Alun-Alun Malang (the city square) about 15 km from the airport, a popular gathering place as well as an ideal base for exploring the rest of Malang.
Every weekend, the local government of Malang City provides the free-ride Macito (Malang City Tour) bus, an open-roof double-decker that will take you around a series of heritage and tourist attractions.
As a strategic starting point for visiting Mount Bromo, Malang is located between apple, tea, and coffee plantations, waterfalls, and tropical forests.
With a rich history dating back as far as the eighth century, it’s a city of many names, including ‘Parijs van Oost-Java’ (Paris of East Java), where Dutch plantation masters would retire in their grand colonial houses.
Malang is also known as College Town (it’s home to 62 colleges and universities), the Arema FC Homeland (Malang’s football club Arema is based in the city).
City of Flowers and City of Tourism. The latter is well earned: there are more than 100 tourist spots spread across the greater Malang area, not to mention pretty city parks and an abundance of tempting eateries.
Start your first day to visiting Kampung Tridi (Tridi Village), near the city square. It is an area filled with Instagram moments, the alleys are cleverly painted to resemble a fish pond, a flowing river with a bridge, and a ravine stream, making you believe for a second that a big river is ahead. The walls come alive with their 3D murals.
The village is full of selfie spots to upload to Instagram: the small streets of the village are painted to resemble fish ponds, rivers with water, and bridges, making you instantly think there is a big river in the middle of the road. The walls of this village are filled with interesting three-dimensional paintings.
Test your nerves by walking across the glass-floor bridge over the Brantas River, which connects Kampung Tridi to Kampung Warna Warni Jodipan (Jodipan Colorful Village) in Blimbing subdistrict. Inside Kampung Warna-Warni, is a rainbow of color from which nothing seems to have escaped, from roofs to walls, stairs to verandahs.
After five-minutes drive will take you to Kampung Biru, which like Morocco’s famous Chefchaouen, is a vision of blue hues, inspired by the uniforms of the Arema football players.
If you want to satisfy your appetite in the afternoon, maybe you can consider an early dinner of Malang’s famous, ubiquitous black beef soup, knows as rawon.
Served with steamed rice, this special dish features black nuts (locally known as keluak or pangeum edule) as the man seasoning. Eaten with warm white rice.
To warm your body, you can try angsle, a warm drink containing a mixture of plain bread, petulo, green bean porridge and pearl porridge, smothered in coconut milk sauce cooked with pandan leaves.
After dark, you can spend your time at Malang Night Paradise, which is still in the same complex as Hawai Waterpark Malang, an entertainment place for the whole family with a variety of bright and vibrant rides.
Beyond the city
Bukit Paralayang Hill, which is located in Gunung Banyak (Banyak Mountain), Batu, is only an hour’s drive from Malang. The fresh breeze of the mountains will fill your lungs, which is handy as the paragliding here takes your breath away !
Batu is also a theme park heaven. There are many jostling for your attention, and some of them open only at night. Among the many are Lampion Garden, Infinity World, Rumah Terbalik (Reverse House), Dino Park, Batu Secret Zoo, Museum Angkut ( a transport museum with the different theme parks inside), and Bagong Adventure Museum Tubuh ( a human anatomy museum). Fans of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit should head to Batu Flower Garden, part of Coban Rais, Batu, to take selfies in Hobbit Village.
There are always interesting entertainment places in every corner of Batu City.
Equipped with a ferris wheel, dancing fountain, and beautifully landscaped gardens, Alun-alun Batu is with its Ferris wheel, dancing fountain, and well-manicured gardens, which is never quite a day or night. You can soak up the skyline views from the Ferris wheel, or taste the famous sweet sticky ketan susu (glutinous rice pudding with different toppings) from one of the eventing food stails, which are so good they attract huge queues !!
Malang City and its surroundings are certainly the whole packages when it comes to the fantastic family vacations.
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