Bali - new tourist attraction open: Taman Nusa in Gianyar

Now visitors in Bali can travel across Indonesia, an archipelagic country of more than 17,000 islands, in just one day.

That journey is made possible by Taman Nusa, a new attraction that opened its gates to visitors. Its tag line is “Indonesian heritage culture center” and its founder, a wealthy and elderly businessman, Santoso Senangsyah, has already visualized it as the place where future Indonesian children could learn the history and heritage of their great nation and fall in love with their own cultural legacy. It is a tourist attraction, but its main mission is primarily educational.

Taman Nusa lies on 15 hectares bordering three villages: Blahpane Kaje, Blahpane Kelod and Bakas. Only 11 hectares will be used for building and infrastructure, the remaining four will be set aside to conserve the woods in cooperation with the villages.

The buildings in the park have been designed to represent various epoch in Indonesia’s history, from the stone and bronze ages, through kingdoms, the War of Independence, up to the present-day Indonesia. The replica of Borobudur, the world’s largest Buddhist temple, and the statue of Gajah Mada, the prime minister of the Majapahit empire, standing before a replica of the Majapahit palace gate, as well as the statues of Indonesia’s founding fathers, Sukarno and Hatta, are among the key pieces in this park.

One thing that truly will captivate visitor attention is the cultural kampung, a complex of at least 59 traditional houses representing the cultural richness of ethnic groups across the archipelago. Some were built on site, others are historical artifacts flown to Bali. Among the latter are a 100-year-old Limas house brought from Plaju in Palembang, a 19th century Javanese-style house from Yogyakarta, and a 70 year old Rumah gadang from Padang.

Visitors could see not only the architectural beauty of the houses but also the daily life of the native people from those houses. The park recruited staff from the respective ethnic groups to act as householders. Visitors will also have the chance to learn the art of batik in the park’s cloth museum, one of three museums on the site.

For more information and how to come there: www.taman-nusa.com

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