Bandung Chapter 1 (From FO's to Kawah Putih)

Hey Peeps! It's Bandung aka Paris Van Java :)

We bought this ticket during AirAsia free seat promo, we got return tix to Jakarta for RM192 , so we grab it. Although we landed in Jakarta, our main destination is Bandung. So this entry will be mostly about Bandung :). This trip hold great memory as it was the last trip we had with one of our friend Dina Shaari. As she passed away about a month after this trip due to heart attack, it was a very sad moment for all of us, our good friend for more than 10years. This post is dedicated to her as we will always love her and her cheerful and funny personality :)

This is me and my bff Dina Shaari :(

Our flight was at 7.00AM morning of February 2015 from KLIA 2 to CGK in Jakarta, Sukarno Hatta Airport. We arrived there around 8.00AM Indonesian time. Before our trip, i already find the Supir that can take us around. This is his e-mail address, i'd really recommend him for smooth journey :

haritrans09@ymail.com

So, he picked us up at Jakarta and drove us to our hotel in Cihampelas, Bandung. It was about 2.5 - 3 hours drive..but the traffic at that time is not congested. TIPS: Better to just book flight Bandung directly to avoid traffic.

We had our lunch first at a Nasi Padang restaurant, called Simpang Raya (mintak simpang la kak ooi) cos we were fuckin hungry! ahaha. 

Us in front of Simpang Raya

The concept is they will put everything in small plates on the table, so whatever you eat they will count, whatever you dont eat they will take back. TIPS: So be careful, don't take 'a taste' of everything if you don't want an expensive bill. 

see the small plates?

So we arrived at our hotel, Amaris Cihampelas in Bandung. it was not that expensive and quite strategic. total stay of 3 nights is around RM940 for 3 rooms. So, we checked in first, get some rest...we already told our Pak Supir we will come down in an hour. TIPS: Stay around Cihampelas if you want walking distance to restaurants and nighltlife!

in front of our hotel, Amaris Cihampelas

We freshened up and head to our first destination, FO Jalan Riau!. FO is short for Factory Outlet. Theres a lot of FO here in Bandung because some famous brands are manufactured here. It is also knows as Paris Van Java, as it is a city of fashion in Indonesia. Pak Supir (his name is pak Heri btw hehe). SOO, Pak Heri took us to FO Jalan Riau. In this street, there's alot of FO outlet like Heritage, Passion etc. All have their own fashion brands like Guess, Levis etc, cheaper than what u can see in KL. 

I love the Dutch concept of Heritage FO

Passionate me, tak pasal

TIPS: But u need to check the clothes, its cheap because some of it are rejects from the manufacturer. 

Pak Heri took us from one outlet to another. I like Heritage outlet, bcos of the architecture..a combination of dutch and java. They usually provide you with drinking water too..hehe..lots of Malaysian come here to shop.

We didn't buy a lot though, just few t-shirts and pants. Dina bought one shorts, she rarely shop whenever we travel, most of the time because she is not sure on the currency exchange, so she prefer to not shop, hihihihi.

inside heritage FO

We then move on to our next destination FO Jalan Dago. Same with Jalan Riau, this area also have few FO's like Jetset and Glow. 

We walked from FO to FO and decided to take a rest at a coffee shop called Caians, very hipster, right outside Glow Outlet (if im not mistaken, they were too many! hahaha). I saw this group of students in uniform talking in english and indonesian, looks like a private school maybe. Then i realize they are indonesian chinese. I like it how they can speak fluent indonesian.

Caians Coffee

We spent our whole afternoon there. Later, we went for dinner at a Sunda restaurant. Bandung is known for Sunda people, so you can see lots of Sunda restaurants here. The food is quite the same, mostly nasi goreng. We ate mostly at good restaurants so the price is average, not cheap. Because if you eat at stalls, afraid you will get stomach ache. Beside Pak Heri bring us here as he said 'makannya enak' ..katanyaa..

Sunda Restaurant

The traditional dolls of bandung, the culture shown inside the restaurant

After dinner, we went to Rumah Mode. this place is one of the most famous FO among Malaysians. I think maybe because of the decorations. Its like a clothing mall of its own using traditional javanese/sundanese architecture and tradition. The ambiance is very calming. 

Rumah Mode

TIPS: The quality of the garments here is quite better than FO's in Jalan Riau. The price is affordable. U need to find clothes with good price. If not, u will see most of the clothes are sold at the same price in KL. 

So, i bought a few, pants esp cos that was extremely cheap. Mama and Sha however bought a lot hihihi, we spent around 1 hour plus here. Mama was looking for some pants and Sha some shirts..Sha keep asking me and mama to convert the Rupiah to Ringgit. I was actually looking for the flowy pants and after searching several racks (cos its quite big this Rumah Mode) i finally found it. Yasss! ..

After satisfied with what we have, we made payment at the counter and Pak Heri already waiting for us outside. There were lots of ppl here. But i really love the decoration, with water fountain , flowers and all, very nice!. Some Malaysians look at us and whisper to each other as Malaysians do ..lol watever, who cares what u think we are here to shop. But indonesians mostly don't really care, they serve you like any other customers. U can ask em to find sizes and if you are trying to find a different pattern they will direct you to the right area. So pak heri drove us right back to our hotel in Cihampelas.

We arrived and got to our hotel room. Oh yea we paid Pak Heri daily. TIPS: Don't pay all at once. better that way, to avoid any scams. 

Pak Heri have his own FB page actually..i'll try to find the link and paste it at the end of this post. So we didnt spent the night inside the room, obviously being us. We went and take a walk along the Cihampelas road. It was packed with ppl selling things from jeans, bags, souvenirs, even traditional indonesian archery bow and arrows. Its very cheap the bow n arrows if u want, but i cant bring it back to Malaysia, very hard to put in a bag. They have superheroes statues along the road, hahaha..like spiderman superman etc,,lol..weird. 

Spiderman and Jeans store

We ended up buy bags, all the same handbags dfrnt color for around RM15.00. Then we head back to our hotel as we were very tired. Tomorrow Pak Heri gonna pick us up early in the morning, for our trip to Kawah Putih :).

Good morning Bandung!. 
5th February 2016 around 7am Pak Heri already awaited us outside the hotel. We had some breakfast first as it is included in the room price. Before goin, we went to toilet first for no. 2, hihihi. 

Kawah Putih took about 2.5 hours of journey. We had choices whether to go to Tangkuban Perahu or Kawah Putih, we chose Kawah Putih because it is not cliche..hahaha. We stopped at a ticket counter first, it was before Kawah Putih. I dont know why but the tickets counter is ½ an hour before the actual place, a tourism centre. 

In front of the ticket counter, sempat lagi

this is the info if u wanna contact em

After 2.5 hours drive to South Bandung, we arrived at Kawah Putih. A volcanic lake 2430 meters above sea level. TIPS: The mountain name is Mount Patuha. It is quite chill up in here. So wear something a lil thick or bring a jacket.

Luckily i wear a sweater. But for Jenny and some others, they wear shorts, so..hahahaha..i already told em :P .

As soon as we arrived there were lots of guys already waiting there holding umbrellas for rent. I was like 'why do u need umbrella, u know' ...then as we walk, we realize that it always rain here!..like every 20min or so it will rain, sometimes drizzle all the time. TIPS: So yea, better take the umbrella, u can share. I shared with Azam. 

Kawah Putih is astonishingly beautiful, the acidic water, the crater is white-turquoise in color which makes it unique. Not just that, the tree surrounding it makes it look a lil horror from some point., also very good for amazing photography. I saw ad for marriage photography here as well. 

The entrance to the water crater

The stairs to Sulfur attack, :P

Kawah Putih!

BUT the one thing that u cannot stand is the smell. Hoomiagodd, it stinks! the smell of sulfur is strong, esp when wind blows..like Bella, she cant stand it bcos she have asthma..so, the moment the wind blow she turned back cos she cannot breathe well. The only people who made it to the lake more than 5 minutes is me, mama, sha, dina and azam. Then Mama, Sha & Dina couldnt stand and they went back up. TIPS: you must wear mask from the beginning if u cannot stand sulfuric acid smell. 

the first 1 minutes :D

the first 5 minutes, take note on the mask!

Sulfur Survivor, lol :P

The area is not that big, u can make one round around 10-15 minutes. I like one area where the trees looks creepy but nice, hehe. 

creepy me..i mean tree :D

Me and Azam took photos but the rain limits our movement..we did manage to take a video (u can follow me on instagram to view it @teraibrahim )...hehehe (gigih!)..i guess maybe cos both of us are so obsessed with photography..kikikiki narcisistic much? lol!

Sulfuric Azam

So, we walked back to the top using the stairway. we didnt spend long here cos it was raining. While waiting for us, they manage to buy some drink up there..hahaha.

Pak Heri then took us to a highland tea place. We hangout there and drink some tea and coffee. There were people selling strawberries. Jenny bought it. TIPS: The strawberries are smaller than strawberries at Cameron Highland i'd say. There are also souvenir shop in front of the tea place if you wanna buy, but quite expensive.

Tea time!, it was included in the tix actually

Our next destination is Kopo. This area is also known for fabrics. Pak Heri took us to Rumah Kain Kopo where it is a house actually but renovated into wholesale for fabrics. TIPS: U can find fabrics for baju kurung, jubah, kebaya, lace anything u name it. I'd recommend u guys to come here as it is very cheap and not that packed. Variety of choices. 

Jenny bought a lot for her family. I bought some for my sis and mum. Each room they have stored different kind of fabric type. Plain, cotton, floral, lace etc. They also have ready baju kurung, kaftan etc . The fashion is very updated here. They know the current trend in Malaysia.

fabric model :P

sampai terduduk!

pilih la yang mana suka, various choices of plain fabrics

Beside it, there is this few houses as well that turned into stores like FO's. Damn this place is much more cheap than FO's in Jalan Riau and Dago! , except maybe the choices weren't that much. But I bought 2 pants, few tshirts here..TIPS: This is a must place to come in bandung, remember Kopo. We actually bought lots of tops, pants, jeans here in 'FO house'. And Dina finally bought lots of stuff, hahahaha Love Kopo! Hihihi :P

Bella actually bought everything (not!) :P

Next, Pak Heri took us to lunch at Gubuk Makan Mang Engking. This place is a floating restaurant. The food was good, the ambiance was good, everything was good! 

floating restaurant

What funny was Dina almost eat chicken head...hahahah..yes! They serve chicken with head to you! Damn it was creepy. The restaurant have some life size dolls as well, indonesian cultural type u know. They love to preserve their culture unlike us here trying to be Arab..oops sorry :P . 

Indonesian lifesize doll

pre - chicken head incident, hihihi

The waiter kinda shy when we 'kacau' him...hehehe what? A lil flirt is fine :P... The waitress were so happy joking around with us, especially with Sha. :P

Then we head to Cibaduyut. This is the place known for shoes and leather. There are shoes shops literally everywhere. Seriously. TIPS: The prices well some are cheap some are not but u also need to check the quality. 

Kak Don bought few shoes, I buy only 2. One from Diana's Shoes and another one from a shop which I cant remember the name. 

Toko Sepatu Diana

inside Diana

Diana is the biggest sort of, 2 storeys, pretty much like Bata. The other one is better if u ask me, cos its more 'in trend'. I bought boots here. Kak Don bought some sport shoes. I cannot remember the exact price of the boots but it was around 20-40 ringgit. The owner of the shop, a guy asked me 'Dari Malaysia ya?' and I said yes...then he asked again 'Orang India ya?' ..i said yes...means am I indian. i don't have time to explain about my mixed dna blood in me and how my grandad came to penang from Kerala. Meh... 

lotss of boots! were made for walking, tetiber

Then we stopped and bought some small bags (like a pouch) as souvenirs, i bought only 2, but Jenny and Kak Don bought a lot. To give as souvenirs to our friends. It was very cheap and unique, lots of design. It is not a shop, just some guy selling in the corner of the road. I forgot to take a pic. Very nice guy, easy to do business with.

We then went to a bag and wallet shops.. the leather purse and wallet here is quite cheap. I asked first how they made it and he said 'yang sudah dijadikan makanan'. Means they dont 'harvest' the skin just for bags. Cos they eat cows, so the skin were sent to their factory to be made leather things. I dont really support leather things. But I admit that leather purse last longer. So I bought one cos its cheap, no brand..But up until now (march 2016) im still using it..one is enough. I dont get People who bought lots of leather bags, really one is enough for long term if u need. I most probably wont buy any anymore as I am considering going full force vegetarian soon.

So, enough with the sad stories. After that, Pak Heri took us back to hotel. We had some rest and of course looking at the thing we bought, hahahaha...damn Bandung is really known for shopping. That night, we went out to Cihampelas Walk or more famous as Ciwalk. 

CiWalk

Its like an open-air high-end shopping mall in Bandung. Lots of boutique, lots of restaurant. I kinda love this place. U can see the high-end bandung citizen hangout here. We went and have a coffee and dinner at a japanese restaurant here since we've been eaten sunda food from day one. We walk around and fall in love with one of the outlets there called Jonas. Nice decoration. 

Jonas

Then, mama walked around in some shops and we head back to hotel. before that, Bella and Kak Don stopped at a jeans shop beside the road, as it was very cheap! . TIPS: They have variety of Jeans in Cihampelas and you can even book your size here!

It was near to the time they close, so the salesgirl was like 'rolling eyes' when Bella asked for available sizes..hahaha, but hey, that was our last night in Bandung, so yeah!. After that we head to hotel and rest. Tomorrow we are going back to Jakarta, but first, Pasar Baru. See ya in Day 3 & 4 Bandung Bermartabat!