Bogor: beauty in the beast?

Right at this moment, it's hard to find much nice to say about Bogor, a small city 60km south of Jakarta.  To get here we took a pretty nice commuter train from Gambir station for the hour-long journey.  We were both looking forward to getting clear of the noise, traffic and pollution of the capital and I read my book hoping Bogor would be the start of a more caring and attractive Indonesia than our first two ports of call.  But getting off the train, rounding the corner and seeing all the dirty food stalls and the crowds of people - together with the fact that it was raining and completely overcast rather felled our crests.  (I'm not sure if we have crests, or if they can be felled, but then how else does one become crestfallen?)

01 Jakarta - Bogor commuter train

Things then went downhill apace as we tried to sort out our onward train journey to Jogjakarta for the next day.  Although there is a railway line heading from Bogor towards Jogjakarta, apparently you can't pick up a train from here; you have to go back to Jakarta to do so.  Rachel was less surprised at this than me, saying it was like needing to go back into London from Teddington to catch a train to Winchester, but I'm afraid my crest proceeded to droop further.  We walked through the torrents of rain to the nearest guesthouse, Abu Pensione, which was a bit pricey but quite nice.  Deciding that the best thing to do was to get a bus to Bandung tomorrow (east of here and on the way to Yogy) and hope to pick up a Jogjakarta train from there, we washed a few pairs of underwear in the ink and set off into the gloom to try to cash some travellers' cheques. (This is the point where all you lot sitting in  comfortable chairs in warm, bright offices can look around yourselves and say "actually maybe I'll stay put, after all.")

02 Flower power

After the jobs (lunch then money) were done, we headed towards the botanical gardens in the centre of town which were the reason we'd come here in the first place.  It took a few false starts before we found the right entrance gate - owing to the faulty map we'd been given by our well-meaning hostel owner.  Once inside, the gardens were pretty impressive to view.  Every tree was different from the next and there were whole sections devoted to palms and cacti.  The orchid garden, too, had some beautiful specimens - although at least half of the plants weren't in bloom at the moment (do orchids 'bloom'? Not sure).

We've just traipsed around for another hour looking for somewhere to catch up on e-mails and discovered the only place in town is the Salak Hotel; where we are now.  It's just possible that I'll develop an all-encompassing love for Bogor in the next 12 hours, in which case I'll log back in and update this post, but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.  Unless you're a real botanist I'd be tempted to give this near suburb of Jakarta a miss. Sorry; feeling grouchy today. (T)

03 Annuver flower