Bogor

Bogor used to be a popular hill station with Dutch governors-general during the period of Dutch-colonial rule. Since Jakarta has grown dramatically since that time, Bogor is nowadays just one of the capital's outer suburbs. Bogor's major attractions is its superb botanical gardens of Kebun Raya. The gardens consist of a huge expanse of 80 hectares (200 acres) of greenery right in the heart of the city. Originally it was used for crops such as tobacco and tea, which were shipped to Europe and sold there, but nowadays the gardens contain more than 15,000 species of trees and plants. The collections includes some 400 palm species and, apparently, 3000 orchid varieties, although the orchids can not be visited by the public.

The Presidential Palace, which houses Soekarno's art collection and the exhibits of the Zoological Museum, is also in the gardens. The palace can only be visited by prior arrangement.

There are several hotels and restaurants in Bogor. The city is 50 km south of Jakarta and can be reached by train or bus from central Jakarta. Organized tours to the botanical gardens are available in Jakarta.