Bandung

Gedung Merdeka, Braga and the craters of Tangkuban Perahu

Two days suit Bandung. Begin at the alun-alun and the Masjid Raya, see the Museum of the Asia-Africa Conference in Gedung Merdeka and the art deco Savoy Homann, and walk Jalan Braga; next day drive north through Lembang to the steaming craters of Tangkuban Perahu, early before the clouds roll in.

Day one: colonial Bandung. Begin at the alun-alun and the twin minarets of the Masjid Raya, then walk to Gedung Merdeka, where the Museum of the Asia-Africa Conference sets out the story of 1955 with photographs and the original hall. Next door, look into the lobby of the Savoy Homann, a streamlined art deco hotel. Spend late morning on Jalan Braga, then lunch on Sundanese nasi timbel. In the afternoon take a car to Gedung Sate and its museum, and walk across to the green lawns of Lapangan Gasibu. End the day at Saung Angklung Udjo for the late-afternoon bamboo music show.

Day two: north into the hills. Leave by 7 am for Tangkuban Perahu, before the clouds and the tour buses arrive. Walk the rim of Kawah Ratu, then go down to the hot-water pools at Ciater or stop at the tea gardens on the way. On the way back, pause in Lembang for corn, strawberries and bandrek. Evening is for Dago: a café on the slopes, a look at Villa Isola's white curved facade on the university campus, and dinner along Jalan Dago.

Day three: south to Ciwidey. Drive about two hours to Kawah Putih, a pale crater lake whose colour shifts with the weather, then the Rancabali tea estate and Situ Patenggang lake before heading back for the distros of Jalan Trunojoyo.

Nasi timbel, batagor and other Sundanese food in Bandung

Sundanese food in Bandung is fresh, sour and green. A proper meal is nasi timbel, rice in banana leaf with fried chicken or gourami, sambal and raw lalapan vegetables; snack on batagor, fried fish dumplings, and surabi pancakes, and warm up on cool evenings with bandrek, a hot ginger drink.

Karedok is the raw-vegetable cousin of gado-gado, dressed in peanut sauce with kencur root, and mie kocok is a beef noodle soup with cow's foot tendon, best on a cool evening.

The city's real genius is the snack. Batagor, fried fish-and-tapioca dumplings under peanut sauce, started here, as did its steamed cousin siomay. Pancake-like surabi are cooked in clay moulds over charcoal and topped with coconut, oncom or, in the modern style, chocolate and cheese. Students live on seblak, wet crackers stir-fried with chilli and kencur, and cireng, chewy fried tapioca.

For sweets, peuyeum is fermented cassava sold in bunches along the roads out of town, and colenak grills it with palm sugar and coconut. Warm drinks suit the climate: bandrek with ginger, and bajigur with coconut milk.

Street carts and warung cluster around the alun-alun, near the campuses and along Jalan Dago in the evening. Night markets and food courts in the Paskal area gather dozens of vendors under one roof. Higher-end restaurants concentrate in Dago and the hills above it, with views over the city lights.

Schoemaker, Aalbers and Bandung's interwar art deco buildings

Bandung kept more interwar architecture than almost any city, much still in daily use: European modernism adapted for heat and rain, with deep eaves and Javanese ornament. Look for the work of Wolff Schoemaker, including the curving Villa Isola, and Albert Aalbers's Savoy Homann on Jalan Asia Afrika.

Wolff Schoemaker, born in Central Java and trained in the Netherlands, is the name to know. His work includes Villa Isola, the gleaming white house with curved wings now used by the Indonesia University of Education in the north, and the remodelled Gedung Merdeka. Albert Aalbers designed the Savoy Homann's streamlined frontage on Jalan Asia Afrika, all horizontal bands and rounded corners. Henri Maclaine Pont built the ITB campus halls with roofs drawn from Minangkabau and Sundanese houses, a deliberate break with purely European models.

Gedung Sate, designed by J. Gerber, belongs to the same period but mixes styles, with a roof pinnacle topped by six ornaments shaped like satay skewers. It was meant to be part of a government quarter for the planned colonial capital.

To see it all, walk from the station along Jalan Braga to Asia Afrika in the morning, when light falls on the facades. Then take a car north up Jalan Dago and Setiabudi to Villa Isola. The Bosscha Observatory in Lembang, from the same years, has had only limited public access lately, so check before going up.