Hello people, I think it’s time to share some traveling post with you guys. As you know, I went to Bandung, the cheap outlet shopping heaven of East Indonesia. It’s also my first visit and first step into the simple red and white flag, Indonesia, the neighbour country to Malaysia. I never thought of going to Indonesia all the time until I met a few Indonesian friend in university, they share about their culture and life at home then I found it’s kinda interesting.
When talking about Indonesia, most people know about Jakarta and Bali, I am not sure about Bandung. I think it only started to be famous just recently with the bloom of fashion outlet business. Bandung is well-known for selling branded clothing at outlet store, don’t know authentic or fake.
Anyway, I went to Bandung. =D Instead of flying from Penang, we flew from KLIA, Kuala Lumpur International Airport. It’s my second time being at this airport, the first time was very very super duper young like 10 years ago? I don’t really remember the outlook and the inner look of my home country’s biggest airport.
I have been to quite a few big airport in the world like the Changi Airport in Singapore, Baiyun Airport in Guangzhou, Hong Kong Airport and so on. KLIA is huge but it made me disappointed because it’s not cool like airport at other country. The crowds were not there, it’s pretty quiet and I didn’t see much international flight. In term of airport shopping experience, there’s not many cool shop when compare to the Changi Airport in Singapore or even the Bangkok’s. Hope that they could improve their service and bring in more tourists and airport user.
So we took Malaysian Airlines to go to Bandung. As far as I know, Air Asia does fly to Bandung too and I don’t know already. Since Malaysian Airlines have almost the same rate as Air Asia that time, we picked Malaysian Airline because they have better hospitality on board with air-meals.
Forgot to mention the time that I went to Bandung, it was mid-August. =)
It was a afternoon flight and we were already there since 9am. Actually dad, mom and brother came from Penang to KL and I was in KL meet up with them. After checking in our luggage and ticket, we proceeded into the departure terminal. Due to nothing to shop or see in there, we spent our morning at Old Town White Coffee.
It’s a nice place to sit down and wait for flight as it’s just by the window, over looking the airfield and airplanes. Just sad that there’s not much airplanes going up and coming down and one funny thing is that it’s all Malaysian Airlines, I didn’t see other airlines, maybe that side was cater to Malaysian Airlines only.
From Kuala Lumpur to Bandung took about 2 hours. We got on the planes, sit for a while and the air-meal was served already. Not bad, kinda nice then I stuck my head on the windows all the time and didn’t want to take a nap, hoping that I could see superman flying in the sky. Haha, just kidding.
Sooner, I see lands and hills, a big piece of lands, different from hometown Penang where you will see seas, then I know I am there already. It’s hilly and the terrain are not flat. Bad urban planning and it’s buildings are not built “organizedly”.
The plane landed and I see a mini airport, looks a bit like the old airport of Penang, or the one at Phuket, Thailand.
There’s only a helicopter and our plane at there, no more and the cute thing is that there’s only one landing and take off lane.
Then we walked… No connecting bridge to the plane.
And get our passport stamped at the immigration. For your information, the departure and arrival share the same hall and counters. Go in and then out. It’s really a super duper duper small airport, but it’s international! I think Johor’s Senai Airport is bigger than this place man.
We then look for a cab to take us to our hotel, Sensa Hotel. Looking around the place, with old old buildings and people who don’t look Chinese, it feels like Thailand to me. But the local people are kinda tiny to be honest. So there are many different races in Asia.
Traveling from Bandung airport to hotel is like 15-20 minutes depend on traffic. It’s also the same left hand drive at Indonesia and the traffic at there not very nice. Weather felt a little bit windy, not very warm, I assumed it’s around 26 degree celsius, kinda nice.
The first impression of Bandung to me was like a little bit like Thailand, then it feels like Penang to me because of the houses and lots of trees. The bungalow and houses at there have the architecture of Dutch element because it was once Dutch’s settlement, long ago.
Sensa Hotel is quite a new hotel and it was ready 3 months ago before we arrived. We booked it online and it’s US$80 per night. Consider cheap, provided they have very good service, free WiFi, lots of cable channel, nice view, clean, and nice breakfast. =D
Hopefully the price would not hike and stay or even lessen. Another thing is that it’s located on Chihampelas Walk, which is a nice shopping district in Bandung. Though, traffic on that road is very bad, all the time, always jam!
Coming up, I will talk about shopping in Bandung, sightseeing and more! =)
