Taman Safari and the hospital

 

Taman Safari is located near Bogor which itself is in the jungles of Indonesia and just a 2-3hr drive from Jakarta. We left at 6am, which for me is still the middle of the night, that said I woke early and went to pick up Astrid who lives about 20 minutes away from me. So I texted her twice before I leave and no reply, I get there thinking she was probably showering and that’s why I got no reply. Instead she was still sleeping when I called her from outside her house. She answers still sleepy and asks me why I am waking her, I remind her we are going to Taman Safari and I am outside her house, I tell her this 5 times and then she goes quiet and comes back more awake she asks where am I and I tell her again I am outside her house. She runs downstairs and lets me in before getting ready to leave.

 

Arriving at my house and ready to go, I grab my bag and camera and we get in the car and off we go, after picking up two new teachers who were accompanying us from BSD we head towards the freeway, on the way the conversation turns to where we are all from as not all of us know the new teachers, it turns out Emma is from Mansfield a town that is about 20 minutes from where I grew up as a child. It’s such a small world. At 8am we arrive at the Safari and everyone is very excited, I get out the car and feel a small pain in my left knee, Didn’t think much of it I assumed it was from being sat in the car for a couple of hours.

 

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that if you show your KITAS (resident permit) you can get entry for the local price, this is a big thing in Indonesia at these types of attractions there will usually be two prices, one for locals (Indonesians) and another for Internationals. The price is generally 40% more. So our entry was just 60,000 ($6) rather than 100,000.

 

Going into the safari was amazing the first animal we saw were zebra who were roaming free and coming up to the cars where people were feeding them bananas. I am not going to list all the animals but one thing they have plenty of are cattle, many different types all coming up to the cars for food. The lion and tiger enclosures were not as good as I expected as there were only a few of each animal and they seemed very lethargic. It would have been nice for them to have come up to the car to get some close up shots. I say they were lethargic and that is true except for one of the tigers who were trying to ‘get it on’ with one of the female tigers, she seemed to have a headache or needed to wash her hair as she wasn’t interested.

 

The tour lasted for about 2.5 hrs and was an experience to remember but I feel the best is still to come. After getting out of the car in the parking area we made our way to the exhibit area where they have elephant trekking, I didn’t do that because I didn’t have enough money (100k) but next time I will. But there are elephant you can get your photograph taken with, these elephants are such amazing creatures and I was holding its trunk and stroking it. This is the first time I have ever touched an elephant and it was not what I expected, the skin was all rough and hairy.

 

The last part of our day was in the baby zoo which is the best thing I have ever done; here you can hold baby animals from tigers to leopards to orangutans. It cost’s just 10,000 to hold/play with the animal and have your photo taken, I held all the animals and the best one was the baby orangutan who was 4 months old, He was adorable and so loving, I actually went in to hold him twice! I told Astrid to make a distraction so I could steal him. It was really really amazing. I also held the lion and a white tiger who bit me, not hard I think he was just hungry and being playful, it hurt a little but I think that just adds to what an amazing time I had.

 

Throughout the day the pain in my leg grew and grew, by the end of the day I could hardly walk, I don’t know what had caused it or why it was getting worse but it was extremely painful, overnight my leg was still getting worse and it spread to my ankle and foot. I decided to take a trip to the hospital, not my favorite place but at least here they are well equipped and you get dealt with quite fast. I saw the doctor who examined me and asked questions about my back etc. He referred me to the x-ray department to check my lower back for any injuries, It was supposed to be just two x-rays, I ended up having nine, I had no idea why but I just thought they were getting bad shots for some reason. I was wrong, When I spoke to the doctor again he asked me about my right leg, Had I ever had pain there or did the left side of my body ever hurt when I moved into any positions. I told him never. He then showed me the x-rays and the reason why they had taken so many, They had discovered a ‘mass’ on my right coccyx, they were not sure what it is was but they want me to have more tests on Saturday. I just hope it is nothing serious. The good thing is the school has offered to allow me to leave my contract early and not lose any benefits such as flight reimbursement or have to pay a contract break penalty so I could return to the UK for treatment but I think even if I do need treatment I will have it out here because of the lengthy waiting lists and issues you hear about UK hospitals these days!

 

On the bright side the medication I took for my leg has worked and now I just have a slight pain if I touch the area at the side of my knee and I can walk again normally.

 

I will of course keep you updated to the progress of these medical conditions and more in my next blog.

If you have any questions then please leave a comment and don’t forget to rate my blog!

 

• safari
• animals
• bogor
• Jakarta
• hospital
• medical care