Blending in Indonesia from 240810 - 310810

24 August 2010 - Bandung

At 8.30pm we fly to Bandung by Air Asia. This is my first time to take air Asia. The sit was small and not comfortable. We reach Bandung at around 10.30pm but it is just 9.30pm there. It was so shaking when the flight was landing. This makes me feel vomiting. It's is a very bad experience for us. When we reach the kastam, few of the brother and sister were treated like prisoners. They asked a lot of question, save all our 10 finger prints and photo in their system. Luckily, mine is just ask me some question but I still feel very unhappy. I feel so unhappy when I was inside the airport but when I step out from the airport feel so warm and all my bad impression to Indonesia was gone. Do you all know why? It’s because of the saint from Bandung. We never meet each other before but when I walk out from the airport we can actually recognize each others.

After we put our luggage inside sister’s room then we went out for supper at a café which like Asia café in Subang Jaya. Actually we are not hungry at all but we just want to go out for a walk only so all the youngster went out and left the eldest one in church. I don’t know what café is that but they sell a lot of local food there, then we order bakso and Ronde Jahe Alkateri (some kind of dessert like our Chinese tong yuan). The bakso is so so only and the dessert wao…is so spicy the put a lot of old ginger to cook this. This the first time I had a “tong yuan” for so spicy one. We went back around 12am because all stalls were closed and we were the last batch to leave there. Hahaha….the people there sleep very early.

25 August 2010 - Bandung
After having our breakfast in church, we went to Tangkuban Parahu. It’s an active volcano 30 km north of the city of Bandung. This volcano is on the island of West Java and last erupted in 1983. It took about 1½ hours from driving from Bandung. You need to pay the entrance fees but sorry I can’t remember how much is it already because was paid by the saint in Bandung.

After I have back to Malaysia only I know that actually there was a legend for the mountain. Tangkuban Parahu means “upturned boat”. The story tells of "Dayang Sumbi", a beauty who lived in West Java. She cast away her son "Sangkuriang" for disobedience, and in her sadness was granted the power of eternal youth by the gods. After many years in exile, Sangkuriang decided to return to his home, long after the two had forgotten and failed to recognize each other. Sangkuriang fell in love with Dayang Sumbi and planned to marry her, only for Dayang Sumbi to recognize his birthmark just as he was about to go hunting. In order to prevent the marriage from taking place, Dayang Sumbi asked Sangkuriang to build a dam on the river Citarum and to build a large boat to cross the river, both before the sunrise. Sangkuriang meditated and summoned mythical ogre-like creatures -buta hejo or green giant(s)- to do his bidding. Dayang Sumbi saw that the tasks were almost completed and called on her workers to spread red silk cloths east of the city, to give the impression of impending sunrise. Sangkuriang was fooled, and upon believing that he had failed, kicked the dam and the unfinished boat, resulting in severe flooding and the creation of Tangkuban perahu from the hull of the boat. Article from: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The trip was worth it, the view up there was beautiful, and the weather there was cooling. There are horses rental for riding and is very cheap is just 10,000RP. I had my first experince riding horse there. There are people selling clothing, dolls, hats, bags, stones, bracelets, shawl, sulfur (medicine), bonsai plants, handicrafts, strawberries (which are really cheap compare to Malaysia)... Ignore them, don’t show any interest or look at what they are selling. Otherwise, you will like us. We just look at what they are selling and the guy stick to us like leeches. He follows us to what ever place I went. If you want to buy some souvenirs, then the trick of getting big discount is show interest to their items then buy at the last minute when you are about to leave. That time you can bargin from them form 10 stone key chains for 200,000 rupiah to 10 for 30,000RP. If you knows to bargin the item is cheaper then the stalls.

I heard there is a bubbling pool, you can soak your feet into the pool of hot water and apply volcanic mud for therapeutic effects or boil eggs for immediate consumption. Unfortunately we did not go there.
The next station we when to “Tembak Reaksi” to play War game and Flying Fox, this business are actually run by one of our church there. This is the first time I play to play war game. I feel that is very exciting and we all enjoy it but the next day because most of us having blue black. Hahaha…because “kena tembak”. After this game they went to play Flying Fox. unfortunately I am not joining this because we need to take a heavy metal claim up to the original place after you played and my leg is very painful already so not able to walk. Although I am not playing this game but I have tried this game during my High School time. P/S: Don’t ask me how much is the entrance fees. I can’t answer you because is included in the USD$50 that we have pay early for the expenses in Bandung.

This is the “Tembak Reaksi” we do all our changing here.

This is where the War game we took.

Flying Fox game

After playing we all feel very hungry so is our lunch time now! We went to a restaurant to eat Jawa cuisine. The food is good. I like the fish. It looks beautiful and very crispy to eat. Actually this type of fish and eat in most of the restaurant. We almost had this every meal. The rice is good too it has strong banana leave fragrant. From my survey, avocado drink is a must order drink in Indonesia. For sure I had this too. They pour some kind of sugar (may be is gula malaka) in the drink which make it tasty. After our meal we went to shopping. It is a bit because we didn’t manage to go to Factory outlet which is very popular in Bandung. Anyway I still get some cheap clothes in one of the shopping mall for around 120,000Rupiah. P/S: You can get much cheaper clothes in Surabaya. The price is around 35,000Rupiah – 70,000Rupiah.


Around 4pm, we went back to church to take a nap because we need to attend church blending in the evening. Before the blending start, we had “Kolak”. It is an Indonesian dessert made with palm sugar and coconut milk with padan leaves. It is like our “bubur cha-cha”, the other ingredients are peryem, kuih talam, yam, banana, sweet potato, pumpkin. They told us Kolak is popular during the holy month of Ramadan and the time is Ramadan month so can get this easily.

We end our blending around 8pm then we went to Sierra Café & lounge for our dinner or super. This is a very good café. I like this place very much because it’s located at a hill. It just like Genting Highlands but here is better because we were having our dinner outdoor so we can enjoy our food while enjoying the scenery too. We spend few hours there then we went back to rest because next day we going to Jakarta.

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