Paintings - Bandung

My grand aunt who was recently here for a holiday told me that she wanted to get a few paintings. Coincidentally, a week earlier, my housemate had brought his guests to a place south of Bandung and they bought ten rolls of paintings.

So, last Saturday, I told Yanto (my housemate's driver) to take us to the exact same place. We left Jakarta at 7.00 am and two and a half hours later, we arrived at a village south of Bandung city.

The first stop was at the same shop where Yanto had taken my housemate's guests a week before. My grand aunt was looking for paintings of paddy fields and flowers.

"Udah gak ada ibuk. Minggu lalu udah di beli semua sama tamu dari Malaysia ."

Ok. I think I knew who the "culprit" was.

So, off we went to another shop nearby. The shopkeeper was nowhere to be seen. We wandered around the shop. Not many paintings on display. Certainly none which my grand aunt was looking for.

Suddenly a middle-aged man literally sprung out of nowhere. Well actually, he was lying behind a desk.

We told him the types of paintings we wanted.

"Ada banyak. Di rumah saya ada banyak. Yang pemandangan sawah padi. Yang bunga. Ada banyak di rumah. Ayo kita ke sana aja ya?"

"Jauh gak?" I asked.

"Gak. Di depan itu aja" while pointing to a narrow road nearby.

"Boleh jalan kaki?" I asked.

To which he did not reply and he positioned himself next to the front door of the car. Well, ok. I took that for a no.

Bad feeling number 1 - tadi kata tak jauh, tapi kena naik kereta.

So he sat himself in the front seat of our car navigating Yanto to his house. 5 minutes driving through the narrow road, he asked Yanto to stop.

And I thought we had stopped right in front of his house. But no. We had to walk further into the narrow lanes between the houses.

We finally reached his house. We were greeted by a 30-something lady who we thought was the old man's wife. Then came out a 30-something man.

"Ini suami saya. Dia pelukis" said the lady.

"Terus ini rumah siapa? Bukan rumah bapak?" I asked the old man.

"Bukan, rumah saya di depan sono." he said while pointing to somewhere.

Bad feeling number 2 - kata nak gi rumah dia. Tapi di bawaknya ke rumah orang lain.

So we told the younger man we wanted paintings of paddy fields and flowers. He said he has many of those paintings and immediately excused himself and went off on a motorbike.

Baffled, I asked the wife. She said the husband went to the "bengkel" to get the paintings.

Bad feeling number 3 - tadi kata ada banyak kat rumah. Kalo ada banyak kat bengkel, baik pergi bengkel je tadi.

To cut the story short, after waiting for almost 10 minutes, the husband came back with only 5 rolls of paintings. Ini le yang dia kata banyak tadi. Apa lagi, instantly my blood went upstairs but managed to calm myself down. Didn't want to make a scene. Afterall, we were in their territory.

We excused ourselves. Truly disappointed and felt cheated. I had a feeling that the guy didn't have a bengkel. The 10 minutes he was gone I suspect he went scouting for those paintings from nearby shops.

So, Yanto took us to another shop, by the main road. It was there that my grand aunt found what she was looking for. Eventually she bought 5 rolls of paintings at very, very, very low price.

In Malaysia, you wouldn't be able to get the paintings at the price offered by the shops here. Once you frame them, I assure you the paintings would look like really expensive work of art.