Two of the most common things on the roadside of Bandung are brownies and strawberries.
Brownies
Brownies are very famous in Bandung. In almost every corner, you’ll find brownies sold in shops or sold in van or stalls parked by the roadside. I guess the most well know brownie is the Amanda Brownie. Our driver Hari recommended that we buy the brownies from a shop rather than by the roadside as it tends to be fresher and moist.

We bought one from a shop by the name Kabita (nothing to do with Nobita) located at Jln Terusan Pasteur. It came in a big box wrapped with a plastic cover. We cut it half and kept it for ourselves. The other half we gave it to our driver.


The other recommended place to buy brownies would be Kartikasari, a very well known bakery in Bandung. Other than brownies, one should also try their other pastries. It has a few branches in Bandung. Just ask the staff for their recommendation.

Strawberries
Since Bandung is located 768 metres above the sea level, it is very suitable to grow strawberries. So suitable that you have them flooded on the streets. At certain junctions, you’ll find people knocking on your window asking to you buy strawberries.
Ice blended Strawberries are available in almost all restaurants in Bandung.



It’s also available by the roadside!
Note: Please avoid Florida Milk at all cost. Nothing to do with strawberry but it sucked. Tasted like Milk + Mandarin Oranges.

On another note, I found a place with sell freshly blended strawberries. It’s called Berry Passion, located @ Floor LG1 (near the Skating Rink area), Sunway Pyramid. I must say, it’s really good. At RM7.90 per cup, you’ll be craving for moar!

Food in Bandung was interesting. At a reasonable price, we could dine at high end restaurant. I would highly recommend The Valley and Kampung Daun for a great gastronomical adventure.
The Valley

The Valley Bistro Café is a restaurant located on top of a hill with a view overlooking Bandung. In the Valley, you may dine alfresco.

We came here at night for dinner. Although the food is reasonably priced, their food is just so-so. However, I would highly recommend this place for couples as this place has great ambiance – very romantic. In fact, it was branded as one of the most romantic places in Bandung.

We sat on the terrace with a candle lit in the middle. It was a little bit chilly. We didn’t bring out jackets along but we decided to brave the cold. We ordered their house speciality, the Zoupa Zoupa soup – a bowl of cream soup topped with a baked pastry crust. It was excellent. While waiting for the rest of our meal to come, we were accompanied by songs sang by a live band inside the restaurant.

Since I was still in an adventurous mode, I ordered a glass of Banana Coffee. It tasted pretty bad. Please avoid at all cost.
After finishing our meal, we took pictures of the place and the panoramic view of Bandung. Photographers may consider bringing their own spot light as this place is quite lightly dimmed.
This place has a special place in my heart as this was the place I first celebrate my birthday this year
The Valley, Bistro Cafe & Resort Hotel
Jl. Lembah Pakar Timur 28 Dago – Bandung
Tel: (022) 2531052(hotel), (022)251450(cafe)
Kampung Daun
Kampung Daun is another romantic and yet affordable restaurant in Bandung. It exploits the nature and its surroundings for its ambiance. It has a small waterfall and running stream flowing through the restaurant. Small wooden huts are placed along a path which leads to the top of a hill.

Someone recommended that we dine at this restaurant at night time. However, I wanted to dine there in the afternoon cause I would be able to see the place clearly. Hence, we came here for lunch. We chose one of the huts located next to a stream.




We had to knock on a wooden block named “Kentongan” for service.


This place serves mainly Sundanese food. My meal came with a side dish which looks like a brain. It was quite surprised that it tasted crispy and nice! I was expecting it to be soggy.

First they have sup buntot, now they have Mie Tek Tek.



My meal was accompanied with a glass of refreshing ice blended strawberry.
After my meal, I lazed around for the afternoon to end.

New found friend.
Kampung Daun is less than an hour’s drive from the city. The drive there has couple of interesting sights.


Kampung Daun Culture Gallery & Cafe
Sersan Bajuri Km. 4,7 No. 88, Cihideung
Bandung
Jawa Barat – Indonesia
PH 1: (022) 278-7915
PH 2: (022) 278-4572
Homepage: http://www.kampungdaun.net/

Other than the tshirts and life sized cartoon characters,

Left Adidas – Right Puma

I present you more copycats from Indonesia.

Ken-tuku Fried Chicken!

The original

The copycat

We left Tangkuban Perahu for Sindang Reret, a Sudanese restaurant for lunch. This restaurant was recommended in Wikitravel hence we decided to give it a try. The price is reasonable and the ambiance is good. The place is open air but the weather is cooling.




There I was introduced to strawberry shake – a refreshing ice blended fresh strawberry. After consuming the first glass, I stuck to strawberry shake throughout my whole trip. It was aweeesssomee!
Wikitravel has also recommended that we try the local fresh milk at Lembang. Our driver brought us to one café by the name Saung Bintang, which as a very unique structure. It consists of a combination of few huts which are connected to each other.





We ordered strawberry and chocolate milk. It tasted too sweet. Should have ordered the plain one.

You can also ride horses here. I wonder if the horses helped out with the milk when the cows went dry.

Wash your hands here.
We also discovered that our shoulders got burnt by the sun. We couldn’t feel that our shoulders were burning by the hot sun as hike down to Kawah Domas was very cooling.
Upon returning from Lembang, we treated ourselves with a full body massage at Vintage Chic Spa. Our full body massage was just RM60 per person!




Outside Vintage Chic Spa – they have trees with a white stripe too! I was told that these are to mark that these trees cannot be chopped down. [See The 3 great mysteries in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam]
The massage was quite good except that they made me take off everything and wear a transparent white disposable underwear -_-
Other people got black colour!!

A trip to Bandung is not complete without a trip to Mt. Tangkuban Perahu. On top of Mt. Tangkuban Perahu lies a huge crater that looks like a clogged basin.
We had an interesting drive to the mountain. We drove passed villages, towns and many stalls. These stalls usually sell identical goods. For example, if the first shop sells bananas, then the entire row of shops will be selling bananas too.

Hammocks also got.

We passed by a stretch of stalls selling live rabbits. Some of these little fellows were not caged and let to roam freely.
Few metres later, we passed a stretch of food stalls with the signs “Satay Kelinchi”, which means rabbit satay. Oh noes!
Mt. Tangkuban Perahu is just a short drive from Bandung city. There’s an entrance fee. I can’t remember how much.
The road up to Mt. Tangkuban Perahu was not in top condition and we had to endure a bumpy ride up the mountain.
Our first destination was Kawah Ratu (Queen’s Crater), the crater that looks like a clogged basin.



Immediately after getting out from our car, we were swamped with local traders offering us their goods and services. A few were quite persistent despite being rejected by us and even followed us to every where we went. One was trying very hard to engage us in a conversation but after ignoring him for ten minutes or so, he went away.



Yes! Another picture for my collection of toilets all around the world!
There’s nothing much to see in Kawah Ratu other than the crater and a row of shops. Hence, we decided to head to Kawah Domas and engaged a local guide to bring us there. It is compulsory to engage a guide.

Row of shops.
Yadi, our guide charged us 200,000 Rupiah an hour (I eventually found out that some guides offer lower charges). Nevertheless, it was well worth it. He gave us detailed explanation of the place we passed and even offered to take photos for us.
The path to Kawah Domas is well marked and relatively easy. We stopped by a cliff to take pictures of Kawah Domas from the top. We were also introduced a plant where its leaf is edible. Accordingly to legend, Dayang Sumbi consumes such leaf to maintain her power of eternal youth.


I ate a few branches. Nom.

Cliff has a shop too.

Overlooking Kawah Domas

At Kawah Domas, boiling hot geysers are a common sight. Some are extremely hot with steams pouring out and some are mild, which allows people to soak their feet.

We soaked our feet and rubbed volcanic mud on our leg. I had the service of one of the souvenir sellers to massage my leg.



It was quite good. I thought of repaying his service by buying one of his products, but when he offered his product, a wooden duck at 300,000 Rupiah (RM100!) I awed in disbelief. I told him that I will pay him for his good service rather than the product. However, he rejected me and told me that he will lose his job if he takes up my offer.
Since he strongly stuck to his principle, I eventually hogged the stupid duck down to 100, 000 Rupiah.
One chap took it to the extreme by taking a bath on the side where we soaked our feet. He even poured the hot spring water down his pants in front of us. That was our calling to get our feet off the pond.
Our guide brought us to check out some ‘volcano flowers’ which is just a pile of sulphur.


Yadi
We then took a stroll out from the jungle and saw couple of interesting sights. One of them is a stacked bunch of plants collected by locals. It tried lifting it and I couldn’t!


Actually, I couldn’t even stand up…NEED MORE PUSHMORE!!
Upon reaching the exit, we thanked our guide and paid him his fees. The entire trip took two hours and the total damage costs 400, 000 Rupiah. Nevertheless, we gave him some tips for his good work. I think the total cost for this is around RM200.

On our last day, Hari brought us to this place by the name Jeans Street. The street is filled with all sorts of giant models such as Batman, Tarzan, Spiderman, Batwoman, Ultraman and even Arnold Swadontknowhowyouspellgger.











I really wonder how these people get away with using all these characters in their shops.
Speaking about jeans, I bought a pair of jeans from Toko Tiga, a well know boutique that sells Levi’s jeans. Toko Tiga alters your jeans for free if you buy it from them. However, as I was about to send my jeans for alteration, I got kicked out from the shop because they had to close for the workers to break fast. -__-

One chap who had his jeans altered halfway had to wait for an hour because the tailor had to break fast. -_-

Got kicked out..

Bandung is perhaps a women’s paradise. One can actually spend the whole trip shopping. Fortunately, most of our time wasn’t spent on shopping. We manage to see Bandung other than four walls and a rack of cloth.
Nevertheless, shopping in Bandung is quite an eye opener.

First Eye Opener – Channel and Gucci tudongs
Our first destination was Pasar Baru, a 7 storey textile and garment market. The place was so huge and complex that I couldn’t find the exit. Every corner you will find a shop selling textiles and garments. In fact, it was very difficult to find shops that sell other than textiles and garments.
Here you can find a lot of people running around offering to sell you drink and food. Some will be dragging a bucket full of drinks and some will be carrying a tray of donuts. It was quite weird as it was fasting month and more than half of the population was fasting.

Reloading donuts!

zzzz

They have Air Mata Kuching from Malaysia!
Pasar Baru may be a little dodgy to some but this is all worth it if you make a trip up to the roof top to see Bandung.





Most of our shopping was done at Bandung’s designer warehouses. These warehouses are very common in Bandung but the notable ones are Heritage, ForMen (just opposite Heritage), the Secret and Rumah Mode. Unfortunately, these warehouses didn’t appeal to me as most of these warehouses have identical or similar stuff and I didn’t have to patient to sift out unique stuff. Further, I find that some of the branded products quite doubtful – not sure whether it’s really rejected goods.
Fortunately, I managed to roam into 18th Park, a shopping outlet that sells locally designed products a.k.a a Distro. It looked dodgy from outside especially when they have a bunch of kids gathering outside the shop.

They looked like they were about to rob me. But I managed to gather courage to walk into the shop alone and found a treasure trove!



It has many shops selling all sorts of local brands. I got myself some cute tshirts.
To be continued..