A Day Out at Taman Mini

The Indonesian Archipelago as seen from a cable car

On a lovely public holiday in June, Little C and I decided to go to Taman Mini Park. What is Taman Mini you ask? Basically it's an open air museum dedicated to Indonesian culture, landscape and architecture. The park is divided up into the main islands of Java ,Sumatra, Sulawesi, Sunda Islands, Malaku, Kalimantan and Papua along with having attractions such as an IMAX cinema, cable cars, monorail and a man made lake which contains a replica of the to scale size of the Indonesian Archipelago and apiary with a collection of exotic animals. Within the main island areas, each island's province has their own individual area showcasing different architecture and culture that is indigenous to that part of the island; for example, within the Java area you have Central Java, East Java, North Java and South Java.

Taman Mini is a bit of a trek to get to so Little C and I took a Rp70,000 taxi ride (ouch!) Our first stop was the cable cars to see what the place was all about. There were some impressive views like the archipelago shot above. C and I decided to have a walk around the place a task which was so daunting as there was a lot of ground to cover I mean check out the map :

So we decided to just go where ever our feet. Here are some pictures of some of the sights:

Mini Monas

A North Sumatran house

Chocolate Bule on the man made lake

Istana Anak-Anak  Indonesia (The Castle of Indonesian Children)

Haleuya Protestant Church

Bird Park

Santa Catherina Catholic Church

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Little C in the cable car

We walked do much I think we both lost a stone with all that walking but we did not see everything so I have to go back one day to see all the things I missed out on. My personal highlights was the Indonesian Archipelago and the the Bird Park. If I'm being honest, I was a little underwhelmed by Taman Mini. While I appreciate that something like this is necessary and an awesome way of seeing Indonesian culture, I just felt the place needed some TLC and modernizations of some of the facilities like the monorail, cable cars and museums and buildings. Other than that it is worth a look!