Powered By Blogger

Friday, January 5, 2007

Jakarta, Puncak, Bandung

Another nice holiday after Kota Kinabalu last year was when I took my Mom to Jakarta on April 28, 2006. I went with another two friends, Nor and Puan Askiah. We were actually invited by Puan Askiah to stay at her place at Puncak.

That was my second trip to Jakarta. I'm quite fond of Jakarta - I mean Indonesia overall. May be because I always watch Sinetron program such as Hikmah, Dia, Ikhlas etc. My personal opinion, those three dramas that I've mentioned give some good messages to the viewers. I've tried to get those VCD when I was in Jakarta but it seemed that they were not produced. They have Bawang Putih Bawang Merah and a few others but they don't have the VCD that I wanted to buy as my collection. Anyway, I like Indonesia for the way they speak their national language.
We went to Jakarta with KLM for a very good price. Only RM308 per person for a return ticket. We couldn't get that price from Air Asia too during that time. Unlike Air Asia, KLM fare is included with refreshment. Quite good service. But they have only one flight from KL to Jakarta at late afternoon. The return flight from Jakarta to Kuala Lumpur also quite late evening. But it didn't matter as long as we can fly safely with reasonable fare - everybody can fly.

From Jakarta we took a drive - normal time will be about two hours drive to Puncak. But because we went on Friday - the weekend has started - it took longer to arrive Villa Firdaus in Puncak. Puncak has a cold weather like Cameron Highlands. With the tea plantation, it looks like Cameron Highlands in Malaysia. Except the road is not very good. It's hard and rough - you need to have a 4-wheel drive vehicle. Not all areas in Puncak are tourists area. There are some slum areas too. And they don't use 4-WD, they just walk back to their house from the main road which is quite far.

The next day we went to Jakarta for shopping. We only went to two places - because the complex is so huge we could spend the whole day there. The famous tourist shopping area in Jakarta is the Mangga Dua. We can get anything you name it there - from leather handbag, shoes, clothes etc etc. I didn't even covered half of the area because I was too tired to walk already. Before Mangga Dua, we went to Tanah Abang. This is also another famous shopping area for the reasonable price of all items sold there.

The third day, we all went to Bandung. Bandung is about 2 hours drive from Puncak. I don't know much what to write about Bandung because I also did not know the places which I had been. That was my first time to Bandung. The driver who took us also not so familiar with Bandung. Finally we just ended up at one stretch of road where it was full of factory outlet shops. You can buy branded sports shoes like Nike, Reebok, Adidas etc at a very good price. Those items are manufactured in Bandung for export.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good Morning Kak Norlia,

Finally I got a chance to view your blog! Wah very nice,both of them yang you did yourself.I've always heard about the Aryani and now that I know you dah pergi,bolehlah I ask you about the place :-). Keep up the good work with the blogs and I pray your "I'm bulding a house " project will materialize this year.Take care. Isniza

Anonymous said...

It's so great that you share this with us

Jamie said...

That's a great bit of information for a rare traveler like me Nice post.