In Indonesia is it acceptable to call your parents “the old people”, “orang tua” in Indonesian. In June my orang tua spent a couple of weeks in Bogor seeing the sights.
Mum and dad arrived the day before my birthday, bringing with them the required gifts from visitors of gin, marmite and proper English teabags. On the big day, we went to Kebun Raya in Bogor to celebrate with lunch at the restaurant there, and also went to see the Eucalyptus deglupta they have in the garden; these trees are soon to become the focus of my research project.
We had a day trip to Jakarta on dad’s birthday where we visited the National Museum, with its collection of artifacts from all over Indonesia, and Monas, the National Monument. Monas is a 132m tall column topped with a sculpted gold flame. It was build during the Suharto era and has been ingloriously dubbed “Suharto’s final erection”. There is a tiny lift that takes people to the top where you can enjoy views of the city (smog permitting!). We headed for lunch at Cafe Batavia in the old quarter of Jakarta. Cafe Batavia is in a colonial era building that has plenty of old world charm, and wine on the menu – perfect. Finally we went to the old port of Sunda Kelapa to see the traditional boats that still ferry cargo around Indonesia; on this day it seemed that all the boats were being filled up with loads of cement to take to Kalimantan.
Another day in Bogor was spent visiting the gong factory where, you guessed it, they make gongs and a variety of gamelan instruments. Unfortunately we missed the part with the big fire and the molten metal but we did get to see the finishing process, the carving of the wooden parts of the instruments, and to try out a variety of instruments.
One Sunday we went into Jakarta for a fancy brunch at one of the big hotels, where we took advantage of the free flow wine and good cheese. And of course mum and dad were forced to come on the Hash and enjoy a walk in wet and muddy Bogor.
We also had a day trip to Cibodas in the mountainous puncak pass area to the south of Bogor. We chose to go on a weekday as the traffic is just terrible on the weekends as all of Jakarta heads there for fresh air and countryside, transforming the road into one big parking lot. We looked around the lovely botanic garden in Cibodas, had a picnic in the grounds and then visited the Gunung Mas tea plantation on the way home to sample the local brew; good but not quite as good as Clipper English Breakfast.
All in all we had a great time with mum and dad and think they left with a good idea of what living in Indonesia is really like!
