A Day out to Bogor

First and foremost, HUGE apologies for not updating this blog in over two weeks. I have been extremely busy with work and settling into Jakarta. It is still no excuse though and I have a bit of slack to pick up. I will give you and update as to all the latest goings-on with me but for now let me tell you about Bogor.

Welcome to Bogor

When I decided to take my first trip out of Jakarta, I knew it was going to be sooner rather than later. In the same week I was due to go to Singapore (almost 3 weeks ago), there was a public holiday on Tuesday so the question was 'what to do?' The obvious thing was to take a day trip to the outskirts of Jakarta and our town of choice was Bogor.

Bogor is located an hour south outside of Jakarta. It is an colonial town with only some old buildings and is renowned for being the wettest place in Java. Anyhow, the main point of our trip was to visit the Bogor Botanical Gardens. So my house mate L and I took off from Juanda Station for the hour long journey. The train we got on was ghetto, there were no doors and people were just hanging out of them willy-nilly. Plus, it was packed! It was so packed that one of the commuters on board showed his 'admiration' for L in a very inappropriate manner!

So after all that, we finally made it to Bogor. It reminded me of a smaller Jakarta. The scenes out of the train station were chaotic and noisy. The main mode of transport in Bogor is the angcot , my least favourite mode of transport for reasons I will explain in another post, I was determined not to use one to take to the gardens so we went on foot.

After walking around for what seemed an eternity, EUREKA we found it, sort of! In fact, we found only one of the many closed entrances to the gardens. This part of the gardens was a Deer Conservation, where you could feed the deer carrots and pet them through the gates. We did not lose sight of the fact that we still have not found the main gate. So onward we trekked until FINALLY WE MADE IT! I paid the bule admission fee of 30,000rp (£2), while L paid 15,000rp. Rip-off or what? But I did not care after, I waltzed in and started to fall in love with what I saw.

I had to take in the greenery and lushness of the place, this place is too beautiful! The gardens had a variety of places to visit including a zoology museum, the Presidential palace and a lake. There was also a river that flows through the gardens. We were also joined by a couple of other teacher friends, girl S and Manc R were in the train behind us. We trekked all over the gardens and still missed out on loads including the lunch at the posh café that overlooks the park, meh! We were having too much fun. Would I go again? Most definitely, the gardens were beautiful and well maintained and I gotta try the lunch in the café for just the view alone.

My companions and I left the gardens in search of food and the train home. We got on an angcot and made our way to a warung near the train station, where I tried Ayam Bakar for the first time. It was hella tasty to say the least. 

After that we got on a train back to Jakarta, this time the train had doors. So here ends my recollection of my trip to Bogor. It will certainly not be my last trip out of Jakarta, in fact, I am going to Lombok with Manc C (from the Singapore trip). I will be taking in some sand and surf. HAPPY DAYS!