Road trip to Batu day 1 part 1: Prigen Safari Park

[annoying_salman]

Well, I decided to go ahead with our plan to go on a holiday to Batu. The marriage leave that I got is for 3 days, and they expired at the end of this month. We’re also currently in the middle of a sprint to expand the features on our website, so I had to finish (or trying to finish) my tasks as many as possible before I left. Not to mention that my coworkers’ tasks can only be started after I finished mine, as they continued their work based on the code that I wrote as the base.

Of course after I go on a holiday all sort of bugs appear, reaching to features that were already tested and deployed months ago. Typical IT-related curse. But I’m here not to moan about my work.



My wife and I departed at 8 AM, 30 minutes late than what I wanted. Thankfully the roads were empty even though it’s supposed to be the peak commuting hours. My Taft is still being repaired at the mechanics, so we drive my mother’s Renault Duster again. Given that the check-in time for the hotel is 2 PM, my wife told me that she wanted to go to to Prigen Safari Park first, so that’s our initial destination.

Prigen Safari Park, also locally known as Taman Safari Indonesia 2 is one of the largest safari park in Asia. It’s located at the foot of Mount Arjuno, halfway to Batu. I don’t know how many meters above sea level it’s located, but it must be very high. The pictures of the road to the park can’t do justice on how steep it is. We also stopped to buy a bundle of carrots to be given to the animals at the park. The last time I visited this park was with my parents and sister on July 10 2017, and back then we didn’t stop to buy some carrots.

GIven that today is a work day, the safari park was mostly empty, so we can enjoy seeing the animals. My wife was eager to feed the animals. However, the animals were even more eager to ask for food from the visitors. The deer, zebras, and Llamas pushed their snout to the car's window. They licked and even tried to munch on the window!

Get a room!

Look at this poor Nissan Terra

They also acted like a gang of thugs. One of them stand at the middle of the road, and move to the left or right depending on the direction of my car when I tried to move around them. When I stop my car, several of its ilk surround the car asking for food. When I tried to move slowly, they walked along the car too. At one point, when I opened the window, a zebra pushed its snout inside the cabin, just several inches from my face. My wife was screaming in fear. It’s very chaotic, but also a very unforgettable moment.

Gib food plz

I had to push this zebra's snout away from the cabin using the carrot

We spent an hour driving through the safari park, and stopped briefly to walk around the park’s playground. We didn’t find anything interesting, so we decided to continue our journey to Batu while trying to find a place to have lunch. My wife managed to find a fascinating cafe, which I plan to write on a separate post.

[BicycleBuck]

@annoying_salman

Those parks are always good for at least one trip. Getting slobbered on by a pushy zebra is a rite of passage.

[SilentbutnotreallyDeadly]

@annoying_salman
When we were children there were two of these safari parks on the outskirts of Sydney, Australia. It was something of a rite of passage for those of us that were the right age. Needless to say...the odd European car of the 70s couldn't cope with an adult lion on the roof.

However, the worst thing that could happen was power windows. One of the parks had Asiatic elephants. You weren't supposed to feed them but humans do what they do best. One of my father's colleagues took his family to this park in his fancy new company wagon (almost certainly a Chrysler Valiant station wagon, circa 1978).

The flash harry version had power windows. Of course, there were carrots. And Asiatic elephants. And children in command of carrots...and power windows.

When push came to shove, one of the elephants snuck its trunk into the back seat to steal the whole bag (clearly a learned trick) from the unsuspecting children. However, this time the child had a power operated window. And said child managed to trap an elephant by its nose.

I recall being told (and later seeing the photos) that the Chrysler took quite the the kicking....

[Jawzx2]

@annoying_salman said in Road trip to Batu day 1 part 1: Prigen Safari Park:

They also acted like a gang of thugs. One of them stand at the middle of the road, and move to the left or right depending on the direction of my car when I tried to move around them. When I stop my car, several of its ilk surround the car asking for food.

@BicycleBuck @SilentbutnotreallyDeadly

Ah yes, the Safari park experience... There is one in Quebec, Canada not too far from where I live, uninventively named Parc Safari that has quite a large drive thru area where the animals are divided by continent and separated by cattle-grids. I had my 8th birthday party there... Many years ago. My father was driving the car with me in the front passenger seat and three friends in the rear seat. He made the mistake of scratching a waterbuffalo behind the ears, which the water buffalo loved but it was a busy day and we were backng up traffic so he tried to gently push the water buffalo's face out of the car, then quickly rolled up his window to prevent it sticking it's face in again for more scratches... The Buffalo was quite offended at this and (rather gently) butted the driver's door of our then brand-new 1986 Subaru GL station wagon. The entire door ended up having to be replaced. Our insurance was amused when they learned the reason...
Additionally the Camels had set up a toll booth at the grid separating Africa from Asia, one or two would stand in the middle of the road and block, while the others extracted food from the stopped cars. It was all very well organized and they would take turns. The car in front of us had one of those huge bags of popcorn that used to be popular (maybe still are some places?) and they failed to defend it from the long neck of the toll extraction camel assigned to them... The entire bag was pulled out of the car, torn open and eaten. This riled up the blockers and when they switched out and came to our car the camel that arrived was intent on matching the big popcorn score.

--The park sold boxes of "animal food" pellets in little cardboard packages about the size of a box of packaged macaroni and cheese. They were exorbitantly priced, like $5 a box, I had begged to buy some as official parc rule said that was the only thing you were allowed to feed the animals (not that that stopped people, but I was a good little rule-follower) --

So I had one with the spout torn open to dump out a few pellets to feed animals... I saw the camel coming and put a generous portion in my hand to offer, which the camel completely ignored, and stuck it's entire head and neck into the car to go after the box in my other hand. Being a young child I was not about to surrender that box without a fight, and being a camel, the camel wasn't going to let some little snot-nosed American kid ruin it's score. I ended up hanging halfway out the window, my dad hanging onto my pants waist, the camel gently, but very insistently clamped onto my entire forearm and drooling profusely while I refused to let go of the box of animal food that was, by now almost to the camel's throat. My dad yelled at me to "give up! Let the camel have it!" and as I was suspended by my arm from a camel's mouth halfway out a car window I finally decided that I had lost fair and square and let go. My dad hauled me back into the car by my waist band and the camel appeared to chew a couple times and then swallow the box of pellets essentially whole. We used all the napkins and a towel we had in the car to wipe the camel drool off my arm and proceeded on to the next area as the camel toll takers rotated. It was a great birthday.

[BicycleBuck]

@jawzx2

That was an excellent recollection of recent (?) events! Sadly, my trips to the animal park weren't nearly as exciting. Perhaps I meant thankfully....

[Just Jeepin']

Most such parks in the U.S. require doors and windshields, which has always disappointed me when I’m traveling.

[Jawzx2]

@bicyclebuck is 35 years "recent" now? I feel old.

[flatisflat]

@annoying_salman This reflection makes it look like the path ahead is still data populating the scenery like in a video game.

[annoying_salman]

@bicyclebuck @SilentbutnotreallyDeadly @Jawzx2 The animals certainly learnt to beg for food in recent years, given that 4 years ago they were still afraid approaching the visitors' cars. I'm fascinated how smart those animals can be. They're like an organized syndicate working together to bully the humans to give them snacks.

[annoying_salman]

@just-jeepin Wait, I thought the US is the land of freedom and freedom loving people? Requiring cars to have doors and windshields in order to visit parks sound like neo-socio-communism to me.

[Just Jeepin']

@annoying_salman It's also the land of the lawsuit, sadly. Insurance companies tend to frown on them, or their customers, being sued to oblivion.

[WhoIsTheLeader]

@annoying_salman Wow, that's just straight up a lion! That sort of drive through safari sounds pretty terrifying honestly.

[annoying_salman]

@whoistheleader Eh that's nothing. During our visit to the safari park back in 2007, a tiger was standing next to our car (a 1998 Kia Sephia) and looked inside. That's terrifying. If it pounced the window, I'm pretty sure we'd be mauled to death.

[WhoIsTheLeader]

@annoying_salman I'm not sure I could handle that pressure. Seems awfully scary.