Bandung

It was with the intention of climbing Tengkuban Prahu, the lagendary mountain of Sang Kuriang, that I went to Bandung. There were 10 of us, the regular group that had been with me on numerous expeditions. This time the arrangement was loose. We bought our own ticket, travel at our convenient time, met at a venue in Bandung and set off to Tengkuban Prahu.But things did not look so simple in Bandung. We landed at different times, checked into different hotels, failed to communicate with one another because our handset did not work, and finally aborted our mountain climbing trip. Instead my friends went on a shopping and sightseeing trip of the city.

Afterall Tengkuban Prahu did not look as impressive from afar , unlike Gunung Agung or Rinjani. But Bandung was, indeed it was better than Jakarta and Medan in many ways.The city was clean and the roads were lined up with tall mahagony that form a huge canopy that shade the road.This give the city a cooler look, improved by the fact that Bandung , at higher altitude, was already a few degrees cooler. The architecture of some of the buildings were colonial and well maintained.The campus of ITB had the look and atmosphere of the old university campus,with beautiful rustic building and open green spaces.The railway station was a colonioal structure, having a well organised look, and didnt seem to have a milling crowd typical of such stations in Indonesian cities, although it was located right in the city centre.

The people in Bandung looked clean and having good complexion.They expressed a relaxed temperament and didnot appear to be moving about in a hurry making you feel confortable interacting with them.Most people I met said they were the Sundanese, which is different from the Javanese of the rest of Java. They had their language, culture and were stauchly Muslim ,considering themselves highly cultured and polished.They are basically agrarian, earning their living from the land planting padi and vegetables. Their food was healthy ,very much eaten raw and semi cooked and they had a lot of vegetables in their diet. I was told by Indri, my Indonesian friend who accompanied me, the Sundanese looked better and more healthy because the food they eat make them so.Keeping healthy had been very much in their lifestyle as indicated by numerous jamu peddlers and tradional massage services.They were basically honest as I didnt feel I had been overly charged and I didnt have to haggle for a price.

I went to the cultural village where I saw the cultural performance. The performers were dancers and musicians.They played in a gamelan orchestra, but angklong was the common instrument. Children were taught musical instrument and dance steps since they were very young.Parents accompanied their children to the dance and music classes, staying the length of the training indicationg that they were committing their whole effort to making their dance and musical heritage carried over into the next generation.Their musical tradition and dance steps were not Javanese but dintictively Sundanese.

Bandung had turned itself into a shopping paradise as indicated by shopping complex of all types selling licenced branded clothings and dresses, the busana muslim kind of fabrics.People from Jakarta came to Bandung during weekends to shop and unwind. But people on the street were not well dressed, I mean they did not appear to me very fashionable, even the young didnot look very chics.

We didnt climb Tengkuban Prahu this time. I didnt make this trip into a meaningful journey. My stay was too short.For a city this rich in history and culture I should have discovered more. Perhaps next time.