Jenny’s Journies

The following pictures were taken at Taman Mini “Indonesia Indah” (”Beautiful Indonesia” Miniature Park), which is less than an hour from Central Jakarta (this depends on traffic of course). This year the park turns 31. Construction began in 1972 and it formally opened in 1975. The park occupies more than 100 hectares (around 250 acres) of land. Taman Mini is the brainchild of former First Lady Ibu Tien Soeharto. There are various houses located on the property that represent the diversity of Indonesia. Each house contains traditional clothing, tools, instruments, and other artifacts, as well as souvenirs for sale. Don’t expect detailed signs or lots of historical references, though. There are also food stalls, but it would be rare to find anything other than soup, fried rice, or chicken (typical Javanese fare). Museums scatter the park, too. For example, there are museums on telecommunications, sports, transportation, heirlooms, insects, military, stamps, oil and gas, etc. The museums have additional charges, though. There is also a small lake with large paddleboats in the shape of ducks, an IMAX theater, and stages for performances.

The park was quite crowded on Sunday. I went with Julie, her brother who was visiting, and his friend. We only saw a handful of foreigners. The overwhelming majority of visitors were Indonesian families and young children on fieldtrips. Given that there are very few affordable public spaces, I can see the appeal of Taman Mini. Many people were just hanging out, sharing meals, and relaxing (even though most of the day it was raining!). One interesting note is that some houses seemed more popular as hangouts than others. I’m not sure if this was just the location of the houses in relation to the entrance and parking or if there was some other reason.

Our party only managed to visit the houses of the following islands or cultures: West Sumatra, North Sumatra, Aceh, Central Kalimantan, Papua, Nusatenggara Timur (various eastern islands combined), and Toraja (from Sulawesi). Since it was raining a good portion of the time and the rest of the day was quite muggy, we didn’t push ourselves. We got through a lot of the park, however. I joked near the end of our trip that we only had 12,993 more houses left to visit. The park doesn’t actually have that many houses to represent the over 13,000 islands in Indonesia. There are instead 27 houses - one for each province during the Soeharto period - but one wonders given all of the new provinces that have popped up in recent years if new houses will be built in the future.