Frenchman markets new map of Bandung

By Kafil Yamin

BANDUNG (JP): Marc Le Moullec knows Bandung. The young Frenchman has been driving his 1971 Honda motorcycle through the streets of the West Java capital for the last four years. The result: a reliable and user-friendly city map.

For those of us who do not know the ins and outs of the city, Bandung's seemingly countless one-way streets can drive people's internal compasses out of whack, even for many of more than 1.8 million residents living there. Your destination may be only a couple of short kilometers away, but infuriating one-way signs may force you to roam many times that distance before you can get there.

Le Moullec's map can make driving for the uninitiated a lot easier because it marks the directions of these one-way roads. In fact, no other map of Bandung does this.

The map also includes the city's latest developments, names of roads in new housing complexes, new offices and new alleys etc. The extent of the detail makes Le Moullec's product the most comprehensive map of the city.

Bandung is fast becoming more confusing even for Bandungers themselves. Developers name new housing complexes without consideration. "Developers name their housing complexes after the name of an area that is actually far away from the development. It causes a great deal of confusion," said Haryoto Kunto, who was dubbed Kuncen Bandung (Bandung's elderly resident) during the launch of Le Moullec's map here on Aug. 31.

One developer named his housing complex Cipaganti Graha -- a name that would make most Bandungers think that it is situated somewhere near Jl. Cipaganti in the heart of Bandung. But that is not the case. It is actually located 35 kilometers away from the street.

Such confusion prompted Le Moullec to produce a map of his own after he found himself lost in a corner of Bandung four years ago. The map he was using then offered him next to no assistance.

Following this experience, Le Moullec decided to get a feel for the city: he drove along canals, broke through bushes, traced ascending and descending paths and learned which streets went in only one direction.

A look at Le Moullec's map would make most of Bandung's elderly residents realize just how little they know about the area's new developments. But many of them shrug it off. "Businessmen name their projects what they like. The names have no cultural link with the original names of the places," said Haryoto Kunto.

Ask a Bandung taxi driver to take you to a place such as Istana Regency, Kumala Garden, Mega Raya or Melong Green Garden and most would ask you for directions before they would even know which way to start driving.

Sundanese have their own way of naming places. They typically use ci (water) in names like Cicendo, Cihampelas, Cicaheum and Cimindi, or babakan (kampong) such as in Babakan Tarogong. They also identify a flat plot of land with ranca, like Ranca Ekek, Ranca Bentang and Ranca Balong.

"When Sundanese people hear of a place named ranca, they will assume that it is in a flat area," Kunto explained. "The current property businessmen, however, instead favor prestige and commercial gain when naming their projects," he added.

Le Moullec and his team are poised to market his new map to distant places, even to Europe, in a move that has made Bandung officials happy because of potential new exposure for the city.

The French adventurist next plans to produce a map of Surabaya, the East Java capital. "I think I can do it in a year," he said, adding that the city was much less complicated than Bandung, though much bigger.

But why did a Frenchman do this project? Why not a local? An easy question to ask, but not easy to answer. Indonesia's oral culture can help explain this. "When you get lost in Indonesian cities, you can ask around and people will be happy to point you in the right direction," said Le Moullec.

"You can do the same thing in European cities, but most people do it hesitantly. People are usually in a rush, so you can feel pretty uncomfortable if you ask too many times."

Such a strong oral culture here can be seen from the way taxi drivers get around while transporting their passengers. Most don't have a city map with them. If a driver doesn't know where the place a passenger wants to go, he would rather ask street vendors, local residents or fellow drivers for directions if the passenger also doesn't know. Such a practice, though, is time consuming and often inconvenient.

Some foreigners complain of being taken to wrong places by taxis, especially when a problem with communicating occurs. This could be avoided if drivers are equipped with reliable maps.

Le Moullec is not the only foreigner to produce map of an Indonesian city. Previously, Gunther W. Holtrof, a German, produced a map of Jakarta that has been quite popular for its comprehensiveness.

Le Moullec himself is a man of adventure. Born in Paris 32 years ago, he has been visiting distant places since he was 20 years old -- the motivation possibly stemming from the fact that his father was a sailor.

Sumatra's eastern waters and the island of Nias were his first places of wander.

Fascinated by their natural beauty, he returned to France to study Indonesian at the Institut National de Langue et Civilization Orientale (INALCO) in Paris. He also studied ethnology and anthropology in Sorbonne.

He was raised and has studied to be a traveler and has visited isolated areas in Africa, Asia and the Pacific.

Indonesia, though, has impressed him since he was a teenager. "In my imagination, the Indonesian archipelago was like a magic intersection in the world to me. Navigators departing from the South and from the North meet there, an archipelago with 13,000 islands," he recalled.

Now, he said he was happy to have created a map of a place he had long hoped to visit. But Le Moullec attributed his success to his Indonesian team.

"Without the help of my Bandung friends, this would have been impossible," he said.

He won't get lost anymore in Bandung. Even if he doesn't have his map with him, he has adjusted himself to the oral culture enough to be able to easily ask questions -- something made easier by the fact that he has studied Sundanese at Padjadjaran University.

But one of the things that makes him most pleased is that new visitors to Bandung will be less likely to get lost if they arm themselves with his map.