Paprika Garden

Photo caption: A fresh red paprika (capsicum anuum) in a garden in the north of Bandung.

Bandung is an important producer of paprika in the country. The plant is mainly cultivated in green houses in the village of Pasirlangu in Cisarua, West Bandung Regency. The ones you see in these pictures are from a garden owned by a friend of mine.

Currently he is cultivating the red and yellow varieties. The produce are mainly sold in the local and Jakarta markets. With the expansion of the farm he is currently undertaking, he says he will soon produce enough for to be able to export the produce to Malaysia and Singapore.

Kampung Daun, Culture Gallery and Cafe in The Jungle

Can you really dine in style and enjoy cultural performances in the jungle?

In Bandung, you can.

And here's the place that has received so much rave from critics and cafe connoiseurs: Kampung Daun .

Kampung Daun (lit. leaf kampong), claimed by the owners as culture gallery and cafe, is located on Jalan Sersan Bajuri, about 4.7 kilometers to the northwest of Setiabudhi street in Bandung. It is literally a cafe nested in a valley amidst the jungle. The design of this gallery and cafe is such that it retains much of the natural elements and atmosphere that the valley has.

Let me take you in a visual tour of the place.

Here's the entrance to the place.



And as you enter, here's what you're going to see.



Further inside, you'll see the path branches. These paths lead you to the huts where the visitors are seated like you would in a restaurant.





And here's one of the huts that's located by the stream.



This is what the smaller huts look like inside. As you can see, you won't be sitting on a couch, bench, or chair here. Instead you'll be sitting on mattresses and pillows.



And here's the waterfall creek/stream that's located further inside the this cafe. I took the photo from one of the bridges that crosses it.

The Cimanuk River

Having its spring in the Papandayan Mountain in Garut and crossing four regencies (Garut, Sumedang, Majalengka, and Indramayu), Sungai Cimanuk (The Cimanuk River) is one of the longest rivers in West Java. I took this scenic section of the river at Wado area in the border of Sumedang and Majalengka about 100 kilometers east of Bandung.

This post is Bandung Daily Photo's participation in Scenic Sunday meme. To see other participating blogs, please click the logo picture underneath.

The Cow Farm

These are the cows (dairy cattle) that are fed by the grass that the man in my yesterday's photo brought.

Indonesia is still yet to be self-sufficient in its fresh milk production. According to the cattlesite, it currently produces only about 1.2 million per day of fresh milk or about 25 percent of its market demands. Out of this, West Java - as I mentioned yesterday - contributes about 430,000 liters, which places it as the second largest producer of fresh milk in Indonesia after East Java, which produces about 600,000 liters per day. The rest is produced by dairy farms in Central Java and other parts of Indonesia.

Dairy cattles are mostly owned by individual farmers who on average have fewer than 10 catles. These farmers organize themselves in cooperatives to help them get the supplies and assistance they need in raising their cattles, transport and market their produce, and deal with their major buyers, which are the dairy product factories, mostly located in Bandung, Bogor, and Jakarta.

Bandung Countryside: The Grass Collector

I don't know if there is such a phrase as "grass collector". But this is what this man does. He havests and collects elephant grass that is especially grown for cattle from a nearby field and take it home to feed his cows.

There are a lot of small cow farms around Bandung, especially in the northern and southern parts of it. These cow farms are the main producer and suplier of milk for dairy product factories in the area.

According to the association of Indonesian Milk Cooperatives (GKSI), as of 2008 West Java produces an average of about 430,000 liters of milk per day, of which 110,000 of it comes from Bandung and its vicinities.

Bandung Countryside # 3: Jakarta - Bandung Train Window View

I took this photo from behind the glass window of Bandung - Jakarta train.

It is believed that when God smiled, "Parahiyangan" (the Sundanse land of West Java) was created.

Bandung Countryside #2 and The Strawberry Story

Text and pictures by Eki Qushay Akhwan

This is another photo I took at my morning countryside walk with some colleagues recently.

As I said before, Bandung may be a bustling metropolis, but the countrysides surrounding it are still very rural and scenic; better still, they are never far away. This scenic panorama of a village in Cikole area, for example, is located only 17 kilometers (about 10 miles) north of Bandung.

Being located on a highland and surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, Bandung's soil is very fertile. Combine that with the mild and cool climate, what you get is abundance of agriculture produce (I said here, Bandung and West Java in general have the largest and most productive tea plantations in the country). Bandung is a major producer and one of the largest suppliers of vegetables on the island of Java.

Bandung Strawberry



Strawberry, or more precisely garden strawberry (Fragaria X Ananassa), the most common variety of strawberry cultivated worldwide, is the offspring of the accidental cross between North American strawberry (Fragaria Virginiana) whose nice flavor is very well known, and bigger-sized Chilean stawberry (Fragaria Chiloensis). This plant was first cultivated in Europe in the 18th century. There is a large varieties of stawberry cultivated worldwide, but this garden stawberry is supposed to be their Adam and Eve ^_^, including those cultivated in Bandung.

"Strawberry Tourism" (my term) is now very popular in Bandung. A lot of stawberry gardens are now open for the sole purpose of entertaining visitors's curiosity about this non-native plant. In these places you can pick this savory fruit yourselves, then weigh your picks and pay them at the cashier. Prices range from about 20,000 rupiahs (about US$2.2) to 30,000 (about US$ 3.3) per kilogram, depending on size and ripeness.

Bandung Countryside

Text and picture by Eki Qushay Akhwan

While Bandung is a busy and bustling metropolis (it is the fourth largest city in Indonesia), the countryiside surrounding it is still basically very rural and surprisingly very close.

I took this photo at a village near Cikole, Lembang, some 17 kilometers north of Bandung sometime ago on my morning walk with some colleagues from the office. The best time to have a countryside walk in Bandung is early in the morning like this (about 5:30 a.m.) when the sun barely rises. The beauty of the scenenery covered in thin fog and the cool and fresh morning air, to me, are so inviting.