The first city of the last country that was on our study visit: Bandung. We were mainly here to visit the ITB (Institut Teknologi Bandung). The students showing us the university were lovely and prepared a very nice talk for us when we arrived. This city surprised me in so many ways, however. We interacted very well with a lot of local people and that also got me into learning some words in Indonesian. We as foreign people were also quite famous! I had the celebrity experience of people wanting to take pictures with or of us, and children running up to me.
The first night that we arrived we looked for a beer house since getting beers at any food place would be difficult (it’s less popular in Java). This turned out easier than expected!
Some of us also followed a tour guide in Bandung, he took us through very interesting places and told us about the history of Bandung and Indonesia. Whilst waiting for our food, at a place where we ourselves would not have gotten without a tour guide (it was very hidden), Max and I played a 5v5 of football with some of the local kids. I obviously had the better team and we would not let Max win. This was a genuine and very enjoyable interaction, and also one of the reasons why Indonesia is my personal favorite of the trip. When the food was ready, we sat down of the floor with our tour guide to eat (after taking our shoes off).
In preparation of the hike on Gunung Gede, We also got a bit of parkour/cardio in by visiting the Rainbow Waterfall.
Almost the entire study visit group dared to take on the challenge of climbing the Gunung Gede, Indonesian for “Big Mountain”. An adventure that started by leaving somewhat after midnight from our hotel to the mountain by bus. Our guides helped us by bringing food for us up the mountain, and carrying up the tents for the first stop. They would each carry around 20 KG(!) up the mountain. So the challenge was already a bit easier on us than could have been, but very hard nonetheless! The first day we chilled at the hot springs close to the first stop, and slept early. The day after we would wake up and leave around 2-3 AM, to be able to catch the sunrise at the top of the mountain. Climbing with a big group is hard, and there’s a lot of waiting on each other. This led us to miss the sunrise by a small margin, but the views were still incredible! For me personally, I enjoyed the hike a lot and was very grateful to be a part of it. Having random people from Indonesia wanting to take a picture with me on top of that mountain was definitely a funny bonus.
