Bandung: A Place of Tolerance and Smiles

For five days I went to Bandung for a Social Work conference beginning from 10th January until 14th. It almost seemed the same like how it is with Malaysia, except the attitudes and vibe spread throughout the entire place felt different. Let me describe to you how Bandung was (I'm not sure if this is generalizable to the other parts of Indonesia). The road was crowded with cars and motorbikes, added with the people crossing the roads, some others who tried to sell stuffs who came to stopping cars, and children playing at the side of the roads. But almost very rare, or it never occurred at all how it usually is in Malaysia. Imagine how we feel, and how it feels when it's jammed like it'd never end at our Malaysian roads. We'd hear angry honks and impatient drivers yelling. But, I didn't see that in Bandung.

Although the roads were crowded like you never could imagine. Vehicles came from every side of the street, and cars were an inch from each other before getting scratched, but no, the cars were flat clean, and no accidents occurred. All this was because the people were tolerant and patient, an obvious but very frequently ignored important characteristic by many drivers in Malaysia. We still heard honks, but only to tell the driver in front politely that the road was clear for him or her was clear to driver forward.

Not to mention that the people were never exhaustible of smiles. There was a welcome party on the first day of the conference and while the food was amazing, the treatment by the local people was warm and endearing. At one point of time, I thought and wondered if they all had been in a training of hotel hospitality, but no, I don't think that kind of training would yield that kind of results, and it seemed natural, I mean not something that is trained, when it occurred to many people rather than just one.

It's definitely a nice place to go, plus the things to shop are very cheap compared to the similar stuffs in Malaysia. I'd recommend you to go there, provided you already have an Indonesian friend to accompany you there, because the street hawkers might jack up the price of the normally cheap things (although the jacked up price would even still be cheaper than the price counterparts in Malaysia).

My last word for this entry is, I really appreciate and thank you, Bandung people who treated us like a 7-star hotel with warmth and unending friendliness. Hope we see each other again.