Taman Sari, the Hidden Jewel

When I was a child, I have visited Yogyakarta many times. But unfortunately I never come across to the water palace 'Taman Sari'. It's one of the sultan's villas. It was built in the 18th century by a Portuguese architect. The palace is surrounded by water for the sultan and his concubines to bath.

From afar, you can directly recognized the castle by the distinguish feature. It's white in colour with a mix of Mediterranean Europe style and Javanese style. When I got to the ticket counter, I prepared some money, but to my surprise, the ticket costs 3000 rupiah (or 40 cents usd) per person. It's definitely too cheap for an artifact that nice. No wonder they lack of money to maintain the site. But again, if you think about it.. It's Yogyakarta.. a city with lots of interesting artifacts but lacks of marketing for tourism. I can see big potential to make this city to become a tourist destination. The road system is already established with the right ambiance and feeling. It's just need some support from the authority. 

Taman Sari consists of a few parts; the water castle, the mosque with 5 directions of stairs, the ruin of the main palace. In between those sites, we had to walk along the 'kampong' (village houses). This is an interesting view of the humble living in Yogyakarta. Of course this kampong has developed into a tourism focus spaces. We can see most houses on the main street are trying to sell home industry products, such as batik, traditional food, or wayang (shadow puppet). 

Most of the gates and door's size are pretty short, so that whenever somebody wanna pass the gate, they have to bend their body a little bit. This represents respect to others and humble nature.

The sign board consists of 2 languages, French and Dutch, with the circulation direction in English. Diversity yeah.

 The map of the surrounding village aka touristy kampong. As you can see here, the building used to be built on top of a lake. Sadly, there is no water anymore. Conservation anyone???