Salt Merchant
Well-Known Member
I planned to spend the first two days of 2022 by travelling, but I don't want to visit anywhere outside of Jakarta yet. I looked into several locations but I eventually choose Ancol. The road to Ancol from my home isn't to long, probably around a hour or so. Since COVID is still a thing in Indonesia, everyone buy their tickets online, which I did. We enter Ancol through the iconic entrance with those four archs and an "eye" in the middle, supported by some wires. The first thing we do is to go to the hotel to check in. The hotel is Mercure, which is apparently owned by a French company, and we always go there everytime we visit Ancol. After putting out stuffs in our room, we planned to go around the park, but only until 2 PM, which is honestly understandable for me. So, we don't visit Faunaland or the other places with animals. So there's really not much happening aside from some photos in the beach and eating in an restaurant, which is where I saw what appear to be a pair of common mynas. It's probably my vision messing with me and it's actually Javan mynas, but it clearly have yellow marks in its eyes, I wish I had taken a photo. This species do exist in the Indonesian bird trade and some would probably make it to the wild, either they escaped or just some poor lads releasing them thinking this species is native to Indonesia. After 2 PM, we stayed in our hotel. According to the hotel staff, apparently, police were patrolling around Ancol after 2 PM. I understand their intention, but in my opinion that's a bit to much and would create a bad perception, so I wish they can do something else to enforce the rule, which their choices is probably limited. I had trouble sleeping so I spend the rest of the night watching Godzilla vs Kong on HBO in my room until I finally managed to sleep at around 3 AM.
The next day, after eating instant noodle and refreshing myself by swimming, I'm ready to go somewhere. After checking up, I visited Allianz Ecopark, which is very close to my hotel. The entrance to the park is free but you have to pay to visit Faunaland. There's a new exhibit with a group of Javan rusas (Not part of Faunaland), which is not to big but not to bad for the deers. We originally planned to go around the park, but the last cart, which is actually a golf cart, has already been rented and we have to wait for half a hour for another one, so we only visited Faunaland. Same with the entrance to Ancol, we bought the ticket online. After passing a bridge, the first exhibit houses an black Javan leopard. It's pretty active and the exhibit is pretty great with covers for the leopard. The two next exhibits isn't to great. The first houses an Malayan tapir, which it self looks bruised for some reason and it's sleeping in the shallow pool in the exhibit. The second is for three large Aldabra giant tortoises, which is there only for photo purposes but I don't think they were bothered. Their exhibit isn't big and have small access to soil, but again they don't seem to care. The next two even smaller exhibits houses Sunda porcupines, the first houses a pair while the other houses four. The next few exhibits houses Shetland ponies, donkeys, and dwarf goats, not really impresive breeds from my point of view but they atleast make the kids happy. The glassed exhibits is my favorite part of the zoo, well decorated with nice species. The Asian golden cats and Sunda leopard cats are sadly off display, but I'm glad that one of the Bornean clouded leopards is displayed, the serval and Javan binturong is also there. The two next exhibits are also great, also well decorated and have impresive species, such as the spectral tarsier and black giant squirrel. The squirrel sadly doesn't have enough space to move around atleast from my point of view. The grizzled tree-kangaroo is still around, although the exhibit isn't the best. The Asian forest tortoise's exhibit is pretty ugly and looked like it belong to someone's garden, but it probably liked it. Then, there's a row of exhibits housing "unique animals". The first houses a mix of albino wallaby and dusky pademelon, a pair of Patagonian maras, three mini horses, two Valais blacknose (Unironically signed as Shaun the Sheep), and an inappropriate exhibit for a pair of northern cassowary. The exhibit in front of the row is the largest in the zoo, housing an male white lion named Bakari (Or Makari?) and an female which I don't know the name of. The next zone is called Bird Island, housing wing-clipped and tethered birds. Most of the parrots are used for photo props, there's also an Blyth's hornbill. The parrots are Pesquet's, eclectus, as well as several species of cockatoos and red-and-green macaw. The bird of prey zone have tethered spotted wood owl, brahminy kites, crested serpent eagle, and changeable hawk-eagle (Dark phase). After the Bird Island, there's an empty pond and two aviaries with birds-of-paradise (Twelve-wired and lesser). The last zone is primarily for primates as well as two empty exhibits for banded palm civet while the other is unsigned. The three primate exhibits is tall and also well decorated, housing a family of proboscis monkeys, white macaques, and Otong the golden siamang. Otong's exhibit is very well decorated with waterfall. After Faunaland, we actually planned to visit Ocean Dream Samudra for their penguins, but we cancelled it after some impromptu news. But hey, atleast we visit a zoo.
The next day, after eating instant noodle and refreshing myself by swimming, I'm ready to go somewhere. After checking up, I visited Allianz Ecopark, which is very close to my hotel. The entrance to the park is free but you have to pay to visit Faunaland. There's a new exhibit with a group of Javan rusas (Not part of Faunaland), which is not to big but not to bad for the deers. We originally planned to go around the park, but the last cart, which is actually a golf cart, has already been rented and we have to wait for half a hour for another one, so we only visited Faunaland. Same with the entrance to Ancol, we bought the ticket online. After passing a bridge, the first exhibit houses an black Javan leopard. It's pretty active and the exhibit is pretty great with covers for the leopard. The two next exhibits isn't to great. The first houses an Malayan tapir, which it self looks bruised for some reason and it's sleeping in the shallow pool in the exhibit. The second is for three large Aldabra giant tortoises, which is there only for photo purposes but I don't think they were bothered. Their exhibit isn't big and have small access to soil, but again they don't seem to care. The next two even smaller exhibits houses Sunda porcupines, the first houses a pair while the other houses four. The next few exhibits houses Shetland ponies, donkeys, and dwarf goats, not really impresive breeds from my point of view but they atleast make the kids happy. The glassed exhibits is my favorite part of the zoo, well decorated with nice species. The Asian golden cats and Sunda leopard cats are sadly off display, but I'm glad that one of the Bornean clouded leopards is displayed, the serval and Javan binturong is also there. The two next exhibits are also great, also well decorated and have impresive species, such as the spectral tarsier and black giant squirrel. The squirrel sadly doesn't have enough space to move around atleast from my point of view. The grizzled tree-kangaroo is still around, although the exhibit isn't the best. The Asian forest tortoise's exhibit is pretty ugly and looked like it belong to someone's garden, but it probably liked it. Then, there's a row of exhibits housing "unique animals". The first houses a mix of albino wallaby and dusky pademelon, a pair of Patagonian maras, three mini horses, two Valais blacknose (Unironically signed as Shaun the Sheep), and an inappropriate exhibit for a pair of northern cassowary. The exhibit in front of the row is the largest in the zoo, housing an male white lion named Bakari (Or Makari?) and an female which I don't know the name of. The next zone is called Bird Island, housing wing-clipped and tethered birds. Most of the parrots are used for photo props, there's also an Blyth's hornbill. The parrots are Pesquet's, eclectus, as well as several species of cockatoos and red-and-green macaw. The bird of prey zone have tethered spotted wood owl, brahminy kites, crested serpent eagle, and changeable hawk-eagle (Dark phase). After the Bird Island, there's an empty pond and two aviaries with birds-of-paradise (Twelve-wired and lesser). The last zone is primarily for primates as well as two empty exhibits for banded palm civet while the other is unsigned. The three primate exhibits is tall and also well decorated, housing a family of proboscis monkeys, white macaques, and Otong the golden siamang. Otong's exhibit is very well decorated with waterfall. After Faunaland, we actually planned to visit Ocean Dream Samudra for their penguins, but we cancelled it after some impromptu news. But hey, atleast we visit a zoo.