Indonesia Landmark: Bogor Botanical Garden

The Bogor Botanical Garden is an Indonesia landmark for many years. No, it does not have a hotel; it has a palace and is not in Bali. It showcases about 15 000 plants, a stunning variety of species from this part of the world and also transplanted ones. Research is also a big factor in this beautiful park. 

Friends of ours traveled to Indonesia and one of their requests was visiting the fabled Bogor Botanical Garden. It is located only about a one hour drive out of the capital Jakarta and also on the way to our Villa Tunas Alam Mutiara in Puncak, close to the Safari Park,  therefore it made sense to do these two stops in succession. I have not been there for many years and to my surprise, it still looked very much the way I remembered it. 

Traffic out of the freeway, around the park that is situated smack in the middle of Bogor, was heavy. We finally made it to the main gate, paid our tickets and drove in. First, we took a tour by car to get a general idea of the location, and then we parked and continued on food to be able to look more closely at interesting things. 

Indonesia Landmark with a Royal Palace too

The most important feature of this Indonesia landmark is, of course, the adjacent royal palace, today a guest house for state visits and visitors. Our president Joko Widodo is using this location more and more for this purpose to show off Indonesia’s history and artifacts. It houses a herd of deer in its ground too. This palace can be visited under strict conditions: one has to file a request with the administration a few days beforehand; if it is approved, one can enter. Make sure you observe the dress code and behavior rules. 

A Celebrated Botanical Garden

It was founded in 1817 by the then government of the Dutch East Indies and is the oldest in South East Asia and has served as a major research center for agriculture and horticulture since then. For example, this garden introduced the Cinchona tree to Java in 1854 and soon after the island became the biggest producer of quinine bark for malaria treatment. Wikipedia

• If you are lucky and visit at the right time, you might be able to see and smell one of the five Amorphophallus titanium, originating from South Sumatra. This foul-smelling huge single flower is very rare and to see it bloom is not easy. 
• In 1866 two trees of different Indonesian species were planted side by side. One is a Meranti (Shorea leprosula Miq) and the other is a Banyan tree (Ficus albipila Miq King). The two of them look similar in stature and are harmoniously growing side by side the locals call them the Couple Trees or Pohon Jodoh.
• The large collection of trees is also home to 50 varieties of birds and huge numbers of bats roosting high up in the canopies. 

Hotels Far from Bali

If you stay in Jakarta, you might choose one that we visited. This luxury stay, that Saudi King called his home when visiting Jakarta. This business hotel is down town. And this one is outside the city in a new satellite town.

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