[caption id="attachment_103578" align="aligncenter" width="666" caption="Jakarta has a unique place and tool to give you unique experience as if you have passed whole parts of Indonesia: Taman Mini Indonesia Indah with its skylift. Photo by Sonny Hendrawan Saputra"][/caption]
Indonesia is too huge to explore in short period of holiday. You will need several months even years to explore Indonesia which has more than 17,000 islands in its large archipelago. You also need to prepare amount of money to visit at least in 5 biggest island in Indonesia: Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and Papua. Of course, money will be nothing compared to the great pleasure from the opportunity to see all over Indonesia by your own eyes. However, for you, travellers who want to see Indonesia completely but cannot afford it due to money and time, Jakarta has a unique place and tool to give you unique experience as if you have passed whole parts of Indonesia:Taman Mini Indonesia Indah(TMII) with its skylift. You can see Indonesia from sky; and surprisingly you just need to take IDR 20,000 during weekdays or IDR 25,000 during weekends.
TMII or "Beautiful Indonesia Miniature Park", located in eastern part of Jakarta, is famous with its cable car or commonly called by travelers as kereta gantung/ skylift which has been operated since 1975. Even though it cannot be called as super modern transportation device in tourism area, visitors still use it as favorite tool to see almost whole parts of TMII. One skylift hanging in the strong well-maintained cable can be used by four people. You will “fly” about 15 – 20 metres from the ground. By using skylift, you can see miniatures of Indonesian traditional houses from various provinces, map of Indonesia in the shape of mini imitation of islands in the middle of artificial lake, and many other tourism attractions in TMII. That’s why many travellers mention that using skylift is a cheap way to “explore all over Indonesia” in very short time of vacation.
Okay, let’s begin to travel….
The first basic step to do before enjoying skylift is buying the ticket. In the ticket counter, you will see the taglines: friendly, care, helpful, and sustainable as representation of service type for sklift users and taglines: safe, comfortable, and trusted which areto ensure that skylift is really the cable car that truly represents those three taglines. After that, be ready with your breath. You need to pass several stairs to go to the upper level of TMII. During walking through the stairs, you will see red as dominant color of that area. Maybe it has psychological meaning to cheer up the people who may tend to feel tired in walking on stairs. When you have been to the top, you will be greeted by an officer to guide you to enter the skylift and he will make sure the door of skylift has been precisely closed (the system of door closing is skylift is still manual). At a glance, you may see how skylift works since that area is like the terminal as the center of all skylifts operated. The terminal has big machine as controller of all the movements of all skylifts.
[caption id="attachment_103611" align="aligncenter" width="597" caption="Skylift ticket counter. Photo by Sonny Hendrawan Saputra"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_103612" align="aligncenter" width="576" caption="Take some breaths and be ready to go upstairs to reach skylift in upper part of TMII. Photo by Sonny Hendrawan Saputra"]
13035823491042348684
[/caption] [caption id="attachment_103613" align="aligncenter" width="599" caption="Skylift station. Photo by Sonny Hendrawan Saputra"]1303582450180163822
[/caption]The most interesting part in using skylift is when you can see various traditional houses from all over Indonesia. If you start the sklift from Station B to Station C (vice versa), from the sky you can see traditional houses from provinces: Papua, Central Sulawesi, North Sulawesi, Central Kalimantan, Maluku, East Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, West Kalimantan, Aceh, North Sumatra, West Sumatra, South Sumatra, Bengkulu, and Jambi. If you start the sklift from Station A to Station C (vice versa), you will continue your journey to see traditional houses from provinces: Jakarta, Lampung, West Java, Central Java, Yogyakarta, East Java, Bali, West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara, South Sulawesi, and South East Sulawesi. In minutes, you will realize the richness of Indonesian culture. Pay attention to the details of those housing. It can be similar from one to another as it can be very contrast, too.
[caption id="attachment_103616" align="aligncenter" width="605" caption="Sklifts are on action. Photo by Sonny Hendrawan Saputra"]
13035831121489464792
[/caption] [caption id="attachment_103617" align="aligncenter" width="641" caption="(from left) Papua, Aceh, North Sumatra traditional houses you can see from sky. Photo by Sonny Hendrawan Saputra"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_103618" align="aligncenter" width="284" caption="West Sumatra traditional house seen from the sky. Photo by Sonny Hendrawan Saputra"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_103619" align="aligncenter" width="665" caption="From skylift, in minutes you can realize how rich Indonesia is. You can see various style of design in Indonesian traditional houses. Photo by Sonny Hendrawan Saputra"]13035833381784787481
[/caption]The character of design of TMII is the map of Indonesia in the middle of artificial lake located in the central of TMII. It is in the shape of miniature of Indonesian islands. shown completely from east to the west as real perspective. You will see the miniatures just the same when you open the map paper of Indonesia. With green grass dominating, various flowers beautify those artificial islands. Interestingly, Indonesian map is passed by skylift, too even it becomes one of the most attractive spots in TMII for the visitors since it has unique concept of idea.
1303584156309279796
[caption id="attachment_103621" align="aligncenter" width="569" caption="Map of Indonesia you can see from skylift. Photo by Sonny Hendrawan Saputra"]13035841811081825887
[/caption]During your journey using skylift, other attractions of TMII you can see from the sky are Istana Anak Anak (Children Castle) which is near to Station B and Water Park which is near to Station C. Seeing those spots from the sky may strongly tempt you to visit them directly after you finished the trip with skylift. TMII uses skylift for teaser for visitors to explore all details of TMII with bunch of Indonesian cultural daily exhibitions. In fact it works effectively, many visitors become curious and more tempted to come the spots which are so attractive on their perspective on sky.
[caption id="attachment_103622" align="aligncenter" width="396" caption="Children Castle in TMII. Photo by Sonny Hendrawan Saputra"]
13035845482116771570
[/caption] [caption id="attachment_103623" align="aligncenter" width="604" caption="Water Park seen from skylift. Photo by Sonny Hendrawan Saputra"]13035847301370237099
[/caption] The journey seems very short especially when you can really enjoy by seeing one by one the detail of buildings in TMII that can make you say "I have gone to whole parts of Indonesia". Skylift is operated daily. 1. Sunday to Saturday 9 am to 4.30 pm 2. Monday and on National Holidays 8.30 am to 5.30 pm After "take off" from skylift, you can take some times to see and buy merchandise of TMII near to the place where you are dropped - of course after you get down by the stairs. Those are various traditional merchandises provided including Wayang Golek and Angklung from West Java, postcards from Jakarta, ethnic bags, and wooden accessories. You can also buy key holder and pen with your name written on it. Per item of key holder and pen is only IDR 3,000. [caption id="attachment_103626" align="aligncenter" width="566" caption="Seeing and buying TMII traditional merchandise after you "]1303586032125590623
[/caption] [caption id="attachment_103628" align="aligncenter" width="524" caption="Get your name written in TMII key holder and pen with IDR 3,000 only. Photo by Sonny Hendrawan Saputra"]1303586267453779253
[/caption] Kereta gantung or skylift has been the soul of TMII. It is often used as icon of TMII in its commercial media. For travellers like you, absolutely it can be so impressive experience because it can bring you the atmosphere of travelling all over Indonesia just by spending IDR 20,000. Even, you can see it from the sky. What a nice journey, right?! At last, I want to suggest you for not letting this opportunity when you go to Jakarta and you can bring back home your beautiful Indonesian memory in detail.