Beautiful Bandung

Hello all, near and far!

I had the most amazing weekend in Bandung! Travelling to this city in the mountains, this city that first inspired me to come to Indonesia*, made my every fibre smile and laugh with glee!

Too much??

Well, that’s how I felt! Seeing some of the countryside and travelling into the mountains just completed me! This is the Indonesia I was expecting to see, and I’m happy it’s out there! Crazy jagged mountains popping out of the earth like its nobody’s business, deep and lush valleys, every bit of cultivatable land growing something because the soil is just so fertile here, rice paddies, bamboo houses and houses with red tiled roofs, flowers and blossoms, oh the blossoms! And is it ever green!! And, the air was so crisp and cool and clean!

Omg, sidenote, the biggest jumping spider ever is under the table. Holy crap!! A similar situation to Ghana, I am assured it is nothing to worry about...so I’m still sitting here...

As I was saying, this weekend was spectacular!

Here are some pictures, to explain more. Unfortunately, since I am still without a camera, I don't have any of the pictures of the drive...the stuff that made me especially giddy! But if I secure some from the other interns, I will add them here. These photos are courtesy of Janet and her amazing camera!

So the weekend started with a birthday celebration for Martijn in Jakarta, followed by a glorious sleep in Grace's home, and our trip to Bandung for Saturday and Sunday.

After a somewhat eventful trip to meet my friend Grace, Janet and I finally made it and were able to relax, watch a movie, eat some dinner and get ready for a night on the town (eventful=taxi driver trying to rip us off and being mean, not being able to contact grace for one hour, driving around her complex on a motorcycle trying to find her place!)
After a more relaxed bar we classed it up checking out a fancy club in Jakarta, it cost a lot to get in and buy drinks!
After superb sleep at Grace's, even despite sharing the bed with 4 girls, we awoke to fresh juice and yummy oatmeal!Our trip to Bandung began with a little bit of bad luck, followed by lots and lots of good luck! This is the group of us buying tickets to Bandung from Jakarta, Martijn, me, Janet and Maxine!
Our good luck came in the form of the awesome Bandung AIESECers who picked us up and showed us around and took us to an amazing restaurant up in the mountains that overlooked the city!

The restaurant was great and huge, and it was actually a bit cool there bc of the elevation.
Fireworks for Martijns birthday! we were totally behind that!
At our lovely guest house there was a bamboo treehouse/gazebo...so cool! we chatted here a bit saturday night, and then had our breakie here in the morning. The view was spectacular and the air was so crips!

Avocadoes!! p.s. sorry the image quality is low, i compressed all my pics so they would upload faster! There are sooo many fruits here!

The following pictures are from the White Crater, a dormant volcano in the south of Bandung that has a lake that is all sulphury....the steam made us cough, our throats burn and made us feel light-headed....sketchy. but very surreal and worth the trip! The drive up the mountain/volcano was absolutely gorgeous too!



Driving to a lake further along, in the mountains...not the crater lake! kudos to our amazing driver, Hasan!
There was lots of time spent in the car! lol, but the scenery and company made it worthwhile:) Also seen here is Anita and Kiki from the Bandung chapter.
A personal fav...i think it captures my excitement! This behind us, all the green is a tea plantation. i currently dont' have shots of rice paddies...but i think we were too high at this elevation for rice!



At the lake we took a leisurely boat ride to an island, with some love story...these funny love stories are everywhere!


And after a looooooong day, and missing out on a much longed for massage due to traffic, Janet and I finally made it back to Bekasi! We stopped at dominos for pizza for dinner. OMG, delicious. haha, also note the child on the counter behind me!

It was a very fun weekend and was a nice change of scenery and company and was just lovely! I think all of us thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!

Hope everyone at home is doing well, miss and love you!

Kim

and if you were interested in why Bandung inspired me to come to Indonesia/learn about Indonesia in the first place, you can read this nerdy explanation!

*When I was in second year, I ended up doing a couple research projects on environmental/social issues in Indonesia! In fact I remember agonizing over which city to choose to do this end of year project on for a class for my international development minor (surprise surprise, i couldn’t make a decision!). It was between waste management in Bandung, Indonesia, and air quality in Durban, South Africa. I have a hard time making decisions because I know everything, even the topic for a project, has a huge ripple effect, so naturally I consulted my good friend Jocelyn. Thanks Joce;) After a discussion with her, I decided to go with Bandung! It just seemed so interesting to me, on the other side of the world. I enjoyed that project, but for another course on environmental policy, I delved deeper into the water management of Bandung, and got incredibly fascinated by the complexities of water services privatization and rapid urbanization, the implications of policy on real life, and the complexities of balancing what is needed and practical and what is right and wrong, long term and short term tradeoffs...wowie, it was interesting stuff! I felt like I was uncovering conspiracies! Anyway...from this point on, Indonesia, and particularly Bandung have held a special place in my heart! And today, I am sitting here in Indonesia, after this fabulous trip to Bandung and well...its pretty cool! I hope I can continue to learn more about this fascinating country and the complexities of water management!