Indonesia is really the land of a thousand smiles.

A train conducive to encounters

On the train to Bandung, we meet two very friendly French people. We spend a good hour talking to them. Their names are Pierrick and Hervé, they're travelers in love with Indonesia. Having a short itinerary in common with them, we decide to exchange our contacts in order to make a visit together the next day.

As we get out of the station, we take a taxi with our new travel companions, but we don't go to the same hotel. They come down first, their hotel being in the city centre. We say goodbye hoping to meet again the next day for the trip with them.

We drive back to our guesthouse, but the driver struggles to find our accommodation, the Pulas Inn. After turning around in circles for at least 30 minutes to get his hands on our ghost hotel (you know it's the one you never find except when you don't look for it anymore xD), he finally manages to drop us off at the right location. Big disappointment, the place is a lot worse than expected. A little disappointed, but well, it's part of the hazards of the trip, and then it's only for 2 nights.

Idul Fitri, the test of a day

''Happy Idul Fitry''


After a night that won't stay in the annals, we leave for Bandung station, meeting point to meet our friends of the day before (at least that's what I understood through our exchange of the evening before on Facebook, our only means of contact). I can't find them, so I try to get the wifi from the station, but it doesn't work.. Perseverance ends up paying (after trying to connect for an hour) and I finally manage to contact them. They understood that they had been misunderstood when they left the hotel. So after an hour of circling, they finally join us. We're wasting another moment choosing the day's visit. The boys have heard of beautiful hot springs in the village of Cipanas, 45km from Bandung. We agree to follow them.

However, we have forgotten two important things :

• 45km in Asia, it is far from being as fast to cover as in France.

• Today, it is Idul Fitri, the feast day, which marks the end of Ramadan, and incidentally the great departure of the holidays in Indonesia.

So I don't tell you about the trip, all packed together in a tiny taxi, for 4 hours on the way out and 2h30 on the way back. And yes, huge crowds = huge traffic jams (especially since the roads are not very well maintained).
I take advantage of the traffic jams to take some pictures of the people who are passing by and who are all very smiling.
We also take the opportunity to chat with Pierrick and Hervé about our adventures.

Photo souvenir of us, crowded in the taxi, taken by Pierrick


When we arrive in Cipanas, the driver leaves us 2 hours only to visit. After all the way, we are a bit disappointed to have to stay so little time on the spot, but we savour every moment.
At first we waste time asking for the road to the natural hot springs, because people don't understand what we are looking for. We end up finding a person who seems to understand us and who tells us that the hot springs are 300m away... We then arrive in front of... covered hot water pools, where several Indonesians are lounging naked in unsatisfactory water. In the end, it has nothing to do with the springs coming from a volcano that we wanted to discover.
Since we don't want to feel like we've come for nothing, we're going to discover the village. The little corners are full of beautiful things, and it's a bit like love at first sight: it's a restful place, out of time, with adorable premises. We finally spend an excellent time in this picturesque area, always meeting the people.

Time flies too fast, it's already time to go back to Bandung. The return is faster (the bulk of the vacationers being in the other direction).

When we arrive in Bandung, Pierrick and Hervé invite us to eat in a nice restaurant.

We finish around 11:30 pm. We then have to find a taxi to get back to our guesthouse in the suburbs of Bandung (which is not an easy thing at this time). In fact, all taxis try to rip us off...
Luckily, we end up with a good star. Her name is Elleonora. She's an Indonesian. She is accompanied by her husband Erik and her niece. She suggests that we take us back to our accommodation free of charge. We are happy to accept.

On the way, we have a very good time chatting. Of course, ghost hotel obliges, they also struggle to find the location of the guesthouse.

Franck with our guardian angels


As we take the train very early the next morning for our next destination (Pangandaran), Elleonora offers us very kindly to pick us up and take us to the train station.

Indonesians are really wonderful...

To be continued in the next episode...


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--> Part 2

--> Version française

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