May 12, 2011 -- Bandung

DATE: Thursday, May 12, 2011

LOCATION: Bandung, Java, Indonesia

AUTHOR: Marie DePasquale

Our bus trip to Sumedang, northwest of Bandung, took about two hours; we traveled on asphalt road, with busy two-way traffic, no traffic lights, a thoroughfare for motorbikes(carrying 1-5 family members), automobiles (mostly Honda, Toyota & Kia) and becaks (three-wheeled bicycle-rickshaws) transporting passengers.

The countryside we passed through was surrounded by hills and mountainsides of green vegetation, with banana trees, rice field terraces and farm lands growing cabbage, corn and tomatoes. Rivers of brown water flowed over rocks and under bamboo bridges, supplying water for the farms. The towns we passed had homes varying in size with plaster, brick, metal and woven bamboo on the exterior. Most front yards were green with a variety of plants, some decorative others practical – often rice. Small food stands, called warungs, were all along the road selling fried chicken, vegetables and fruit.

When we arrived at the Sumedang Cultural Center, which was to be our base for the day, we were greeted by the Chairman of the Sumedang Providence Foundation.

We were also greeted with an impressive spread of traditional appetizer/snack foods including:

 §  Ubi Rebus – baked sweet potato;

 §  Kelepon – coconut sprinkled over a green rice roll with a center of liquid brown sugar;

 §  Sale – fried banana;

 §  Keripir Talas – crisp sticks of casava;

 §  Cewdol – jelly made of rice flour and pandan. Pandan is used for the green color that the leaf gives in making the green rice jelly.

 §  Tahle Sumedan – typical fried tofu

 §  Sampeu Wedang – steamed casava with brown sauce.

Lots of new flavors and unusual things to eat.

The museum is a complex of five buildings, each housing historical artifacts – everything from weapons and artillery to jewelry and household goods. One of the buildings contained beautifully carved carriages dating from the 1700s.

They had prepared an extensive entertainment program for us, highlighting many of their more popular traditional performances. Entertainment began with four different dance performances, including:

§  Topeng – a mask dance that reveals concepts of contrast, like good and evil;

§  Jayeng Rara – a dance that depicts a warrior in battle;

§  Suraning Pati – a dance that depicts a Princess training in self-defense;

§  Ngalaksa Ceremony – a dance that highlights gratitude and respect for Mother Earth.

We then, moved outdoors for a most unusual, traditional, dancing horses performance, called Kuda Renggong. The highly trained team of horses and trainers put on quite an incredible show. Two horses performed (with handlers on the ground) with live music on traditional instruments setting the cadence. They also did a bunch of "acts/tricks" with the handler laying on the ground and the horse standing over and ON him -- all very controlled and quite remarkable. That segment was followed by a display of rearing and prancing all very tightly controlled.



Man on a horse on a man!



And this was only part of the day. We left the Cultural Center and drove to a nearby rice field to watch women harvesting rice by hand and a water buffalo plowing a rice field. We also visited a small rice packaging operation, where our hosts bought huge bags of rice, which we brought back with us to Bandung on the bus.



Water buffalo slogging through the rice field.

 About half the group also walked on to see a very old bamboo bridge. As we were marveling at the bridge, we were invited to visit the nearby village. This turned into one of the very special events of our entire time in Bandung. We toured the village, which was very quaint and primitive, but the remarkable aspect was that as we toured, all the villagers gathered to put on a performance for us – dance, music, and children in costumes all magically started to appear in the village’s community gathering spot. It was a very unique, impromptu event that had us all amazed. After about an hour we headed back to the bus and went back to the cultural center for dinner.

The bamboo bridge that lead us to the village.



The first "act" in the entertainment at the village.

 Lunch and dinner today was provided by the local Sudanese Department of Tourism.  Once again, we were treated like royalty with entertainment, a feast, officials giving speeches, etc.

After a couple hours of bouncing around on the crazy roads and avoiding all sorts of obstacles in the road, we were back to Bandung.