Travel Guide Bogor

This city of one million inhabitants is located 60 km south of Jakarta at an altitude of 290 m, at the foot of Mount Salak. It's famous for its rainfall and botanical gardens... as well as for the extreme density of its traffic!In the 18th century, Batavia, formerly Jakarta, capital of the Dutch Indies, was a city in the image of Amsterdam, with its canals and gabled houses. But this architecture proved totally unsuited to life in the tropics. The canals, with their stagnant water, breed mosquitoes, vectors of deadly diseases. The insalubrious conditions also encouraged the spread of epidemics. As a result, many chose to abandon the mortifying city and seek refuge in the hills, on the slopes of volcanoes, or in other places with a climate closer to that of the mother country, benefiting from a healthy dominant situation: rain, mild air and the charm of nature.In 1745, the Governor General of the Dutch East Indies, Baron Gustaaf Willem Van Inhoff, set off into the forest in search of archaeological remains of the mythical Sundanese princes of the Pajajaran kingdom. He arrived at a very peaceful spot, 60 km south of the capital, in Sunda country (West Java), on the slopes of the Gunung Pangrango volcano. Convinced that he was in the very cradle of the mythical city, he decided to settle there. A new city was born: Buitenzorg, which in Dutch means "Carefree" or rather "Out of Care". He had a 10,000 m² palace built in the middle of nature to house the entire administrative body responsible for managing the Dutch East Indies. Little by little, the forest was domesticated in the Dutch manner, a way of reconstituting a familiar universe on the nation's maritime borders. An initially modest garden appeared in the vicinity, a refuge with natural fortifications. What began as a horticultural hobby became an industrial enterprise in just a few years. The history of the Buitenzorg Botanical Garden began on May 18, 1817, under the impetus of the Director of Agriculture, Arts and Sciences, Casper Georg Carl Reinwardt (1773-1854). This renowned botanist succeeded in turning the garden into a large natural laboratory for the introduction, expansion and exploitation of useful tropical plants in the three major fields of food, medicine and productivity. Following Indonesia's independence, the town of Buitenzorg changed its name to Bogor. Its garden, one of the finest in Southeast Asia, is world-renowned by botanists.