Malang

Malang sits at around four hundred and fifty metres in a basin ringed by volcanoes, which gives it a climate the Dutch liked enough to develop it as a colonial hill town - Thomas Karsten planned the garden suburbs of Ijen and Oro-oro Dowo in the 1920s and 1930s, and the broad tree-lined boulevards and Indies villas survive as one of the better preserved pieces of colonial urban planning in Indonesia. It is now a university city with a large student population, which shapes the food and the cheap end of the economy. Kampung Warna-Warni Jodipan, a riverside neighbourhood painted in blocks of colour from 2016 as a student project, turned a slum-clearance candidate into a paying attraction. Malang is also the base for Bromo and for the East Javanese temples.

What you actually see

• Karsten's garden suburbs - the 1920s planned boulevards and Indies villas.
• A painted riverside kampung - Jodipan, colour-blocked from 2016 as a student project.
• A student city - the food, markets and cheap end shaped by the universities.
• A Bromo base - the usual departure point for the Tengger caldera.

When to go

May to September. Two days.

Honest expectations

The painted kampung is a working neighbourhood charging entry - opinions on it vary. Traffic is heavy. Colonial buildings are privately owned and seen from outside.

Nearby

Bromo is east; Batu is north-west; Singosari temple is north.