Bogor - The Second Day

With the exception of the infinite number of shops and restaurants was there anything else to see in Bogor.? Yes, Malarsari - its brochure calls it an "amazing tourism park" while its website stresses its conservation and environmental roles - conserving tropical fruits, breeding and disseminating quality plants, and educating the public. We were traveling with agricultural scholars and practitioners, i.e., we had our own personal guides. As for tourism, the park was quiet. It was a weekday that was neither a school holiday nor a public holiday.

Butterfly at work

Examining a skinless jack fruit

Tree Houses - For family vacations and youth outings

Next we went to lunch - our best restaurant meal of the trip. Kota Karak is a place I can't wait to get back to. The star of the meal was nasi soto karak; for the rest of the trip I ordered a soto (soup with a lot of content) every day - nothing else came close. We also had tahu susur (stuffed bean curd) and mento. The next time we visit Indonesia we will concentrate on finding local shops cooking Central Java food. The restaurant was Titi's find - I hope that I live long enough for her to retire and take me to all her favorite places in Indonesia.

A table of very happy eaters

After lunch we drove around the campus of the Indonesian Center for Agricultural Land Resources Research and Development. A number of its staff, including Budi and Bagyo, received their PhD at North Carolina State University. The center does research and staff may mentor doctoral students, but it is not a teaching institution. On campus we saw a billboard for Agro Tourism. Titi gave us the brochure for a project she was working on at Wisata Agro Kaligue. This tea plantation has a school, guest house, clinic, and recreational areas - not at all like the palm oil and rubber plantations in Malaysia. To learn more I found a blog entry - which captures the flavor of the place and the colorful (?) images produced by Google Translator wording

We all gathered for dinner at Bagyo and Herni's home. The house has added rooms since we first visited decades ago. It has open areas that are perfect for visiting. We were reminded that Indonesia sometimes has unreliable power. As we were getting ready to eat the lights went out. No worries - torches were found and we enjoyed another delicious meal.

Enjoying a meal, friendship, and a visit

Seeing our friends and touring Bogor could not have happened without Geri, Bagyo and Herni's son. We knew him when he was a young boy in Raleigh. When he returned to Indonesia his English teacher was unhappy because he spoke American English! We are of course delighted with his English. Geri made all the arrangements for getting folks to Jakarta, sent us very detailed transportation information about getting around Jawa, and he took a day of leave to drive us around.

Geri

We stayed at the Hotel Santika Hotel. It was pleasant and affordable But it was breakfast that won my heart. Each day they had two dishes from different areas of Indonesia. One morning I had soto Bandung and another nasi gadung from Yogyakarta. Writing this brings back food memories and hunger.The staff were particularly helpful.  Liz expressed interest in one of the dishes and the staff assisted Liz in putting it together.  A hidden secret of this facility is an underground tunnel to botanical garden.  Without the tunnel is is almost impossible to get to the garden.  If only we had known.

Helpful and Friendly Hotel Santika Staff