobbyist - ornaments hung at the entrance are origami roses

Toko Buku Kecil

As book shopping has ended, so we entered the era of factory outlet shopping. As recommended by hubby's student again, we went to Toko Tiga. We didn't buy anything as it sold only jeans and casual outfit for 100k-200k. So we asked Ocen to take us to other FO where children's cloth were sold so he took us to Rumah Mode. Again at Rumah Mode, we found out that it also sold only branded clothes (which tags been cut to half or had a hole punched in, like in reject shops), and also almost everything was above 100k. We anyway bought a pair of Minnie Mouse jeans each for the girls as Aisyah looked like wanting it so much. Entering our MPV, I told Ocen that we were not the kind of people who look so much to buy branded clothes, hence the 'no real shopping' at FOs.

Tired, we asked Ocen to take us for dinner, and he took us to Restoran Sangkurieng where Sunda food is served. Here Ocen told us that he didn't want to join our dinner because he already got commission from the restaurant for taking tourists in. We asked the waiter to suggest the dish. The food we had tasted similar to Malaysian food anyway. It so happened that my lab mates were eating just beside our 'pondok'. As in Rumah Mode, the main visitors there were Malaysian people, easily recognized by the way the ladies dressed.

The Conqueror

To conclude about the day, I could say that we were happy to get some of the books we wanted, and amused with our own ignorance about what Tobucil and factory outlets actually were that we learned about it from our experience.

Day 4

I got a runny nose and Asma' got some kind of blister around her lips. I ate a paracetamol thinking to avoid from getting fever.

Morning to afternoon was hubby's presentation session at ITB. I suggested to him that I'd take the children to the zoo which was just opposite ITB during his presentation time so that after his session ended, we could ask a taxi driver to take all of us for some sight-seeing. Thinking of the cost that will be spent at the zoo, I changed my mind to taking the children to stroll Cihampelas street in the morning. Having gone to two FO, I changed my mind that Cihampelas street was actually not bad at all to shop at.

Allowing the children to have as much rest as needed, the children 'took turn' to sleep in the morning and afternoon that I had to cancel my morning plan. I took the children's flu syrup, twice their dose, hoping that it would help me to get better. When hubby returned at around 3, he bought us KFC. As the sisters were sleeping at the time, we shared the chicken with Alfatih only.

We went to Cihampelas Point (Cipo) food court for dinner. This was the only place that did not serve free tea for everyone. We had Nasi Pecel, Somay, Batagor, Soto Sulung, and for drink, Wedang jahe susu, black coffee and chocolate drink for the sisters.

That night, the runny nose stopped but I caught fever to replace it.

Day 5

I woke up in the midnight rushing to the toilet. I got diarrhea. Still feverish, I slept back after Subuh and lying down a lot of time in the morning. Hubby also got diarrhea, but alhamdulillah not the children. We decided that we would't go anywhere in the morning until we checked out of the hotel.

T-shirt (Kaos Bandung) bought at street stall at Cihampelas

Aku lebih suka nenen ibu

12 noon, while leaning against the sofa with half-closed eyes at the hotel lobby waiting for the hotel driver to transfer us to the airport, I decided to take paracetamol again, hopefully I'd got some energy to move home. Alhamdulillah at the airport, my fever subsided and I did not need the toilet rushing anymore, at least until home. But hubby's diarrhea got worse. He rushed to the toilet when people had already lined up to board the flight, and toilet was the first place he went into as soon as we finished the immigration procedure.

After taking back our luggage and changed back our remaining Rupiah to RM in RHB currency exchange, we bought KLIA economy taxi coupon for home and headed straight to the taxi waiting line. It was already dark outside but forgetting to watch for the clocks in KLIA, we thought it was around 1915.

In the taxi, I changed back my handphone clock to GMT+8, only to realize that it was already 1955! Fearing the possibility that we may loose our maghrib time upon reaching home, I told my hubby who also sort of just realized about it. So he asked the taxi driver to drop us for maghrib prayer at any masjid, just to hear the driver answered back that his job is only to send his passenger home. Okay then, as you wish, robot. Both of us were sick, so we just kept quiet hoping that the taxi is fast enough. I wonder if we're a pack of Arab tourists coming to enjoy the 'moderate Islam' in Malaysia, will he entertain our request or turn us down to show off his 'professionalism'. Alhamdulillah we reached home at 1923, allowing us about 15mins before Isya'.

So that's the end of my day-to-day account of our Bandung trip. After this story is uploaded, I'll furnish it with some pictures, and later I'll write about the other subtopics I have listed in the beginning of this story in Malay in another post.