Passing the Time in Jakarta – Part D, A Return to Taman Mini Indonesia Indah

My first time in Indonesia, I took a trip to Taman Mini Indonesia Indah. It's the whole of Indonesia in a park. There are small pavilions, one for each province of the country. I was here in April the first time and it was a weekday to boot. The place was fairly deserted and I had it much to myself. Now it's summer holidays and there are kids out of school. It was also a Sunday this time when I went.

But it was much different this time. Before it was deserted...

...and this time there were lots of people.

This time there were boats on the lake in the park. Last time I came, there was a big wall mural that some workmen were re-facing.

This time it was done.

This time around, although there were some cultural things going on, including some kind of competition, I had come more for the museums that are also on the park.

There was one in particular that I wanted to see, the Komodo Museum. In this 'museum' there were supposed to be some Komodo Dragons. I had previously seen some nice specimens at the zoo, but I thought I would see if the ones here were as interesting. Well it was only one, but he (or she) was quite active.

I didn't know Komodos had such long tongues.

Other exhibits in the Komodo area included a couple of saltwater crocodiles.

Then there was what I am sure will be an object lesson to a child someday soon. I wish I had been the one to watch one of these little guys succumb to the laws of nature and kill or be killed. Alas, the best I was one of the chicks step on the snake and the snake strike at it. But I don't think it bit it. At least, it didn't die at that time, and it was still in the cage later, alive and well.

Then there were the AMAZING, TAME PYTHONS!!!! That was the sign talking. There were two of them out with handlers. This one was 4 meters long, I was told.

I don't know how long this one was, but before I knew it...

… I was getting up close and personal with the python. It was quite strong.

Then I went into the museum building itself. There were a series of dioramas that contained a lot of the fauna of Indonesia. And it was all explained in English. Sort of. Oh, I see...  That makes perfect sense.

Another place I was told to visit as it was so interesting was the Bird Park. So I went over there and went in. I was immediately accosted by the handlers just inside the entrance, who pressed a bunch of birds on me and took my photo.

I passed on this bird of prey. He was giving me the evil eye, like he would happily rip my throat out and eat it while I was gasping my final breaths.

In the bird park they have two large sets of domes where lots of birds roam free. I saw a peacock doing the peacock thing. I don't remember ever seeing a peacock spread it's feathers before. I even watched as it went through the process. It's quite a performance.

In the second dome, there were reputed to be some birds of paradise, but I guess they are away. I had to settle for this parrot.

Then I still had a bit of time before everything started shutting down, so I thought I would go and visit the transportation museum. I figured there would be plenty of time to see it. The two animals spots had cost about a dollar a piece, and the transportation was only 20 cents. I figured it would be small and easy to manage. Then I walked in. It was absolutely huge. They had laid out a great area to show the development of transportation in Indonesia. The first spot was at the top of the bowl they had built for the museum. It contained a retired DC-9 jet that had been flown by Garuda Airlines. I wasn't allowed inside, as it was closing, but that was all right.

Nearby there was a helicopter. 

On the other side of the entrance were some trains that had been used to transport the Indonesian president and vice president to the new seat of government in Yogyakarta when the Dutch (?) tried to reclaim control of the colony.

Then down the hill is where the really amazing part of it all was stored. There were three or four large buildings housing everything from toy trains and planes to the outfits worn by the people who worked for the transportation companies.

But outside there was a full-sized train set. A set of tracks went around in a circle about 400 meters in diameter

There was even a train station.

In the back there were retired locomotives.

Around the tracks there were a couple of switching points where trains could be diverted.

There was even a tunnel, that went under the entrance to the museum grounds. I wonder if they ever sent trains around the tracks at any time.

In the middle of the museum grounds there was a lagoon (unfortunately empty of water) with a ship at dock.

The Transportation Museum was amazing and I wish I had had more time to investigate it.  I wouldn't have had much that I could understand as very little was explained in English, but it was a massive area that was quite well laid out and certainly was worth the price of admission.

After finishing with the transportation area, I headed back to my accommodation and made ready to get out of town.  I have my new ATM card, I will protect it better from mishap and it is time to get on with getting on with my trip.

Passing the Time in Jakarta – Part C, The Museums of the Old City

After a day off, just reading and enjoying a pure vanilla ice blended drink from the Coffee Bean, I decided to go and have another look around the Old City. It's a nice area and there always seems to be something going on there. There are three museums in the central square. I have been to the one in the old city hall, but there is also a puppet museum and a ceramic museum. First up was a visit to the puppet museum. I believe the word for puppet in Indonesian is wayang. Hence the name of the museum, the Wayang Museum. The previous weekend there had been a wayang something performance tent in the central square. The 'something' had meant shadow, but I forget the word, so 'something' will have to do. This museum was also formerly someone's house from the colonial times. Inside there were many puppets, most of them were from Indonesia, but there were some from other areas of the world as well.

There were many different styles as well. There were big ones that probably required some kind of place for the puppet workers to hide.

There were small ones

There was even one that was one of the characters in one of the performances I saw in Bali when I last visited Indonesia. (This is Hanoman, some kind of monkey god.)

There were shadow puppets, but I really don't know why they were decorated and coloured so well. If the idea is to have the play be done as shadows on the white screen with the audience on the other side, why do they puppets themselves need to be coloured? I must be missing something, but I don't know what it is. I guess I should watch a performance to know for sure.

You see?

There were lots of revolution puppets. I guess the whole theme of beating back invaders of various sorts was a strong theme for a while and the best way to rally the masses, who might not have been overly literate, was to put on revolutionary plays. But this is just a guess.

There were costume puppets. (Although this would seem to be contrary to the whole idea of a puppet.)

And there were the instruments that went with some of the puppets to create the performances. I also say instrument sets like these when I was in Bali attending some of the cultural performances.

Then there were the puppets from other countries. There was England's Punch and Judy.

Some horse from the United States.

There were puppets from India...

...and China.

At the end of the museum, there was the museum shop, with this nice man who showed me how some puppets are made. It looks like painstaking work. He lamented that it is now a dying art as young people are more interested in Playstation than in learning to make puppets. He also snorted in derision at other places in Indonesia that sell puppets, and even advertise they are hand-made. He visited some who have a mock shop that tourists witness. Meanwhile in the back there are machines working away, doing the real puppet-making. I thought they were interesting enough that even without the soft sell approach, I would have bought. There was a small shadow puppet, apparently hand-made by his father from buffalo hide, among the last that will ever be produced by him as his eyesight is growing poor and he can no longer see well enough to continue making them, yada, yada, yada. It was only about 5 dollars. And that way if it gets confiscated for being a product of an animal before I can try to send it home, it's not a big loss.

After the puppet museum, I headed across the square to have a look through the Ceramic Museum. I wasn't really looking forward to it. I just had nothing better to do really, and it was there, so I went

Unfortunately there were no photos allowed in the museum, so I had to make do with taking one after some Indonesian visitors broke that rule. I can't be tossed that way if they don't get tossed. I'm bad.

I did find that the Ceramic Museum was just as much about paintings as it was about ceramics. There were three or four small galleries showing ceramics from various periods and countries, but there were long galleries everywhere else that showed paintings. They were all right.

Then it was back to Jalan Jaksa and my accommodation. There was a weekend festival for Jalan Jaksa that night and the Sunday as well. It was interesting, but crowded. I guess the governor of the area was out for the festivities as well. There were also the token white people to serve as the festival prince and princess.

One other interesting part of the festival was the outdoor movie theater made by stringing a sheet across the street and projecting some movie or other against it. It was a nice festival, as far as it went.

Passing the Time in Jakarta – Part B, The National Museum

It ain't no Melbourne Museum, that's for sure. Sometime in the late 18^th century, J.C.M. Rademacher of Holland, one of the Dutch colonial fat cats in Indonesia decided that he really didn't need his house any longer. Perhaps he had decided to take up residence in his country estate. Maybe he had received his papers allowing him to return home. Maybe it was just time to upgrade. There was a society that was building a museum-like collection, so he gave the house to them. The house was turned into a museum. Over the years the collection grew to where the house was no longer big enough so they built an actual museum-like building as an annex right next door. I presume that the Rademacher items were what were mostly housed in what was formerly his house and much of the newer items to the collection are now housed in the annex. I can only imagine what the locals thought of colonial houses and their owners, but I suspect it really couldn't have been all that favourable.

It's called the Elephant House.  The reason is the big elephant statue out front.

The first part of the museum in the house part was all about different pottery techniques and from different regions. It started with terracotta. I was amazed at how detailed terracotta could become, even though I have visited the terracotta warriors site in China and seen the detail there.

There was even a terracotta piggy bank. I wonder now where exactly we got the notion for piggy banks. The other day, in the banking museum, there was an assortment of different animal banks.

Then it was on to the pottery of different cultures and countries. I really didn't spend that much time on them. I've seen them before and learned about them as well. But I have never seen a really good collection of the different dynastic potteries of China. And there is a real difference between the various periods. And the detail in the Ming dynastic pottery is absolutely amazing.

The next gallery was showing the different houses of Indonesia. Ho hum. They're made of wood. Many are on stilts because of flooding and storage. They have a kitchen and eating here, a sleeping area there, a meeting over yonder, yada, yada, yada.

In another gallery there was some prehistoric stuff, axes, spearheads, and the like. Despite that, the other man in the gallery was arranging a fire extinguisher, the door and piece of machinery beside the door very carefully into some sort of artistic array for a photograph. I wish I could have found a way to surreptitiously take a photo of him taking his photo. Oh well.

Then it was on to the culture galleries of the different peoples of the different islands on Indonesia. It was more interesting looking at the clothing and weapons and utensils of the different groups, but after a while they got to looking the same. I suppose that anthropologists and others who study these sorts of things could find all sorts of differences between the items from different groups and spend hours lecturing on them (boring the audience no end), to someone who was casually wandering through the galleries, it all really looked the same. So there were blouses made of some kind of tree.

There were hats of interesting shapes.

There were masks.

There were musical instruments, that seemed to be the same sort of thing I saw in Bali during one of the cultural performances.

There were incense/oil/offering holders for use during various ceremonies.

There were a couple of interesting things. One was a shrine to the dead. I'm not sure I would want that hanging out in my home.

And there were these items for men. I'll leave it to you figure out where they were worn.

Then I finished with the house and passed through the link to the museum building part of the museum.

The first thing I encountered in the museum building was a video game conference of some kind.

I guess there is some 100% Indonesian online game that was being either introduced or launched on the day I visited. Okay, I guess museums are becoming more progressive and trying to appeal to younger generations.

From there it was on into the galleries of the museum building. These were a bit more interesting to begin with. There were dioramas depicting early Indonesian people.

There were what I presumed to have been replicas of some of the early graves that were found by anthropologists and archaeologists...

...along with their startlingly precise predictions about the age of the deceased.

And then it was up the inactive escalators to the galleries of the museum building. These were reminiscent of normal style museums with rows and rows of glass cases and pedestals of artefacts found by archaeologists. The Borobudur case held my interest for a moment.

And the stone tablets with ancient writing on them also were quite interesting.

But mostly it was just the same old sort of thing one expects to find in a museum. And it really wasn't terribly interesting. The curators also didn't seem to have been terribly interested either. There were often descriptions of stuff that really bore no relation to the items around the descriptions. Here for instance is a description of fishing gear and techniques. However, the stuff around it was furniture and house stuff. They have some work to do.

The top gallery was all about treasure that has been gathered. There were cases filled with gold, silver, and gemstones. And no photographs were allowed. But again, just your traditional sort of museum setting. On the other hand, the only way in was by elevator. To get to the second and third floors you used escalators or the elevator, but the fourth floor was only accessible by elevator. I suppose that was to make it harder for would-be thieves.

Finally, somewhat disappointed in the museum (that only cost a dollar, so what did I expect?), I wandered down into a temporary exhibit on the first floor. That was an interesting exhibit. It was about future solutions to living. I wasn't sure how they all applied to that problem, but there was a prefab bamboo house that can be put up in areas hit by disaster, such as last year's volcanic eruption of a mountain here in Indonesia. Prefab bamboo house? The lighting in the exhibition was too low for good photos, unfortunately. It looked like what you would expect for a bamboo house, though. There was a giant tube of very light aluminum foil. It looked like a slug. I'm not sure what it was for because I couldn't find the description for it. There was a collapsible arch of fiber-optic cables. It was about 10 feet long and could collapse down to fit in a backpack. Again, I'm not really sure of it's application.

And there was a project by some Indonesian architects. The major river that passes through Jakarta is called the Ciliwung. As Jakarta has become the city of dreams for many Indonesians, people have flocked here, putting more and more pressure on the area, and its river. People have lived beside it, bathed in it, done laundry in it, used it as a toilet and a garbage dump. In short, they have ill-treated it for so long that it is dirty, polluted and unusable. And as it has become penned by artificial banks, sickened and withered by pollution, and anything living in or beside it has suffered as well, it is a symbol of the environmental degradation wrought in this area. The architects' presentation talked of solutions for the problem. They looked at relocating the people who live beside the river and then reclaiming and rehabilitating the banks. They rejected as not very workable in practice. Their vision was to put up these structures over and under and in the river that would clean the water, provide parks and other usable spaces for use by residents, and even living spaces. I'm not sure that it is any more workable, but it is a nice vision. And I am virtually certain that it will never come to be. There is too much corruption in Indonesian government to get the money for it to be done, and the resources to build it probably couldn't be assembled. I wish them luck.