Mini Indonesia

Last weekend we spent a few hours at a very interesting place called Taman Mini (or Mini Indonesia).  If you click on the link, you will notice that the majority of the website is in Bahasa Indonesian so we were not sure exactly what we were getting into. It was well worth our trip.  It cost us a whopping $4 to get everyone into the park and most of the attractions cost an additional $0.90 or so. Taman Mini is basically a giant park representing many of the major regions of Indonesia.  There are huts from each region showing the differences in everything from architecture to traditional dress.  There are also several museums ranging from a Komodo Dragon museum to a Military museum and everything in between.  We spent the entire morning there and still only got to see about a quarter of the park.  Here are a few highlights from our trip!

We started the day at the Indonesian Museum.  Here we learned about some of the differences between the regions of Indonesia including housing, clothing, jewelry and some customs.  

We toured a traditional hut from one of the regions of Indonesia (I wish I remembered which one, but the next time we go, I will take notes (-:).  This hut was about 1500 square feet and would house 8 families.  The 2 smaller buildings in the front are for rice storage.  There is also a small building in the back for worship and another building they use as a meeting room.  We met the nicest women in the building.  She was so happy to practice her English on us and she told us all about the customs of the region.

Next we moved on to the Komodo Dragon Museum.  We were the only ones here at the time and were invited into one of the Monitor Lizard exhibits.  We were able to pet the Monitor Lizard named Godzilla. Emilie was not as adventurous and decided to stay OUTSIDE the exhibit.  Regardless, Godzilla seemed to be very interested in her!

 

 They brought out a python for us to pet as well.  Dustin and Chris chose to keep their hands to themselves, but I took a turn as did our driver Pak Firman.  

 Godzilla was not excited to see us leave and decided to block the exit!

 They had all types of crocodiles, lizards, frogs, etc. for us to check out!

Inside there was a very cool exhibit showing all of the different animals found across Indonesia - Lucky for Chris and Emilie, these animals were not alive!

We took the Sky Ride to get a bird's eye view of the park.  One of the coolest things to see was the lake with islands laid out to make up the 17,508 islands of Indonesia.  From the air, it really did look like the Indonesia you see on a Google Maps!

 We were lucky enough to visit the Freshwater Aquarium during feeding time so we followed the fish man around as he fed all of the different fish.  We saw fish eating right out of his hand.  He had to feed the Electric Catfish with a long wooden pole to avoid being electrocuted! At one point he had a giant pole with what looked like a comb sticking up the side of it.  He put food on the teeth of the comb and told us to stand back.  As he laid the pole over the pond, the fish spit water at the comb causing the food to fly up and eventually drop into the water.  He told us that in their natural habitat, these fish spit at insects flying above the water in order to eat!

We also visited the Insect and Butterfly Museum.  I was impressed with the vibrant colors on the butterflies.  There were butterflies of every color under the rainbow.  The butterfly exhibit was awesome - not quite like the Monarch Butterfly Exhibit at the Phoenix Botanical Garden, but it was fun to see fun to see butterflies of all different colors! 

 

 

We had a great day and learned a little more about the culture of Indonesia.  We are excited to go back and check out the millions of things we missed!