Claudia the Panda

You just got to love me! Cause I am going to share my final bit about Bandung and than I will give you a whole list of Must Go when you are there. Save on the number of days trying to figure out where to go in Bandung with this post! Get ready to shop till you drop lah!

First, let me finish sharing and recording my trip with Abang to Bandung.

On the third day, also can consider as our last, since we had to reach the airport at 11am the following day, so no shopping nor visit was possible (one day wasted lah!), we decided to pamper ourselves with a massage. Not knowing where to find, we checked with the hotel lobby and there’s brochure for Aroma Theraphy Health Beauty Spa at Bandung Trade Centre (BTC). (No I didn’t spell Theraphy wrongly. That’s the name of the shop.) Since there’s free shutter service from our hotel to BTC, we decided to go take a look see.

Bandung Trade Centre (BTC) is this big shopping mall with different types of shops selling mostly bags, clothes, home decor, accessories and food. However the things there might be priced higher than at factory outlets. BUT! You can try to bargain for cheaper price here. We spent about an hour or so walking and scanning through the shops and end up with zero purchase. So this is not a recommended spot from me. The only thing we accomplished there was the 90 minutes scrubbing massage at Rp.150,000.

The place may seem rather run down if you have a high standard to meet. But its clean and has the basic set-ups for a session of relaxation. The burning aromatherapy oil during the session added comfort to my slight discomfort. The lady massaging me wasn’t as skilled as those I experienced while in Bangkok. And when I thought nothing bad could happen lah for such session. But I was so wrong lah! When she was done with the massaging and going for the scrub, I tell you! I didn’t know how to react! The scrub was very rough and she uses her horse power to scrub my skin! I couldn’t tell her to lighten her pressure as she didn’t understand English. So I bared with the pain till she told me to turn around. That’s when I asked Abang (next to me having the same session) to translate my request. Don’t they know they shouldn’t use pressure when scrubbing? Gosh!

After the session, I asked if Abang enjoyed his massage and scrub. He said it was alright. So I guess its just my luck to have gotten the horse-power-scrubber!

Recharged and relaxed. And time to continue our haunt for factory outlets! And this is where we discovered we had wasted our entire day yesterday walking round aimlessly and ended up visiting the wrong places! I don’t have photos of the outlets we went on the third day, as we were too busy spending our remaining money and filling our shopping bags! (Find the list of recommended outlets at end of this post.) That day was our most satisfied day out during our 4D3N stay in Bandung.

With all the loots and shopping, we went back to our hotel to dump them off our shoulder before we head out for dinner. Lazy and too tired to go far, we had our dinner at a fish restaurant opposite Grand Setiabudi Hotel & Apartment.

Ikan Pesmol Cianjur sells variety of fishes, some choices of chicken and vegetables. As the name of the restaurant suggests, its specialties are their fish. So we ordered a fried fish with special chili mix, fried tahu with (i think) the same chili mix, long beans and a small plate of chili mix that tastes almost like those on our fish and tahu (which we mistook as something else when ordering). Basically that meal was like rice with sides and lots of chili mix! But I love it! Me is Spicy Queen! Dinner that night was good, but I preferred the dishes from the dinner the night before.

So that’s the end of our trip at Bandung. We left for the airport after breakfast the following morning and spent an hour there waiting for our flight. One thing to note when you’re there, remember to leave some Rp. for the Customer Service Charge at the airport!

We didn’t know that we had to pay a tax for flight back to Singapore! We thought everything was included in our AirAsia ticket price. Lucky Abang had some spare Rp. left and was just enough to pay for the two of us (Rp.75000 each). The airport is very small and the things there are very expensive! Its double or triple the price. So do all your shopping before you head to the airport. When you arrive at the airport, just go straight to check-in your luggage and get your ticket. After that, proceed up to the waiting area where there are seats and air-con.

Before boarding, don’t forget to take some shots of yourself with the plane behind you! LOL!

Okay… so here’s the part where you’ve been waiting for! Where to go in Bandung? And what to expect from there?

Ladies and gentleman! Presenting, our loots from Bandung!

Not included in photos are the two big bags of tidbits we bought. Alright lah. Not very much. We just spread them all out to make it seems like we’ve bought a lot of stuff! Wahahahaha!!! Click on the photo above for a closer look! The plastic bags above the loots are all the places we went and bought stuff from. So where are the MUST GO factory outlets in Bandung?

1. Rumah Mode
   Located at 41 Jl. Dr. Setiabudi. You can find more about this place here.
2. Heritage
   Located at 64 Jl R.E Martadinata
3. Cascade
   Located right next to Heritage. The two of them are linked.
4. The Summit
   Located at 61 Jl R.E Martadinata
5. Jalan Cihampelas

Factory outlet 1 is nearby our hotel, Grand Setiabudi Hotel & Apartment. Outlet 2 to 4 are next to one another! This is where you can shop till you drop!!! The quality of the products sold here are much better than the rest of the outlets we visited during the trip. The last place is the long stretch of road I shared about for our second day at Bandung. Buy your snacks and jeans here. For (I think) a complete list of all the factory outlets, you can find it here. You can also find some reviews of the shopping places in Bandung here.

So now that you know about these hidden locations, you can go ahead and plan for your shopping trip! Bookmark this page! You’ll never know when it will come in useful! Happy Shopping!!!

Read my other two posts about Bandung here and here.