Dear Diary,
My final travel destination of the year before Covid-19 hit.
I've always wanted to travel with Ayah after Mama passed on. It has been long since we last travel together as a family too. And I was so glad that our last trip before the whole border started to close all around the world was traveling together to Bandung, Indonesia. My brother then join us a day after. It was a great trip I would say.
Day 1 - 20th November 2019
I wanted to stick to my favourite Airline Scoot but sadly, the timing for Scoot weren't in our favour. Thus, we decided to go with AirAsia which is as good as well.
Reached the Airport 2 hours earlier and we had breakfast first. After breakfast, we were ready to check in.
We paid more to be able to choose our seat and as usual, I loveee window seat and since it was a short flight, so window seat it is. Hehe!
Bandung, Indonesia
It was just an hour plus over flight from Singapore to Bandung. My brother's friend gave us a contact for private driver to drive us around for our 2 days stay in Bandung which I already liaise with when I was in Singapore and according to my brother it's approximately $50-$60/day. Well, reasonable.
The moment we touched down, we bought prepaid SIM card so that we will be able to contact our driver. The driver was polite, slightly shy and he fetched us and brought us to our hotel. But sadly, we reach too early around 12pm to the hotel and we couldn't check-in yet. Check-in was at 2pm. So, we left our bags with the hotel staff, where they put it into safe keeping and we decided to head down for lunch.
And as you know, I always do enough research before traveling. So I already had a few places in mind to where I wanted to go. Kept into consideration as well to where the rest wanted to go too. I throw in a few places for lunch and then of all decide together googling after all the places I've listed. We called our driver and asked him to drive us to,
Lunch: Kampung Daun
I love how this place is. It's so botanical, just full of nature, unlike your usual kind of cafes and restaurants. The sights of plants 🌿☘ are just relaxing. We were then brought to our seating area. It wasn't near. Haha! Just look at the block plan, it's actually stretches of road till the end. It was a distant to walk. And you see those small hut shelter, there is where we dine in. Not your usual tables and chairs too. 😍
Basically you can find a little bit of western food and more and more of Indonesian food. Some which I'm familiar with and some which I'm not. Their version of Bahasa can be quite different from Malay. Like Ayam Bakar, Nasi Goreng, we all understood. But Pete Ikan Masin? Colenak? We had to google for pictures. 🙊 Hehe!
The food and drinks, it was just AMAZINGLY delicious. Now blogging about this makes me crave for an Indonesian food right now. Haha! I mean it's authentic Indonesian food! The Ayam Bakar is just so wow. The chili here in Singapore is spicy, 🌶 but there, it's another level of spicy. Everything are just so soothing to the taste bud and plus the atmosphere. Nothing beats it all. I'll definitely recommend to visit Kampung Daun in Bandung if you like a chilling atmosphere. Well, IF and once all of us could travel again. Right now, we could just only enjoy via pictures and just memories. Hehe!
So lunch took us about 2 hours. It was raining cats & dogs after that, so we couldn't just go back to our hotel immediately. Plus all of us were on food coma. Enjoyed the cool rain inside the hut till it was only drizzling and then we headed back to our hotel.
We stayed at Noor Hotel booked via Expedia. No bath tub also. Hurhur! And sadly, I realized I didn't take any pictures on our 1st day, I guess the only thing I took was videos for my Insta story which can't be uploaded here on blogger. But anyway, I like the hotel. It's a Muslim-friendly hotel. There was Quran, Sejadah (prayer's mat) and even telekung for prayers. The food was definitely Halal too, no doubt.
Local Mall
We rested till I guess it was about 1600 hours, before we decided to head out. We went to their local street mall which I did not take a picture or took my phone out because I was afraid of snatch theft. There was even this particular guy who just KEPT following us around and then Ayah kinda raise his voice at him to go away. Luckily he did after that.
Had to tell Ayah that we're not in Singapore and I don't want anything to happen while we are at overseas. Seriously, sometimes I'm scared they have hidden gang or what. Lol! So I'll always prefer to walk away. But if in Singapore, it's different. If you cari pasal with me then this will be me,
Anyway, the malls have many beautiful Batik prints. Just too many to choose and buy from. D and I bought couple Batik shirt as well.
Here is one. Nice not?
And then after their local malls, we headed off to their a bit "high-end" mall.
Paris Van Java Mall.
The traffic in Bandung are really busy, so expect traffic jam and slow traffic. It's easier with bike than with cars. You can just imagine how "fast" it is. But anyway, happy that we still reached our destination.
PVJ mall is like any other kind of mall but unlike a normal shopping mall in a closed building, it's like an open mall and isolated? How do I say it? Haha! It was crowded with people too, teenagers mostly. So I guess that's how they meet-up and lepak. Hehehe! An another interesting thing, most of the food..just like in KL are halal. Yasss! Time to gobble gobble gobble.
Anyway, we didn't get to dine in at the mall because EVERYWHERE was just all too full and crowded. By then it was almost getting late too from all the walking around we did, the malls was hugeee too. So we decided to just buy food back to eat in our hotel. And here comes the greedy girl.
Wanted to buy more BUT...like I said it was too crowded everywhere and the mall was big. So it was hard to keep going back and forth to buy food. Queueing takes time too. So we managed to buy what we can and headed back. And again, everything was niceeee. I really miss Bandung food.
Decided to call it a night.
Day 2 - 21st November 2019
We had breakfast at the hotel. D and I were the first one to go down, while Ayah came down only later. No idea why I didn't take pictures of our food. Haha! Again, it must have only make it to my Insta stories. After breakfast we chillax in the room first before heading out to our first destination. Mostly, all the popular touristy places known in Bandung.
Tangkuban Perahu.
A stratovolcano area which was still active. We were just trying our luck to see if it's open as it erupted recently, 2 months ago before our visit. Lucky enough, it was open for tourists already and we get to see the volcano. It was definitely an experience. I mean, where do you find volcano 🌋 in Singapore? 😅
So the moment we arrived, of course we started sight seeing and then taking photos. The locals there immediately approached us and offered to help us take photos. BEWARE. They are actually touting, which we have NO fringing idea. And best thing, we allowed them to. Only to realize they were being pushy and started following us EVERYWHERE. Like they made us pose for pictures here and there and wouldn't want to return back our phones and camera back. So we just had to follow and do what they asked us to 🙄 (for poses) until we told them we wanted to head off.
I was thinking of giving them 200,000 IDR which is almost $SGD20. But no, they con us to buy their keychain, bracelet or necklace that cost from $40-$50 SGD lah siaaaa. Hahaha! And no, they don't want money. So no choice, we HAD to buy because they were so pushy and just wouldn't let us go. Ayah ended up buying a keychain + necklace which cost about $60 and D and I bought 2 bracelets for $40.
But I wouldn't deny that their camera skills are so so good. They are so talented and they make us pose for really really nice pictures. I mean besides disappointing over the touting, I guess if it weren't for them, we would not have nice photos. But it was so embarrassing also, we are the only maybe 1-2 person who got con by them while the rest of the tourists will just keep denying them.
Sadly, we don't know why our driver don't stop the locals from conning/touting us. Because a friend of mine told me their drivers will usually stop these locals from disturbing us. Reason being like, he is their tour guide kind and not to bother "their" clients.
Our con bracelet. Lol! Which I have no idea where it is now.
We wanted to stay longer because of the ambience which is nice and cooling but the touting part really spoil our mood, especially having to just throw $40 above for something we didn't want. So we headed off to our next location.
Kawah Putih.
Also known as the white crater, a volcanic crater. It has an highly acidic lake and the strong odour smell is due to the sulfur. The moment you enter, you'll be given a surgical mask to mask 😷 you from the smell, which helps a little. I think N95 would have been better. Lol! But the place is so beautiful, so white and turquoise! Which my camera didn't do much justice to it.
This is my panorama gone wrong. I tried to learn ok. People go right to left. I went up to bottom. Apakah? 🤷 Hahahaha!
This from my dad's camera.
Anyway, I finally learn to do this panorama skill by the locals who touted us. 😅 I knew this function was available in my phone but we didn't really use it until we saw how beautiful this effect was. Haha! Ok pass already. Lol!Nobody was touting here, lucky us. We wanted to stay longer but the smell were so unbearable. I feel like it's gonna kill my lungs. 😷 So after a few pictures we quickly left. Our stomach was also rumbling and it's time to head off for lunch. We have no idea where to go because the list of lunch places that I want to go was all out of the way. So we asked our driver to recommend us where to eat. He was a bit hesitant to recommend us because he was afraid we only wanted to eat at high-end places. Noooo, we don't. Lol!
So our driver brought us at a local dining area. It was cheappppp yet good. Their authentic Sundanese food. It was so worth it! I forgot to take an exterior picture of the shop sadly. 😞
We didn't have anywhere to head off actually since it was already almost late afternoon and everywhere is so out of places about 2 hours drive away. So the nearest popular place from Kawah Putih which was about 30 minutes drive away is,
Pinisi Resto Rancabali.
We thought it was a touristy place but it was actually a restaurant which is a boat-like structure. Since, we just had lunch, we just walked around the area and took pictures since it's overlooking the Patenggang lake. Definitely nice to have lunch here because the scenery is so beautiful as well.
We headed off to Ciwalk mall after that to buy dinner and also to buy some souvenirs. Again, I didn't take picture as well. So while walking at the mall, I texted my driver to ask how much was the whole trip for today. Remember when my brother said per day is about $50-$60? But the driver texted me and charged us about $95. To my HORROR! 😱😲 But no choice, I paid up and lucky it was the last night we were going to use him. I don't think taking Grab or Gojek will even cost this much. Even my friend said while she was at Bandung, she even go to many places than us. Her driver charged her nothing more than $50. Again, we were con. HAHA! But lesson learnt though.
Anyway, my brother reached Bandung from Jakarta the moment we reached our Hotel. He came a day later as he was having exams. He then ordered Grabfood, many food. Haha! He was like some kind of 'rich' kid there. Lol! Kept grab food-ing because Grab delivery was just few cents and they just have SOOOOO many varieties of food.
Ate dinner and then headed off for bed and thinking where to head to next the day after tomorrow. Sadly, no bath tub in that hotel, so it was just bed relaxing time. Haha!
Stay tuned for next post.
No comments:
Post a Comment