Taman Safari Park
My time at the Constitutional Court has been marked by the extraordinary hospitality extended to me by its representatives, in particular by Justice Saldi Isra, head of HR Andi Hakim, and my close colleague Indah. This hospitality has comprised numerous exceptional meals, introductions and long conversations to explain the workings of the court, and a constant cheerful welcome with a readiness to assist in any means possible. On Friday, however, this went still further, and I was taken on an excursion to Taman Safari Park.
The trip itself was a delight, a drive up into the misty mountains of Bogor. Some two hours from central Jakarta, Bogor seems a world away. Cool, rainy, and relaxed, the pulsing noise and heat of Jakarta seem infinitely distant. The air is pure, and the mountains are thickly painted with greenery, as the riotous Indonesian jungle clambers over the tea plantations. Exciting as Jakarta’s fast-beating heart may be, it was fantastically relaxing to return to something slower for a time.
Along the way, Indah picked up some kilos of Indonesian snacks for my consumption - spicy pickled mangoes, fresh-cooked rice doughnuts, and tangy fermented cassava. The food of Indonesia is intensely regional, and these are specialties peculiar to Bogor. They were delicious.
Taman Safari itself is an extraordinary experience. We entered through a double-doored system to lock in the free-roaming wildlife. It was instantly visible why. We had picked up carrots and bananas en route, and our car was rapidly hemmed in by throngs of deer, eager for breakfast.
After passing through the hungry herds, we pulled up to the hippo enclosure. A massive maw greeted us, a vast pink gape. The process much resembled the board game Hungry Hungry Hippos, from a slightly different angle. One lobbed carrots onto the enormous tongue, and once the hippo had detected a sufficient weight, its mouth closed briefly, to swallow the carrots more or less whole with barely a crunch. The mouth promptly opened again.
After a few kilos of carrots, the hippo went for a paddle around his enclosure, so we pushed on. Tapirs, those peculiar pig-elephants of southeast Asia, sported merrily or slumbered in their enclosure. Some species of long-horned cattle idly chewed their cud, a trot or two from the car window.
Then we passed through another double gate, this time separating the vegetarian creatures we had passed from their carnivorous cousins. Waltzing outside our window, a tiger passed within stroking distance. We did not stroke it. Feeding the carnivores is discouraged.
Past tigers, both bright Sumatran and hefty Bengal, in orange and in white, we came to a horde of sleepy lions, demonstrating the traditional leonine ambition of sleeping the day away in a comfortable idyll. Then bears scampered past, completing the Wizard of Oz trifecta. Two young ones chased each other through the line of cars in thumping play. It would be impossible to overstate how close these creatures were - a truly remarkable feeling.
Exiting through another set of doors, we found ourselves amongst the wildebeest, their strange, humpy faces pushed up against the windows in quest of carrots, their curled horns thumping the car’s sides. We fed them until they eventually wandered to another car, which disappeared amidst a shaggy sea of beestly bulk.
The park continued eventually on foot. Perhaps chief of its enchantments in the pedestrian realm was the orangutan exhibit. One gigantic male waddled in pongoid immensity over to stare at us, his dark eyes dwarfed by his vast cheeks. Somehow I had imagined orangutans as smaller, less ponderous. The impression this ape gave was of an immense weight and strength, the orange fur a lurid halo around a body of immense power.
We had lunch in the zoo. In keeping with the Indonesian appetite for good food, the meal bore no resemblance whatsoever to the soggy chips, stale sandwiches, and greasy junk in which the food courts of Western zoos specialise. Our lunch consisted of rabbit satay, coconut milk and brown sugar sweet buns, and a sound cappuccino.
After lunch, we went to see the tiger show. Two extremely bold zookeepers caressed and hand-fed a brace of Sumatran tigers, as they jumped and posed around the enclosure, finally drinking bottles of milk held for them by the keepers. Keepers and Sumatrans then vanished through a tunnel, replaced by two immense Bengals, one orange and one white, which raced up poles to reach chicken mounted at the top. Due to mishandling by the orange one, the white ended up with both chickens. It devoured them without any apparent compunction as to the evident injustice.
Then, the pandas. Two of the comical creatures lolled about their enclosure, rotating their orbular forms to find the perfect angle at which to sleep, or lumbering vaguely around their enclosure. China’s most effective diplomats are indisputably charming.
As a grand finale, we fed the binturongs. These so-called cat-bears are strange, hairy black beasts vaguely like shambling, shaggy, arboreal otters. They seized papaya chunks in their considerable fangs with evident delight, then hissed horribly and squabbled with each other for closer positions among the branches.
The trip was thoroughly fantastic. I will miss my time with the court, and especially with the people among whom I have worked. This, though, was a phenomenal way to finish my time in Jakarta.