After living in Jakarta for 3 years we finally made it to Taman Safari and we loved it!
Located at Cisarua, off the main road to Puncak & Bandung, we took the advice of the Family Guide and left Jakarta at 8 a.m. We stopped to pick up coffee at the 24 hr Starbucks now located on the Bogor toll road and we reached Taman Safari just after 9 a.m. It was a very easy journey however I would not want to make the same journey on a weekend or a public holiday. The road from the toll is one lane each side and climbs continually to Taman Safari, the road is badly in need of resurfacing and there was still plenty of traffic even on a weekday. I can only imagine what it is like at weekends as Puncak is such a popular weekend destination for Indonesian familes trying to escape Jakarta! |
You will see hundreds of stalls selling carrots & bananas as you near Taman Safari, stop and get some as you can feed these to the animals from your car when you get to the park! |
Having paid our entrance (Rp75,000 for anyone over 6 years, Rp60,000 for 5 & under and Rp15,000 for the car - these are KITAS/local rates so make sure you tell the ticket attendant that you are residents) we parked and used the very clean toilets (Rp1,000 fee everywhere in the park but you get loo roll!). The children spotted the safari bus and we enquired about using this to travel around the park but it has to wait to fill up so you could be waiting quite a while, you also can’t feed the animals from the bus so we voted to use our car as planned. The bus is included in the entrance fee though. |
|
We were all thoroughly impressed with the drive through the safari area of the park. The scenery is wonderful and the park has been well designed to merge with the jungle habitat. The animals all know that you will have carrots and are not shy! If you just open your window a little bit you can stick a carrot out without getting slobbered on. The children loved this. We saw a wide variety of deer, buffalo, hippos, owls, zebra, elephants, camels, bears, giraffes, lions, tigers, rhino, cheetah and most of them very close to the car. All the animals looked well taken care of and fed, all the enclosures are spotlessly clean. The carnivores are kept in enclosures so you have to travel through some gates on your way around the park but they are all automatic. We were able to stop when we wanted to to take photos or to feed an animal. We were amazingly close to some of the dangerous animals but of course they are so used to the cars that we are of no interest to them at all, carrots don’t really cut it with lions! |
  |
We spent about an hour and a half going around the safari part of the park. We were not aware before we went there how much else there is to do and see there other than the safari, you could easily stay overnight and occupy two days without repeating anything. |
The central parking area when you finish the safari is where the gift shop is, some of the many food outlets and where one of the elephant shows are held. There are a range of fair ground type rides too that we didn’t bother with, we did take a train ride through tunnels with dinosaur displays inside and there is also a walk through a ‘Baby Zoo' and aviary. They had a lion cub and orang-utan baby in this area for photos that we steered clear of. You can see some white tigers in this area too who didn’t appear to be too happy, their enclosure was the worst that we saw. |
From there we drove through another area of the park where there are specific animal enclosures, you can park your car along the way and visit the animals on foot. You could walk around this whole area from the central car park rather than drive if you have children that are enthusiastic about walking. We saw monkeys, komodo dragons, crocodiles, reptiles to name a few and although the enclosures are not big they are very clean and the animals look well cared for. Here you will also find a water park area that looked clean and good fun although we didn’t take swimmers and were pushed for time but we will definitely go there next time. |
There are a range of animal shows around the park that are included in your ticket price, we saw the dolphin show which was excellent. We aren’t sure what kind of life the dolphins have in their small pool but they certainly put on a great performance with staff that came across as very dedicated and caring.
|
The climate at Taman Safari is quite different to Jakarta, wonderfully fresh and almost cool when it rains! There were no mosquitos. We didn’t eat at any of the outlets, we had packed a picnic so we can’t vouch for the quality of food or the prices. All the toilets we used were clean & well maintained as was everything in the park. We started our journey home at 2 p.m. and we were home by 3.30 p.m. We would highly recommend a trip to Taman Safari and recommend that you go mid week when there are no local school holidays if you can.
|
Taman Safari
Jl Raya Puncak 601, Cisarua 16750
Tel: (0251) 825 0000
Tel: 021 765 4744 - Jakarta number
Email: safari@tamansafari.com or pr@tamansafari.net
www.tamansafari.com |
