Today I visited Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (TMII) or "Beautiful Indonesia Miniature Park"


The Mall Tamini near to Taman Mini Indah park


From my place at Pulo Mas, you can take Bas 43 or 511 to UKI (Universitas Kristen Indonesia) and from UKI you can take angkot 476 to Tamani Square mall, then take Angkot 02 or 01 to Taman Mini, at later in the night Angkot 15A from Tamini Mall back to UKI.


Passing by The Mosque of At Tin Taman Mini

Taman Mini Indah is a culture-based recreational area located in East Jakarta and is an edutainment park of the provinces and cultures of Indonesia featuring a somewhat miniature version of Indonesia with examples of houses from all the provinces across the archipelago.

The park is a synopsis of Indonesian culture, with nearly all aspects of daily life in Indonesia' provinces are depicted in the separate pavilions with the collections of architecture, clothing, dances and traditions. Apart from the cultures, there are other forms of entertainment, cable cars, museums, and other recreational facilities which make TMII a popular tourist destination within Jakarta.





Entry ticket costs 9,000rp ($1.30), and the first place I visited was the Purna Bakti Pertiwi Museum (PBPM), that houses the collection of presents from other countries given to former president Soeharto.
















All the treasures that other countries have presented to President Soeharto during his reign is displayed at this museum.




A very magnificent ship made entirely out of Jade


A princess bedroom set made entirely out of Jade! Now that's Royalty!


























The Tumpeng style Purna Bhakti Pertiwi Museum displaying artworks and souvenirs collections of Suharto.


After visiting Purna Bhakti Pertiwi, it’s time to head into TMII proper.


Kala Makara main entrance


Sasono Utomo main building behind the Tugu Api Pancasila monument


Tugu Api Pancasila, the main monument, an obelisk celebrating the Pancasila ideology in Indonesia



Skylift Indonesia cable car


Cable car loket (ticket) counter













Each Indonesian province maintains its own unique and distinct cultures, shelters, clothing and dialects, and in TMII - the venues are situated around the main lake in a similar fashion to the different islands of the Indonesian archipelago, and are thematically divided into six areas in respect to the main islands of Indonesia; Java, Sumatra, Kalimantan (Borneo), Sulawesi, the Lesser Sunda Islands, Maluku and Papua.

Indonesia now consist of 33 provinces, (from 27 in 1970’s) currently the six new province pavilions of Bangka Belitung, Banten, West Sulawesi, North Maluku, Gorontalo, and West Papua are being built in northeast part of the park and there are model homes of each of the different architectures’ from Indonesian provinces simulate a recreation of a realistic environment of the various people of Indonesia.






The miniature of Indonesian Archipelago in the center lake viewed from the cable car.







From the cable-car ride, you can see religious buildings of several official religions in Indonesia (currently there are 6 recognized religions), it was a short but pretty ride, getting a birds’ eye view of the entire park, there is a lake with a miniature of the Indonesian archipelago as little islands – rather a pretty sight and you can see all the various building architectures of the various Indonesian cultures that vary greatly from each province giving each province in Indonesia a very unique sense of culture and diversity.


Bali pavilion gate





















Istana Anak-anak Indonesia.

The religious buildings of several official faiths is meant to showcase the inter-faiths tolerance and religious harmony of Indonesia.

Arya Dwipa Arama Buddhist temple


Santa Catharina Catholic church


Museum Keprajuritan




SnowBay water entertainment park in Taman Mini


Wind powered Aeromovel monorail ride around the park

The cable-car ride is somewhat useless because it doesn’t allow you to get off at the other side, leaving it only for sight-seeing purposes but not functional as a form of transport within Taman Mini. The miniature of Indonesian Archipelago in the center lake viewed from the cable car. Given the huge 145Ha size of TMII, there are a few transportation options within the park.

You can choose to take the “wind powered” Aeromovel monorail ride around the park, or the enjoy the view from the skylift cable car, take a Mini train around the park, enjoy a leisurely cruise in a swan paddle boat on Indonesian archipelago lake or even rent a bicycle or a car around the area.


The iconic golden snail at Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, the Keong Emas (golden snail), which is actually one of the main highlights of TMII, an IMAX theatre.

Next, I visited Dunia Air Tawar “World of Plain water”, basically an aquarium. The exhibits were mundane, descriptions were half-hearted in Bahasa, and some of the exhibits’ descriptions were in a poor exhibition condition for tourists and visitors and I’ve seen most of the fishes before.


Dunia Air Tawar



But what really made the visit worthwhile was this “mutant” fish exhibit area that showed a few freaky fishes! One was the freaky mutant Arowana fish with BOTH it’s eyes facing forward like that of a human face, it even had a perpetually sad expression on it’s face as it swam round and round in perpetual circles in it’s tank awaiting it’s eventual demise.


Freaky mutant Arowana fish.


Mutant twin fish.

The other fish was a freaky “twin” Siamese fish, still alive, still breathing, but very much as vegetable as a fish could get. Looks like sometimes surviving mutant freaks of nature are not confined to just humans, but other animals survive as well.



Another creature that enraptured me as a hovering, nearly immobile (yet hovering motionlessly) in the water was a giant, BLIND (no eyes) electric eel that was shocking the tank every few seconds (the lights on top of the tank would light up every few seconds intermittently).


Giant blind electric eel shocking the tank every few seconds.



Pusaka (Heirloom) Museum

There are about ten gardens and fourteen museums in TMII, but after the IMAX show it was almost 4pm and it was too late to visit the other museums and attractions as they all close at 4pm.

One of the other attractions is the Spherical cage Bird Park that has a large collection of tropical birds that are native to Indonesia and of course many many more museums, I will definitely return again to visit the other museums.



A quick obligatory dinner at the mall, the night soon fell and it was time to retire for the night, I will be back again!