Bandung, capital of West Java and once the center of the Sundanese Kingdom

Not many people hear about Sunda.  Sitting in cafes by the rice paddies during my early Bali days, one would listen to relaxing flute music, later to find out this music actually comes from Sunda.. Sunda? Where is Sunda?
It’s West Java with layers of history from ancient to post Dutch times. Finally, I got to take a train trip to Bandung, now Indonesia’s third largest city, home to several universities and known as a city of fashion.

Halo Halo Bandung!
a song everyone in Indonesia knows – a song of heroic, national sentinental pride from the struggle for independence. The song name actually dates back to Dutch times when radios broadcasted:
“Halo Bandung… hier is Den Haag!”

The history of this part of West Java is full of legends and stories. More recent history relating to the present begins with Europeans making their way to these jungle hills filled with tigers by an ancient lake. The Dutch first arrived in Indonesia in 1602 which led to colonization lasting 350 years. It wasn’t until 1712 though, that Abraham van Riebeek brought the first coffee seedlings to Java and finally the VOC- East Indies Company established a presence in what became Bandoeng– with plantations and a sawmill. More Europeans began arriving to find their wealth building coffee and tea plantations in the rolling hills. This affluent group of people became known as the Preanger Planters. Javakoffie and a Cup of Java soon became world famous.
Some of these planters also became philanthropists. A fellow by the name of Karel Bosscha, known as the thee koning (the king of tea) also played a role in establishing the “Technische Hoogeschool,” now known as Institut Teknologi Bandung ( Bandung Institute for Technology) -today still one of the leading Universities of Indonesia. He also built the still functioning Bosscha Observatory.
Then there was German-born Dutch botanist Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn who successfully grew cinchona, an essential ingredient for medicine, especially for curing malaria. At one time, Bandung supplied 90% of the world’s cinchona. And today, the building of Fabrik Kina ( Factory Quinine ) -originally the N.V. Bandoengsche Kinina Fabrieke, still exists.

With thriving plantations. a solution to transporting goods to the Netherlands from Bandung via the port of Batavia (Jakarta) was needed, so the Dutch began constructing roads and railroads across Java.
People used to travel upriver to reach the Bandung area until 1786. Later a horsetrail was constructed over challenging passes where buffalos helped the horses pull the carts.

In 1807, Herman Willem Daendels was appointed Governor General of Dutch East Indies by Louis Bonaparte, the younger brother of Napoleon I. He was also the father of Napoleon Bonaparte. Known also as Lodewijk I by the Dutch, he was the ruler over the French client state Kingdom of Holland. The task for Daendels was to expel the British presence on Java. He was not successful at this, but Daendels did initiate several infrastructure projects including the Grand Postal Road ( De Groete Posweg) or the Jalan Raya Pos up through Bandung and 1000km all the way to East Java.

It was Daendels who planted a stick establishing Ground Zero of what would emerge as the city of Bandung- also known as the Paris van Java– a city of fashion with art deco buildings housing hotels, galleries and theatres.

The Savoy Homann Hotel, established by German entrepreneur Albert Homann in 1871 on the Groete Posweg, has expanded since its early days and still retains its art deco charm indoors.

The hotel can also arrange a classic car ride for you through town.

Jalan Braga today is lined with trendy cafes and shops. Weekends are now car free days- yay!

Gedung Sate -a neoclassical building originally for the Department of Dutch East Indies State Enterprises,
was designed by Dutch architect Johan Gerber. Construction began in 1920, also incorporating native Indonesian elements, and took 4 years to complete. It is considered an example of “graceful Indo-European architecture.”

The name actually translates to “Satay Building” from the Indonesian traditional sate dish. Referring to the central pinnacle resembling the shape of a saay skewer with six spheres.. ( representing pieces of satay?). Apparently the cost of construction was six million guilders- quite a price for satay at the time!

Today Gedung Sate serves as the seat of the West Java governor and there is a very interesting museum.
Here one can learn more about the tensions surrounding the struggle for independence.
Following the proclamation of independence on 17 August, 1945, the Japanese occupying forces had surrendered, but Indonesian armed forces and Indonesian Nationalist Youths continued to battle the arrival of the British. On 22 March, 1946, British authorities notified then Indonesian Prime Minister Sutan Sjahir to have South Bandung evacuated. This resulted in the Bandung Lautan Api – Bandung Sea of Fire
with Indonesian forces deliberately burning much of South Bandung denying the British and later again the Dutch from access to warehouses and supplies.

The loss of Bandung was a psychological blow to the Indonesian national movement but a strong spirit of the people of Bandung prevailed. “The people of Bandung love their city, but love independence more. “
Composer Ismail Marzuki altered the last lyric lines of the Halo Halo Bandung song to become more patriotic boosting their fighting spirit against British-Dutch forces.

During colonial times, elites lived a high life while the majority of locals lived in poverty.
One of the buildings which remained intact housed the Concordia Society which was a social gathering venue complete with a dance hall for the wealthy plantation owners and officers.

The Concordia building eventually became Gedung Merdeka ( Freedom Building) and eventually the venue for the Asia Afrika Conference under President Sukarno. From 18-24 April, 1955, 29 Asian and African nations attended this first international assemby of a non-aligned movement in a world polarized
by new super powers of the US and USSR.
The street name Jalan Raya Pos was changed to Jalan Asia Afrika. The building is now a museum exhibiting various collectables and photos of the Asia-Afrika Conference.

The Spirit of Bandung was declared as a “symbol of rebuttal to the pretention of superpowers and antagonists of the Cold War, in which newly gained independent nationals have no alternative but to align with one of the blocks.” The principles of the non-aligned movement was “a vision of economic and cultural cooperation, and to oppose the domination of colonialism and neocolonials.”

One would imagine countries comprising of more than half the world population could maybe have a say? But look at the UN today with only five nations permitted to be permanent members on a global security council and allowing just one single nation the power to veto a resolution.

Sukarno, also known as Bung ( Brother/Comrade) Karno was Indonesia’s first president from 1945-1967. Leader of the Independence struggle, he spent more thean a decade in Dutch detention until released by invading Japanese forces during World War-2. Along with Vice President Mohammad Hatta, Sukarno declared independence on 17 August, 1945, however resistence to Dutch re-colonization efforts continued. The Dutch finally recognized independence in 1949.

Indonesia as a newly independent nation was faced with a period of chaos and instability. Rebellions were threatening the survival of a unified, but very diverse nation. An autocratic system of “guided democracy” along with foreign policies to serve an anti-imperialist sentiment defined the cicumstances Sukarno was faced with. Increased friction with the West led Sukarno to seek closer relations to the USSR. Finally after events surrounding the 30 September Movement in 1965, General Suharto took control of the country in a Western-backed coup. This was followed by repression of real and perceived communist party members with executions and massacres. It is estimated there were 500,000 to over 1,000,000 deaths.  In 1967, Suharto officially assumed the presidency, replacing Sukarno, who remained under house arrest until his death in 1970. Regardless of controversy and failed policies, Sukarno is still revered as a Father of the Nation with charismatic power.

The area of Bandung holds another layer of deep power which brings up the history of Sundaland.

Sundaland refers to the southern lowlands of the greater Southeast Asian Peninsula- and the name applied to the largest single section of land submerged by rising sea levels after the last Ice Age. This area when above water would have been twice the size of India, and included what we now call Indo-China, Malaysia, Indonesia and part of the Philippines. The South China Sea, the Gulf of Thailand and the Java Sea were all once land connected.

Western and southern borders of Sundaland are clearly marked by deep waters of the Sunda Trench and the Indian Ocean. The eastern boundary of Sundaland is found at the Wallace Line– the boundary identified by Alfred Russel Wallace between the islands of Bali and Lombok and between Borneo and Sulawesi. The strait of Lombok is amongst the deepest in the world that has never been crossed by a land bridge. When continental drift and plate tectonics started to pull these lands apart, the large amount of water that separated them drove evolution of flora and fauna in different directions. Islands to the west of the line, which are part of the Sunda shelf, are largely Asian origin, and to the east, known as the Sahul shelf, more Australasian. Elephants, orangutans, rhinos and tigers vs marsupials and komodo dragons, flightless birds- cassowaries and birds of paradise.
Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace both posed theories of evolution but it was Wallace, during eight-years of research from 1854-1862, having collected and cataloged a vast number of plant and animal species that inhabited this unique geographical area, published his book The Malay Archipelago. 
His book explores orangutans to birds of paradise and includes numerous observations on the people, their languages and ways of living: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/99629.The_Malay_Archipelago

In spite of all the recorded and unrecorded natural disasters and calamaties, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, as well as irreparable loss of forests and land, Indonesia still leads the world in biodiversity, with its animals and plants and its coral reefs.

Rising sea levels up to 120 meters submerging Sundaland, created the Java and South China Seas and the thousands of islands that make up Indonesia today.

Earlier Evolution
One also has to go back to ponder the Jurassic era to the Cretaceous period and how plate tectonics laid the ground work for Sundaland’s emergence and eventual demise. As contintents drifted and collided, Sundaland rose and fell, leaving behind its legacy.
Then there is the mysterious question of where the Lost Continent of Mu was? South of the present day India or stretching across the Pacifid Ocean? In his 1926 book, The Lost Continent of Mu, James Churchward suggests that “Sundaland was also a center of advanced prehistoric human civilization- this should not surprise us as the discovery of Java Man proves the presence of Homo erectus (upright man) 400,000 to 700,000 years ago. ” Homo erectus is an extinct species and the direct ancestor of Homo sapiens ( knowing man) = Us!
Java Man was originally thought to be the “missing link” between apes and humans- a giant gibbon as believed by Eugene Dubois who discovered fossils on Java in 1891. However following the discovery of the Taung Child in South Africa in 1924, and then the discovery of “Lucy“ in Ethiopia in 1974, there has been common agreement that populations of the African Homo erectus (dating back to over 3 million years) migrated to Asia and are the direct ancestors of Asian Homo erectus- Java Man and Peking Man in China who in turn are the direct ancestors of modern East Asians. This still means though that apes are still our cousins- did we just evolve from a common ancestor?
If traveling to Central Java, you can visit the Museum of Java Man at Sangiran, 15km north of Solo.

And there is also the more recent discovery of Flores Man… and how he made may have made his way across the Lombok strait to the remote eastern island of Flores- but that’s another story!

Thousands of years of volcanic activity along this Ring of Fire also contributed to the change in habitat. Volcanic activity, while destructive, also produces some of the most fertile soils on earth. These changing sea levels would have caused humans to move away from their coastal homes and culture, farther inland.

In the remote hills a few hours drive west of Bandung lies an ancient megalithic, and rarely visited site at
Gunung Padang. Theories of this fascinating site include being an ancient pyramid much much older than the pyramids at Giza. Some believe the site was once a sacred mandala- a layered pyramid where ancestral rituals once took place. Organic soil samples were extracted used for carbon dating analysis.
According to Indonesian geologist Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, soil samples of the lower layer of this ancient site contains fragments dating back to 16,000-27,000 BC. Quite amazing findings.
Hopefully more research can be done to help bring clarity to a huge mystery. And one wonders what may lie undiscovered in the depths of the Java Sea. Could one imagine this area being the lost site of Atlantis?

The cradle of human civilization may well have been the prehistoric lowlands of the Southeast Asian peninsula, rather than the Middle East.

Anand Krishna, an Indonesian spiritual humanist of ethnic Indian/Sindhi descent writes about the unrecorded Wisdom of Sundaland. Having been one land mass connected to India, there is much to be said about ancient Sunda culture being part of the oldest living Sunda-Sindhu-Saraswati Civilization remaining today. There were three periods of major rising floods which resulted in migrations out of Sundaland to the Indian Subcontinent. Anand Krishna writes about the first migration approx 14,000 years ago with people settling along what became known as the Shindu (Indus) and Saraswati rivers.
“Celebrating Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, Sciences, Art and Music, it is here where people contemplated ancestral heritage, and where later, this entire corpus of ancient knowledge would be systematized and edited by Sage Vyasa for the Mahabharata, who would also call them the Vedas– meaning essential wisdom.”

Below from World History.org:
“No one truly knows the origin of the Vedas although many scholars have differing claims on the subject. It is most commonly believed (though by no means universally accepted) that the Vedic vision came to India by way of nomadic Aryan tribes who migrated there from Central Asia sometime around the 3rd millennium BCE. “Aryan” should be understood as it was by the people of the time, meaning “free” or “noble”, a class of people, not a race, and not Caucasian (as was claimed by 18th- and 19th-century CE Western scholars). “

Anand Krishna continues to write about the second great flood about 11,500 years ago which caused Sundaland to break into fragments. “Before its fragmentation, the entire region was also called Jambudvipa, the huge or great continent. Jambu is a special species of a large sized guava still found on the Indonesian archipelago. The fragments of Sundaland began to be known by different names. The Indian epic Ramayana, composed by Sage Valmiki around 8000 BC, mentions Yavadvipa– Java or Jawa. Yava is often translated as white barley, or sorghum, but it can also mean grain, any type of white grain. This indicates that Yavadvipa was then rich with several types of grain products.”

The third great flood abour 8,500 years ago, Anand Krishna continues to tell of those displaced from Yavadvipa, who moved toward what we now know as Greece. Ancient Greek writers make reference to a kingdom known as Vanga– thought to be part of present Bengal or Bangla-desh. “Desh” refers to “country” or “home-town.” So it is possible to think of Vangadesh also connected culturally to Sundaland.
“The Sanskrit word vanga is believed to be the sibling of the Austric word bonga, meaning the “divine sun.” Thus Vangadesh is “Home of the Sun.” Located in the tropics, the Indonesian archipelago is exposed to sunlight all year round, making the climate ideal for all kinds of vegetations and grains. For this very reason perhaps Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of modern Indian Republic, christened the island of Bali as “the morning of the world.” So it seems clear that ancient ancestors of the Indus
(Shindu-Saraswati Valley) came from Sundaland.

More on: https://www.anandkrishna.org/en/

” I believe that I am the first to argue for Southeast Asia as the source of the elements of Western civilization…that the roots of the great flowering of civilization in the fertile crescent of the ancient Near East lay in the sinking shorelines of Southeast Asia…. and what remains of the Southeast Asia today can only give us a glimpse of the Eden that once was.” — Prof Stephen Oppenheimer ( British Genetricist/Expert DNA Studies, 1947- ) and Author of Eden in the East:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4411.Eden_in_the_East

The Vibrating Sundaland and Mount Meru
People of the region- the modern Indonesian archipelago and the Indian subcontinent, share a popular belief in the legendary mythic Mount Meru as the axis of the center of the world, surrounded by oceans and continents. Located in East Java, is the highest mountain known as Semeru, from Sanskrit Sumeru–
“Holy Mountain”. This stratovolcano is also known as Mahameru meaning “The Great Mountain.”
According to Anand Krishna, legends of Sundaland describe in great detail the “movements” of the great mountain.

Modern day Sundanese are predominantly Muslim with a small percentage of Christians and Buddhists.
The Sundanese have their own language and their culture incorporates layers of ancient beliefs relating to Sunda Wiwitan– an origin myth of Sang Hyang Kersa who created seven deities and a sacred place on Earth. Stories tell of Sangkuriang– an ancient lake, suggesting Sundanese people inhabited this area more then 20,000 years ago. There are many tales that describe the great era of Sunda and their legendary Hindu King Siliwangi or Prabu Siliwangi who finally retreated in the forest transforming himself into a mythical tiger. Throughout Bandung today, there are statues of tigers believed to be its sacred guardians.

In town you can learn more about prehistoric era to Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms and to present day Sunda at the Sri Baduga Museum.

Click Here for more: Sri Baduga Museum

There are certainly loads of mysteries to unravel! – whatever your interest- be it history, food or fashion, or maybe to find the gentle Sundanese flute music, travel to Bandung is so much more comfortable by train these days:

Train travel has come a long way since the early locamotive days to the new High Speed Whoosh!

But the most scenic ride is between Yogyakarta ( Central Java) and Bandung. Riding approx 7 hours in comfortable and reasonable Executive Class is relaxing in clean cars complete with service of coffee and snacks or a Nasi Goreng– fried rice to enjoy while looking out to the scenery.

The scenery with views of the rice paddies and mountains becomes more beautiful about 1,5 hours out of Bandung coming from the East ( Yogyakarta )

But Wo.. the Whoosh now wisks people between Bandung and Jakarta (to the west) in less than an hour! The regular train, if you are not in a hurry, takes about 2 hours 45 minutes- between Bandung City Station and Gambir Station in Central Jakarta.
To ride the Whoosh, you need to make your way to the High Speed Rail Stations. This means from Bandung, taking a frequent feeder train between Bandung City Station ( approx 20 minutes ) to Padalarang Station where you transfer to the Whoosh for a 29-minute ride on to Halim Station which is located to the east of Jakarta- not far from the domestic Halim airport. From Halim station you can taxi to wherever you need to go, or LRT Train into Jakarta Center. The LRT trains in Jakarta are also clean and efficient but the transfer between these trains is alot of walking and not comfortable with alot of luggage. Driving can mean entering the world of Jakarta traffic jams. If wishing to reach Jakarta’s Main Soekarno- Hatta International Airport from Halim Station, count on 1.5 hours or possibly more driving.

The Whoosh train is amazing reaching up to 350km per hour and rides smooth as silk. The only thing is- it is too fast… before I could finish my coffee, it was time to get off!

Buying Whoosh tickets is easy- download the Whoosh App and select trains, times and classes.
Seats shown above are Economy Class for Rp 250K ( approx USD 16 ) There is also a more luxury First Class. Whoosh tickets include the Feeder Train service to Bandung City Station.

Other train tickets with KAI- Kereta Api Indonesia National Railways can be a bit complicated navigating their website or app. But very easy on Tiket.com website or app – Select trains- and off you go on adventures across the wonders of Java and to Sundaland!

Click below to hear the Halo Halo Bandung Song !
with some clips of old Bandung including the Asia Afrika Conference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJp7ppL-bLw

Venturing into Jakarta?

A visit to the Old Town ( Kota Tua) of Batavia is a must… for a little introduction:
CLICK HERE

East Java- Mt Ijen to Bromo and beyond by Train: CLICK HERE

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