Our driver suggested that we leave at 6:30am. We ended up leaving closer to 7am. We arrived at Taman Safari around 9am. That's pretty good considering how bad traffic can be. There is essentially one road in and out of the city into the country. The road also necks down to one lane so traffic can get really bad, especially around the split where one side goes to Puncak and the other side goes to Bogor. My driver said that one time he was there at that intersection for 4 hours!
We bought some carrots and bananas before entering the park. Our driver did the bargaining for us with the roadside vendors. The price we got was 2000 rupiah for a bundle of carrots and 20,000 rupiah for a branch of bananas. We paid 36,000 rupiah total. We bought 8 bundles of carrots and 1 branch of bananas (FYI there are alot of bananas on one branch).
The tour took us about an hour and half to drive around the park. We took our time.
Entrance into the wildlife park. We showed the cashier our Kitas and got the local pricing. It was 360,000 rupiah for the 5 of us and our driver.
Right after you enter the park, there are restroom facilities available. The charge is 1000 rupiah to use the restrooms. You can also opt to take a tour bus instead of driving your own vehicle through the park. I would recommend the personal vehicle option. We saw the people on the tour bus trying to drop carrots and bananas down to the animals. You can't get the up close and personal experience with the animals from a bus.
The first animals we saw were elephants and zebras on the left and monkeys on the right. We threw a couple of bananas to the monkeys. I was a little nervous about the monkeys since I didn't know if they would get too excited and try to climb onto the car or into the car through the windows. The monkeys just stayed on the ground. They seemed content to just have food thrown at them.
Mmmm...carrot!
There were llamas scattered throughout the park so lots of opportunities to feed and touch the furry critters!
Also saw Hippos several times throughout the park.
African cows...large horns make them look rather intimidating don't you think?
Being so close to the rhinos made me just a little bit nervous.
Kids love giraffes!
There were separate areas for large predators like lions, and tigers, and bears (oh my!). There are signs saying to roll up your car windows as you enter these areas. We noticed live wires maybe 6 inches off the ground surrounding the areas where the more dangerous animals are kept. I don't know about you, but we kept our windows closed...not sure I trust the puny live wire to keep the predators away from the car. I have to admit that I was so thrilled to be so close to these animals that I'd only ever seen at a distance at most zoos. Even the lions were only a few feet away from the car...amazing!
There were a couple of places where you had to drive through some water. DH and I thought it was a nice touch. Not only do you get to see the animals, you get to go off roading...ha ha. Not really since you are still driving on a paved road, but it was fun. The kids got a big kick out of driving through the water.
Where's my carrot?
After the drive through tour, we stopped at the baby zoo.
We had lunch at SFC
We figured out what happens to the animals when they die...they end up at SFC as decorations. There were animal heads on the walls as well as this elephant's skeleton.
We stopped and saw the elephant show. There are a variety of free animal shows throughout the day.
For 10,000 rupiah per person, you can have your picture taken with a baby tiger, baby lion, baby leopard, or an orangutan. We opted for a family picture with the orangutan.
The kids loved Taman Safari and asked when they could come back. We would love to see more of the shows. There is also an amusement park area as well as a water park. I think we will bring the kids back again another time.
We left around noon and got home around 3pm. Again, not bad considering that you never know how traffic might be. So, it really wasn't bad going on a saturday. We did get there early and since our kids our young, they were tired already after a few hours. Families with older kids could probably spend the entire day there and not run out of things to see or do.
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