Bandung, Java

We left Jakarta early in the morning, while waiting for our train some local trains, like the tube in London i think, came past, there were people spilling out the doorways and sitting on top of the electric train, not such a great photo but they were going really fast, you can get the idea though!

We made it easily to Bandung,the train was a joy to travel on, no more buses for us!  We found a hotel and thought we would walk into town to see the information centre (at this point we should know better than to trust the b**** lonely planet!)  After 1 hour of walking we found the famous ‘Jean Street’ not just known for jeans but for the lifelike statues…..

                              

Eventually after 2 hours of walking and entering a local district of town that looked slightly dodgy, we opted for a cab.  The city is once again busy, dirty, confusing and tiring so after another hour of walking around we eventually found the tourist information centre under the mosque!  We booked a tour to the volcano and decided to get a very late lunch!

                    

We got a cab back to the hotel (no way we were walking!) lazed around and went out to the coolest bamboo restaurant for dinner,cheap as and amazing corn patties! The way food is served here is a bit weird, the whole menu (cooked before hand) is put out on your table and you get charged for what you eat. The rest is saved for next time…….

We had an early night ready for our tour the next day to Tangkuban Perahu Area, which means 'overturned boat' it is a huge crater of 2076m.  legend says a god was challenged to build a huge boat in a single night, his opponent saw that he would probably complete this impossible task, so he brought the sun up early, and the boat builder in his anger overturned the nearly completed boat!

The Ratu crater (Queen crater) 1830m high

     

Sheila please note the t-shirt hehehe

     

We found a track to a sacred spring, however we are obviously not sacred as we couldn’t find it!  We found a tiny concrete tunnel but after 20m in Andre was bent double and even the torch couldn’t cut through the darkness so i decided to take a photo to pretend it was the spring, notice the tubing to ciphon the water…

We had been offered to hire a tour guide to see the other active volcano, Upa but decided not to, however we were able to find it for ourselves!

                              

                                                

We are now half way round the crater, so we took some more shots of Ratu crater.

                             

                                               

                                                          

The trees seem to grow above the ground! Instead of walking around the crater, you can do it by horse!

Next we went to what we thought were natural hot springs, which they were, but had been landscaped and were part of an amusement park/hotel etc.  20 mins into it the rain started pouring down, it must happen often as guys came out of nowhere with heaps of umbrellas you could hire to get you back to the exit, clever people! (last photo is while raining)

                             

We were meant to go and see a tea plantation, but our guide who spoke absolutely no English had no idea about it, we complained to the information office guy, who told us tough luck, that’s the chance you take with guides that don’t speak English, even though he had hired him! 

 As Andre said Java 1, tourists 0

Still it was a good day, but we have booked a train for 8am tomorrow to go to Yogyakarta, should arrive around 4pm.