Rinto Firmawan
2 TERBAIK ESSAY PKTI
(Mahasiswa S1 IESP FEB UNPAD)
Welcome to West Java Province, the place where beauty, noble, freshness, and friendliness mixed. Great place to live, to share, to work, and to love. Well known as Sunda land, West Java is dominated by sundanese who has warm, tender, and good looking appearance. Surrounded by gorgeous mountainous, green forest, fantastic ocean, white sands of the beach, fresh atmosphere, fabulous tea plantation, and glamorous city make West Java is the perfect place to enjoy. Bandung itself as the capital city has the nickname “Parijs van Java” because it was well known by the Dutch as the perfect place to shopping and hangout. The early history of Sunda land become the favourite menu of the trip. Visiting the museum, national park, or related mountain will help us to find out the history of Parahyangan or the land of Gods. Become one of the richest multiculture in Indonesia, West Java has several arts and performances. Angklung and Jaipong become the most popular local entertainment. West Java also has large number of flora and fauna ecosystem. Kebun raya Cibodas is the best place to see them. How about the food ? West Java has a large number of variety of food. Nasi timbel is one of the perfect meal for sundanese even for tourist. The beauty of West Java is no doubt. Some said it is heaven on earth.
Having polite and warm heart makes sundanese well known as its friendliness. Tender in speaking words will pleasant the tourists. Sharing works together is the basic principles of sundanese. Sundanese will not say bad things directly. Sundanese rather use another expression to keep the other feeling. By those positive points of sundanese, I believe that tourism in West Java is promising.
West Java is geographically perfect for recreation. Gunung Tangkuban Parahu where located in Lembang is the symbol of local legend, Sangkuriang. It has unique shape just like boat up-side down. Fantastic view of tea plantation and the fresh air of Lembang is fabulous. Pantai Pangandaran is popular among people in West Java even in Inonesia. A few kilometers deep inside beach we can find a fantastic river which has clear water and stilling basin named Citumang. We can swimming and jump from a small 2 meters waterfall. Variation between beach and mountain make this province has a bunch of sport activity. Perfect wave of the sea for surfing and awesome view of the mountain are the example of the high level of entertainment. Southern beach of West Java directly facing Hindian Ocean which has great wave for surfer arround the world. Although West Java is known as high density province, the air is relatively clear compared to another region in Java. Ciwidey could be the coldest place in West Java. Gunung Patuha which stand height arround 3 kilometers give the tourist cold feeling in tropical place. Situ Patengan lake is also awesome. It is a good place for fishing or camping. Bandung which is located in the center of West Java is the third largest city in Indonesia after Jakarta and Surabaya. The beauty of Bandung spread all across the world especially for the dutch. Jalan Braga which has unique architecture is more look like European street. It has restaurant, book store, gallery, and another place to enjoy. This is why Dutch called Bandung is Paris in Java.
Parahyangan, another word for the home of the Gods. Represented by rich people tale. One of them is the legend of Sangkuriang. Once upon a time Sangkuriang is ordered by Dayang Sumbi to build a dam and a ship in only a night. He wanted to marry Dayang Sumbi who exactly is his mother. But he failed of course. The ship was kicked up-side down turned into Tangkuban Parahu Mountain and the dry dam become Bandung. This story become an atractive thing for tourism to be learned. To find out more that legend, we could directly visit Tangkuban Parahu.
Wayang golek adapted from ancient puppet tells us about the old legend or the recent issues that become a humor show. Wayang Golek moved by their director and narrator, Dalang. Angklung which has travelled arround the world is originally found in West Java. This kind of instrument can play several modern music in such a traditional taste. Angklung made from bamboo. One angklung represent one single spesific sound. In other hand, we have to use several angklung to play music.
West Java is rich in flora and fauna. Although this province has grew become an industrial era but in some area we can find the beauty of animal and plant. Taman Safari in Bogor provide a real life adventure of wildlife. We just have to sit in the car and see directly the wildlife. Taman Hutan Raya Ir. H. Djuanda or simply Dago Pakar is the nearest forest from Bandung. We can jogging around and enjoying the nature. This park also has two cave, Japanese and Dutch. Both of them were used during the second world war as the hiding place. Maribaya which is located in the north provide several kind of animal and plant. We can see directly monkeys hanging arround.
The major food in West Java is Sundanese food of course. The characteristic is spicy. Usually it is accompanied by salad and some sauce named lalab and sambel. Some of the sundanese like to consume smelly food just like Jengkol. The complete package of sundanese food is called nasi timbel. It contains wraped rice and another food in one pack. I guess Lotek is the most suitable meal for western tourist. It is some kind of salad flavoured by peanut jam.
Not all tourism in West Java can be exported. Perhaps, music instruments and traditional clothes can be sent abroad to promote it to foreigners. But, can we export forest and animals ? The answer is we have to show them the fantastic thing about West Java in modern way, Internet.
So, how do we promote West Java tourisme to the world wide ? Just like I do. I like to capture the beauty of West Java with camera and publish it in in my blog. I visit them, capture it, add some caption and share it in my facebook, twitter, or blog. People may be do not pay attention much on website but people will take care of their social media. Once we upload it, people will notice.
Recall, website about West Java just like westjavatourism.info only wait for people to access it. The solution is we can using social media. Social media just like facebook, twitter, tumblr, blogspot, wordpress, and blackberry messenger are powerfull tools to promote our tourisme. It works in a chain reaction. Promoting tourism is not one people job. We have to involve such a huge people. How does it work exactly ? Social media has tools named repost, share in facebook, tweet in twitter, reblog in tumblr, and etc. Once we upload it, it will appears in others people homepage. Then people who interested will repost it and will be show up again in another people homepage. As time goes by, we have automatically spread our tourism through world wide. The example of my work can be viewed in http://riintoo.tumblr.com . It contains several beauty of West Java especially my neighborhood.
KANDANK ILMU 