RUNNING WITH PASSION: Taman Safari Indonesia II (Part 1

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Taman Safari Indonesia II (Part 1 - The Drive Through)

Taman Safari Indonesia II Prigen, Pasuruan- East Java is located by the highway between Surabaya and Malang, East Java. It is approximately 50 Km drive from Surabaya. It was our next stop after Candi Belahan.

If you are wondering why there is a "II" behind thhe Taman Safari Indonesia...there are actually TWO Taman Safari in Indonesia. The other one is located in Bogor.

We hired a MPV, along with the driver for Rp500,000 per day (exclusive of BBM/ fuel) for the trip.

We paid double for the "tourist" entrance fee Rp80,000 compared to Rp40,000 for locals. Actually, we could have passed as locals if we keep our mouth shut and asked our driver to buy the tickets. Nevermind-lah....We will contribute our bit to Indonesia's economy and hope the money will go to the welfare and upkeep of the animals.

So, off we went into the safari in our chauffer-driven MPV.

There, we were greeted with a bunch of turkeys once we entered the safari. Pretty odd choice of an opening exhibit in a safari if you ask me! (Insert gobbling sound effect here)

Things began to pick up after the turkeys.

Enter the overtly friendly Illamas...

And a curious moose....that kept peering into our window.

But some of the inhibitants of the safari is completely not bothered with our presence.

Some of the aminals are not really "roaming free" as they were confined by electical wired fencing. But it is as close as we could get without having our heads or limbs ripped off by the big cats.

Our trip was more like a "shoot and run" akin to "hit and run". We didn't get to spend much time observing the animals. We just had to keep moving after snapping a few shots of the animal as there were plenty of cars in queue. School holidays just started!

But within the mad rush, we did get to see some "hot" action like this...