Bandung

Bandung (formerly spelled: Bandoeng) is the provincial capital of West Java, Indonesia. Located on a highland plateau 768 meters above sea level, at {{coor dm|6|55|S|107|36|E|}}, the city has a population of around 2.1 million. Kabupaten Bandung is the suburban area surrounding the city of Bandung.

Tourism and Economy

The Dago area near the center of the city offers many restaurants, shops, shopping centers, and entertainment centers. The weekend nights see Dago being transformed into a block party area with the local radio stations deploying their special vans to provide live coverage, especially in the lower parts near Jalan Merdeka.

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Bandung and its surrounding areas have many of tourist attractions:

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• Gunung Tangkuban Perahu to the north of the city.
• Maribaya
• Lembang
• Ciwidey
• Pangalengan
• Waduk Jatiluhur
• Saung Pak Udjo

For the locals, a quick escape up north to the Lembang area offers a relief from the increasing heat and pollution in the city centers. Many high-end housing complexes have been developed in the past 2 decades, causing further overpopulation problems in this side of the city. As a side effect, the Boscha observatory in Lembang is not nearly as effective as it used to be due to severe light pollution from the residents.

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Bandung is also known for its wealth of clothing outlets, attacting a huge number of visitors from surrounding cities (particularly from Jakarta), especially during weekends and holidays:

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• Denim clothing industry outlets along the street of Cihampelas.
• Bandung has earned the nickname "Kota Wisata Belanja" - Shopping Tourist City - because of the many factory outlets which sell ex-export garment products.
• Bandung is also known for its garment industry. Products that were made as export items that did not get exported are sold at cheaper price in outlets (in local speak: 'factory outlet') in Bandung, particularly along Jalan Ir. H. Juanda (Dago) and Jalan R.E. Martadinata (Riau).
• There is also a flourishing shoe industry in Cibaduyut in southern Bandung.

Bandung is also famous for its food; it is well-known for its many contributions to the culinary world such peuyeum, batagor, comro, and the bajigur drink. Peuyeum is made from fermented sago. Batagor is an acronym for baso tahu goreng, literally translates to deep-fried fish/meatballs and tofu. Comro is an acronym for oncom di jero, which translates to oncom inside. Bajigur is a sweet traditional drink served warm, and is popular in the evenings as Bandung's climate is more temperate than the rest of Indonesia.

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Bandung attracts a lot of visitors from Jakarta, sometimes resulting in severe traffic jam. Most notable is when all Jakarta was being put on holiday because of the APEC Convention, traffic in Bandung came into halt for more than 8 hours.

Related Topics:
Jakarta - APEC

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