Let us first talk about some basic information about Bandung. Yes, this might sound boring and yes, this might sound la bit like a lesson for students in elementary school, but please bear with me with a bit.

Bandung, as some of you might have already known, is a city located in West Java, Indonesia—actually, it’s the capital of West Java itself. Practically a neighbor of Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, it is city well known mostly because of its relatively cooler temperature when compared to most other cities in Indonesia. Some numbers: Bandung is currently seated at number 4 on the list of largest cities in Indonesia, with a population of 2.9 million (in 2007) and over 7.2 million on the greater Bandung regency and metropolitan area. Bandung is approximately 167.27 square kilometers wide, and situated around 768 meters (or 2.520 feet) above sea level.

Bandung has a rich history behind it, beginning with the story about how it was once a city envisioned (by the Dutch) to become a mirror-image of Paris, France (thus the nickname Parisj van Java.) The left-over of that vision can still be seen today—most particularly in Braga Street—with a number of distinctly European-style buildings still standing right now in the city.

One of Indonesia’s arguably most iconic as well as recognized international and historical events, the Asian-African Conference in 1955 also took place here, in a street now known as Asia Africa Street. The most famous of all historical events in Bandung, however, is probably what Indonesians called as Bandung Lautan Api (rough translation: Bandung in an ocean of fire), where on March 1946, around 200.000 Bandung citizens let ablaze their city inside a huge raging inferno in order to prevent foreign invaders (Dutch’s NICA <Netherlands Indies Civil Administration>) to take over the city. It’s an event now recorded in an extremely well-known national anthem of the same name, an anthem that every person in Indonesia—young, teen, adult, and old—would most certainly recognize.

Its history aside, however, Bandung has long since transformed into a usual kind of a growing urban city, complete with all of its good and bad stories typical of a city of its kind. While at one side, for example, hospitality industries such as Hotels and Restaurants flourish immensely and attract great numbers of tourists into the city, on the other side the growing number of people both inhabiting and visiting the city means that the city is in danger of a number of classical troubles such as traffic jam, overpopulation, and infrastructure problems. It is a city both increasing and degrading at the same time, a city both improving, and deteriorating.

Nevertheless, Bandung is a city certainly dynamic enough to explore, and this blog is intended to become a repository of my thoughts about Bandung as a person that have spent a great number of years living in this city. This blog will contain a little bit of everything: hotel reviews, travel stories, Bandung foods, observations about something… just, everything. Not all of my posts in this blog will be in serious tone, mind you—some might even downright useless in terms of their actual importance, but regardless, I don’t really care. I just post what I want to post, and say what I want to say. If any of you want to tag along for the ride, I would be most honored by the gesture.

Enjoy.

Tags: Bandung, bandung blog, Blog, kagumibandung
Categories: This Blog

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 6:45 AM and is filed under This Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.