Do you know that in Chinese, the word road is generally written and spoken as 马路 (ma lu), which is translated into road for the horse? It's a term that I, who has lived in a city state all his life, could never quite understand until he visited Bandung.
In the modern era where motor vehicles have literally taken over the roads, horses as a mode of public transportation still exist in the outskirts of Bandung city.
It's fascinating to have them right in front of you as i could usually only see such sights in drama serials or read about them in novels of a backdrop dating back to pre-motorised period.
Spare me those touristy horse-drawn carriages in historical cities like London etc as they served mainly the travellers out to do something different. Here in Bandung, these horses were there basically to serve the domestic market; the locals.
All the pictures taken so far were from the car that we have rented for our activities to explore the surroundings of Bandung; hence, the relatively unclear / tinted photographs.
I did attempt to unwind the window and the smell of horse poo literally exploded right in my face! Well, i guess some sacrifices have to be made but my sisters and mum at the back of the car were literally shooting sharp, deadly stares at me. Oh well, so much about experiencing the local life.
Anyway, i think the scenes of horses trotting on the roads might not be there in the near future as they simply couldn't catch up with the speed of mechanical cars and as you can see from the above photo, a traffic bottleneck was created in a single-lane road. Sad yet that's the unfortunate, harsh reality of life.
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For the itinerary of my five days, four nights inaugural trip to Bandung, please click here.
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