Day 111 - a day in Bogor's magnificent botanic gardens - Unfinished Business

August 19, 2023

Day 111 - a day in Bogor's magnificent botanic gardens

Today's entry, the last of me swanning around, comes with a warning: if you don't like plants then go and do something you do like. Play a computer game, spray some roundup, go to the club, or visit a wellness centre. I won't be offended.

Daisy lives about 20 km from Bogor and so it takes a very long time to travel into town. The arduous journey is terrific because you later appreciate the 87 ha, 200 year old gardens, far more than you would if you lived around the corner.

It was the usual trip by car to this rough as guts bus station, from where we got a bus to the gardens.

Apologies but I'm on a constant search for more poles and wires.

Great to see discrimination against tall children.

A monument commemorating Olivia Mariamne Raffles, who died of malaria. As I write, very fast mosquitoes are buzzing me!

A sculpture commemorating the gardens' bicentennial.

Olivia was the first wife of Sir Stamford Raffles, Lieutenant Governor of Java, founder of Singapore, and founder and first president of the London Zoo and the Zoological Society of London. He wrote a history of Java, was a powerful voice against slavery and is responsible for the Bogor Botanic Gardens. He had five children, none of whom survived to reproduce. He packed a lot in before he died on his 45th birthday.

The roads through the park attract an annoying number of vehicles.

The smaller paths are excellent but Melani says there are plans to concrete them.

It's wise to look up from bridges! That's true all over Indonesia. This river has its source near the Puncak Pass, that I cycled over last week.

The gardens border the presidential palace that provides a huge buffer zone to the west.

It's nice to see people sitting back enjoying the place. Indonesia seems rather short of such places.

We met Daisy's friend, Melani, who lives around the corner from the gardens but appreciates them far more than she should. Melani is an academic who has become interested in human ecology. Biology is in her blood- literally. Her mother, a biology teacher, named her Melani when she saw her dark skin as a newborn. Melanin is a group of chemical compounds responsible for skin colour. Anyway, Melani knows much about the gardens, including non-botanical things, and so I was fortunate to be there with her.

Melani could tell us much about what is wrong with the gardens. In an attempt to make the gardens more attractive, they are lighting parts at night. This is disastrous for so many species, including Apis dorsata, the giant honeybee. It's also disastrous in that only part of the gardens will be listed for World Heritage. Much else that's wrong with the gardens is obvious- too much traffic, people dropping garbage and employees picking it up, and too many vendors including in one area that blasts music.

A sign, with obvious advertising, pointing to the Mexican Garden.

One could spend a lifetime visiting the gardens, but it's fair to say that you can see a lot in an afternoon. Following are some of the things that we saw. It's mainly pictures; I haven't much bothered with the botany.

Fluff covered most of the gardens. It's similar to Canberra's annual fluff snow but the fluff here comes from the Kapok tree (Ceiba pentandra).

The tree, from tropical America and west Africa has many uses. The "cotton" provides filling, the bark has several medicinal uses, while the flowers are an excellent source of nectar and pollen.

There's all of the things one would expect in a garden that has species from around the world, but with an obvious emphasis on the tropics. Thus, it's somewhat surprising to find the Mexican Garden in Indonesia's rainy city.

There were a few things we wanted to see such as Pandanus sp, giant waterlilies and the orchid house.

Pandanus often looks a mess but has many uses from weaving the leaves and extracting their colour or flavour, through to eating the fruit. There's 750 species!

A white elephant! Apparently, an excess of external metal means that this building is unsuitable for housing and researching orchids.

On our journey we looked at a fine array of plants. Here are a few of them.

In Australia we climb greasy poles. In Indonesia they race up this palm.

Oncosperma horridum. An unjust name for a fine looking plant.

Palm oil, Elaeis guineensis. I'm going to see a lot of this in my remaining 1500 km.

My shirt matches the fruit of Tabernaemontana macrocarpa

Tabernaemontana macrocarpa - the fruit has been used to poison arrows.

A warning: horrible thing happen to those who dance under trees.

And so, that was our day at these wonderful gardens that Melani worries will be ruined by commercial interests.

We were soon waiting for a bus on the road on which I cycled into Bogor last week. In fact, I discovered that I could have cycled on a path, if I had crossed the road.

There's plenty of room for a token path, that goes for a km, on this side adjacent to the gardens, where this fellow is engaging in the national pass time of sweeping up leaves.

During our short wait for the bus, Daisy commented on the dubious nature of these structures that support road signs.

Should a country with high moral values support road signs with these structures?

Soon Daisy and I were on a bus, and in the traffic, heading for the university where we got a meal at a hole-in-the-wall. "Is it good", I asked Daisy, on the way. It's edible", she said.

From there, we did the usual thing of ordering a car. But first we walked to a spot that a car could reach. Tomorrow I will be back on my bike, fighting my way to the ferry, 140 km away. I'll cross to Sumatra and ride the 1350 km to Dumai, from where I'll get a couple of ferries to Singapore. That's the plan, at least!

But, before that, bike of the day.

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Paul WilliamsHi Ian…great photos of the gardens on your brilliant cycle ride…I hope everything is going great for you…enjoy the next part of your journey 🚢🚢🚢⚓️🚴🚴🚴
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8 months ago

Ian WallisTo Paul WilliamsThanks Paul. Well under 2000 km to go. Sumatra tomorrow, I hope. Ian
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8 months ago

Jackie LaycockLovely photos Ian, thanks for sharing, as always.
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8 months ago