About Bandung

Bandung is Indonesia's 4th largest city and has the country's second largest metropolitan area (by population). It is located at a relatively high altitude (~750m). Therefore it has noticeably cooler temperatures, than most other places in Indonesia.

The city is Indonesia's major major technology center. It is also a very popular destination for domestic tourists. International tourists, however are more rare.

Bandung is the capital of the province West Java. Also the first Asian-African took place in this city. It consists over 2 international airports and is connected to Jakarta with a high-speed rail line.

My experiences in Bandung

The train ride from Jakarta to Bandung was pretty cold, because the AC was turned all the way up. I expected to have the same sensation of being slapped in the face with the heat when leaving the train, that I felt when I first left the airport in Jakarta. Much to my surprise though, Bandung actually had some bearable temperatures. This is mostly because it is at pretty high altitude.

I arrived in the evening so I could not really see much of the city that day anymore. I decided to walk to my hotel though instead of taking a grab. My first impression of Bandung was, that it is a really chaotic and hectic city with a lot of traffic and not a lot of room for pedestrians. Nonetheless, I still arrived at my Hotel unharmed. After checking in, I went outside again to get something to eat. Bandung has one of the biggest and best street food markets in Java. That was something, I realized pretty quickly. You can get all kinds of food (fried food, meat, vegetables, fruits and of course a lot of the famous Nasi Goreng) everywhere. By far my favorite thing to do in Bandung was to just walk through the countless street food markets and just trying everything they had to offer (I did not even get sick in case you are wondering).

The next two days I walked around the city a bit. And while it has some pretty nice parks and also a nice old-town, there is really not that much to see here. If you want to visit yourself, do not plan in more than one day for visiting the city. Since I had quite a bit of work to do and thus not that much time to spend, that was fine.

On my last day in Bandung, I rented a scooter to explore the area around the city a bit. That was really scary but also a really good decision. If you're planning to visit Bandung, you need to rent a scooter and drive through the stunning landscapes around the city. I drove through the tea plantations north of the city. At first driving in Bandung is quite scarry. The traffic is terrible and everyone drives pretty recklessly. Once you are out of the city though, things get a lot better very quickly. Unfortunately I got caught in some pretty bad weather. The day was still a lot of fun. My only regret is that I did not rent a scooter a day earlier, because that way I could also have seen the beautiful nature south of the city the next day.

What to do in Bandung

Since Bandung is very popular for tourists, there are many hotels (unfortunately though not too many hostels) to stay at. There are also a lot of things for tourists to do. Most of them however consists of shopping. The things I enjoyed most on my stay were:

• The street food markets
• The beautiful landscape around the city
• Some of the nice parks and monuments
• The old town (dutch)

Conclusion

Bandung does not seem to be a very popular destination for backpackers or international tourists in general. I honestly can't understand why though. The city itself is indeed nothing special if you are not interested in shopping (except the street food markets, since they are one of the best I have ever seen). The nature around the city, however is incredible and pretty unique (I haven't seen anything similar anywhere else on Java). You can definitely plan in a few nights in Bandung just to explore the surroundings. You need to be comfortable riding a scooter though, since you will have to use one to get around and the traffic is terrible.