Cold Fire in Bandung

Why do people always label me as a nerd? It doesn’t make any sense. I mean just because I love school? It doesn’t mean I am happy to be called a nerd. NO WAY. School is boring, agree? Anyway, speaking of which. I had no idea why I enrolled myself for a master’s degree. Whoa chill! Told ya it was a mistake. So, here’s the thing, the Postgraduate program is totally different than my expectations. I was thinking I can chill cuz the subjects are pretty specific. But then you know, super intense classroom, intensive courses, heavy homework, plenty of research, busy seminar, quick presentation, and papers and always papers. Dude, it totally drove me pretty nuts. Well, I am not going to spend my time talking about school or whatsoever. The thing is, because of school I had no time to travel! Man! No traveling anymore! What? It sounds tragic, right?

I was a bit stressful, to be honest cuz no refreshing time at all? Kidding me? One day, we finished our class earlier so we went home earlier as well. I wasn’t really happy by that time because nothing special at all but one of my classmates initiated an impromptu escape plan to visit highland spot of Bogor nearby our school to chill before heading back home. We were about 5 people in the car and we agreed to chill a bit since it has been way too long for not having a short escape after tough days at school. 2 hours after that, we decided to depart back earlier because it was too cloudy and it seemed the rain will start soon. So we left the place to go home together. But in the middle of our way, my classmate who initiated our previous escape came up with his crazy idea (AGAIN) to go to Bandung instead of heading back home. Why not! let’s do it! So we decided to head to Bandung straight away without any preparation before. We spent 5 hours on the way to Bandung from Bogor. It wasn’t really bad for a road trip since we weren’t in a rush.

No plan is always the best plan. We spent a day on the road because we didn’t stay in the hotel for sleeping. We spent our whole time exploring Bandung for the whole night until the next morning. We didn’t sleep. We didn’t take a shower at all. Well you can say if there was any nomination of travelers of the year, I think we would have won that nomination. It was extremely fun. We just stopped one store to have one t-shirt for the next day since we needed to go to school in the next day. What a super hectic journey.

We arrived in Bandung around 11 pm and once we arrived, we stopped to eat. We chilled a bit afterward.  At 1 am, we moved to visit an abandoned hospital named “Bandung Medical Centre” for a haunted trip expedition. The hospital looked so scary from the outside but it was fine for us because we were about six people including the guide. So we explored the hospital which consisted of three floors (re most of the places were dark and the vibe of the hospital was super creepy). The guide showed us the rooms for patients, room for surgery and room for babies after they were born. Based on the guide’s story, the hospital was abandoned for approximately 16 years. The place used to be a public medical center then somehow turned to be a private hospital after a businessman bought it from the government. Unfortunately, the businessman never got the license to open it until now. So the building just left behind without any activity until the building is getting old but still all of the medical equipment in the hospital is still new and well packaged from Germany. This abandoned hospital is not open for public so we were lucky to get a chance visiting this place. There were about three locals who do patrol 24/7 since there are a lot of expensive medical equipment in the hospital. So once we came there, we asked the guide to show us around for a short scary tour. What an experience. 

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After the haunted hospital journey, we just explored Bandung city until the sunrise. 7 am in the morning, we moved to take a look at Situ Patenggang which is a lake. Situ Patenggang is a popular lake in Bandung surrounded by forest and gorgeous view of tea plantation. The legend of Situ Patenggang is quite interesting. The legend is about the old Sundanese Kingdom named Padjajaran faced war a long time ago and forced two lovers were separated because the man needed to go to the war to defend the kingdom but he promised to come back right after the war. What a romantic tale. After the war finished, they finally met in the big stone as a meeting point (re: in the middle of the lake) so the locals named it “batu cinta” or “stone of love” in English. After the lovers met, the man crested a lake and a boat for them to sail together. Until now, the locals believe if you come here as a couple and you visit the “stone of love” by sailing a boat that the lovers used in the past for sailing, you will preserve your true love. Well, who knows. You can try it.

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Our last destination was Kawah Putih (re white crater in English). This place is the most famous tourist spot in Bandung. This white crater is a unique volcanic crater that created a crater lake who represents stable volcanic system with no significant activity since long long time ago. I don’t know the exact year since I haven’t born yet at that time. The unique fact about this white crater is the color that changes from bluish to whitish green or brown that depending on the sulfur concentration.
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That’s all my short visit to Bandung. It was even less than 25 hours. But we did a lot. Having tough schedule for school doesn’t mean I have no time to chill. Vacation is the best medicine to recharge.

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