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Published: September 15th 2005
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Bogor Botanical Garden
Beautiful huge palm trees with school girls in front Our idea had been to avoid staying in Jakarta a second time, the first time we only changed planes at the airport. The cancellation of our morning flight from Medan and the subsequent late arrival seemed to have this plan go up in smoke, in fact we arrived at Jakarta airport only around 9 p.m. But we had found out that there were direct buses from the airport to
Bogor and we decided to give it a try. If there were no more buses, we could always get to the centre and find a hotel there. As very often occurs in Indonesia, information was hard to come by, but in the end we found the right place and were glad to hear that the bus service was still in operation. We even met two students who were driving to Bogor as well (the city has a famous agricultural university), who were really nice and helpful. As the city is only 60km south of Jakarta and the road is in very good condition, it took us only an hour to arrive in Bogor, which can be considered as a posh, cool and green suburb of Jakarta. One of the young men went
In the Orchid House
Klaudia loves orchids, quite visibly into the same direction as us and helped us find the right bemo to the hotel. As the place was quite small (only 10 rooms) we were afraid that it would already be closed when we arrived there at 10:30. But to our big surprise there was still a receptionist working, and another man rushed out upon our arrival and immediately took care of our luggage. The hotel was excellent for the price we paid (EUR 8), it was actually a large villa turned hotel, with a nice garden, the breakfast (included in the price) was copious, there was a toaster and hot water, toast bread, tea and coffee, different sorts of jam and even chocolate spread, and we could eat and drink as much as we wanted. Furthermore it was served in the former saloon, with beautiful furniture, chandeliers and exquisite paintings on the walls. The Wisma Gunung Gede was one of the best hotels of our whole trip and we actually regretted that we stayed only two nights. A bit of affordable luxury does you really good on such a long journey!
Next day was more or less reserved for a visit to Bogor's
Botanical Garden, practically
Orchids
Selection of tropical beauties the city's only sight, but still we were glad to be there and not in Jakarta, as we rather shunned the big Asian cities (Hong Kong being the notable exception). A side entrance was very close to our hotel, and we immediately hit upon the Orchid House for which we had to pay an additional RP 1,000. Klaudia loves orchids, especially the smaller specimens, so both her and Stephan took one picture after the other, making full use of the new camera's macro setting. The garden dominates the centre of Bogor, covering an immense 87ha and was allegedly established by Sir Stamford Raffles, who was a governor-general of Java after he set up a British trading station in Singapore. When we were walking to the ponds with the giant water lilies, we saw many secondary school students who were obviously on an instructive excursion. Soon we detected a fascinating tree with light red blossoms, a big cluster of which formed a huge ball when fully abloom and reminded us of Easter eggs when still in buds. We closely examined this peculiar tree for a long while, when all of a sudden between 20 and 30 pupils (most of them girls)
Fountain
Refreshing water body in the heat came towards us with notebooks and pens in their hands, asking us for a comment and a signature. We felt like film stars or famous singers granting plenty of autographs! The kids were sweet, very well-bred and polite, breezy and shy at the same time. There was much for us to admire, huge trees, some with roots growing down into the soil and by and by forming new trunks that way; different kinds of bamboo and giant ferns, and a newly-wed couple who had their picture taken sitting by the river surrounded by rubbish, absolutely romantic! One of the things which quite disturbed us inside the Botanical Garden was the filthy river flowing through the compound and what seemed to be a waste disposal site right in the middle. The other unpleasant thing was the presence of many vehicles, everybody could enter by car or motorbike as long as they paid a small additional fee. We left when it started to rain (a usual thing, it seems, Bogor claims the highest rainfall in Java) and took shelter in a shopping mall that looked like an Indian bazaar. As we are addicted to the internet - the travel diary adds to
Peculiar tree
With wonderful flowers and blossoms that reminded us of Easter eggs this considerably - we tried to find an internet cafe near our hotel. We had seen one in the glamorous hotel next to ours, but this place was closed. So we went inside to ask and got the address of another one, plus a detailed explanation of the way, from the very helpful receptionist. On the map he had drawn for us it did not seem very far, and as it was not yet late, we decided to walk there. Once again we stumbled across one characteristic of Asian cities - pavements. Indian cities hardly have this convenience and if they do they are not meant for pedestrians but for shop holders or restaurants who gladly use the additional space to spill the merchandise or chairs out. We could observe a similar phenomenon in Singapore's Little India, though to a lesser extent, but still forcing pedestrians into the streets at regular intervals. Indonesian cities claim a different phenomenon - interrupted pavements. You happily walk beside the heavy traffic, glad about the separated space, when the pavement all of a sudden ends for no particular reason and you find yourself right on the street looking for a hideaway. Luckily we arrived
Klaudia the star
They all wanted us to write a small comment and to give our signature safely at the internet cafe which by the way was rather far and we almost had given up several times in between, but when we asked somebody they always sent us further, so we did not give up.
Next morning, we took a bus to Bandung, a town famous for several buildings in the so-called Tropical Art-Deco style, and furthermore it was perfectly on our way. We were looking forward to this bus-ride as it passes over the Puncak Pass and is reputedly very picturesque. We crossed actually really nice landscape, plenty of tea plantations looking quite misty in the further distance and woods of tree fern and pine trees. It seemed we were in the middle of another hill station, the villages on the way were very touristy, with a lot of hotels, mostly of the upper range, posh factory outlets and restaurants and a multitude of souvenir shops. Due to the altitude, rice was not cultivated but instead all kinds of vegetables and the fruit stalls sold a big variety of fruit, among them the exotic-looking snake fruit (called so for its peculiar skin). On the way downhill we passed also many villages with traditional houses topped
Fiery red flower
Exotic specimen with the texture of velvet by roofs with glazed tiles or quite modern mosques which looked much more like a traditional Indonesian house, especially the roof. On the other side of the hill was the region of the production of rocking horse, the road was lined with shops selling these toys in the form of horses but also zebras and even giraffes in all imaginable colours. When we arrived in Bandung, we were no longer sure whether we should really stay and look for some houses that were very difficult to find, or if we should not go on to Yogyakarta. We found out that there were still trains running to our destination, and as the man in the tourist information was very nice and offered a rather good hotel at reasonable prices, the decision was reached. We booked the hotel with a free pick-up service at the Yogyakarta train station at 1 o'clock in the night, and walked around for some time to kill the time until the train's departure.
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Charlie
non-member comment
Nice Writing
Hi, Nice report / blog entry. I enjoy reading it very well. And I'm glad you are having a good time in Asia, esp. in Indonesia. Keep up the good work.