The World is My Oyster

From Taman Ayun Temple on our way to Beratan Lake, we stopped by this Crocodile Park, or aka Taman Buaya & Reptil in Indonesian [Taman = park, buaya = crocodile, reptil = reptile]. It’s located still in Mangwi district, I’m guessing the location is around that red dot with black aura on the map below.

The entrance fee is Rp20.000,- for locals and Rp 70.000,- for foreigners! What a big difference! First they were going to charge us foreigner fee, I had to use my bargaining skill to convince them that I’m supposed to be local whenever it is more advantageous to be local. Nah, actually I just had to smile and talk in fluent Indonesian to set things straight. Note that a lot of Balinese talk to us in English by default, I guess because of the high number of tourists roaming about everywhere, it’s better to stay on the safe side and speak in the language that everyone is supposed to understand. I replied in English whenever I feel like it unless the situation is more advantageous otherwise :).

They said there were about a hundred crocodiles living in the park. After circling the park I think there really were that many. It’s a bit sad that the park wasn’t properly maintained though. I guess it’s really costly to have hundreds of crocodiles, it’s already pretty good that they could keep everybody alive and healthy.

Can you spot 3 crocodiles? This is supposed to be the stage where they had show of crocodile wrestling (shown on the ticket), but there was no show. Overall the park was very quiet and looked almost abandoned. I only saw one other ang-moh guy with his guide apart from us. There were probably another handful of people plus the park keepers.

Most of the crocodiles were in the stone state (term created by me for some living being acting like stone). I couldn’t even see them breathing. They were just totally still! The funniest pose was staying (sleeping?) with their jaws wide open. I have no idea how they could stay at that state for such a long time.

Right now I forgot why I didn’t take more pictures of the open-jawed crocodiles. They’re so cute that way. The picture below is one that I zoomed in from the previous picture.

Here I tried to show how gigantic the crocodiles were. But instead, I look gigantic. It’s hard to show how BIG they were with camera shot!

Yellow crocodile. There are many types of crocodiles, and they were put in separate cages. Looks like crocodiles will have greater chance to fight the ones that of different color. Sounds familiar.

I saw in one cage there were 2 crocodiles wrestling and biting each other while water splashing everywhere. Rendy said they were just going on a date. Crocodile date heehee.

A lonely komodo. It’s all alone. I feel bad for him/her.

Before we left, we posed in front of these cool big statues at the front gate of the park. Didn’t see any snake though.

I can’t wait to get to Beratan Lake post. It’s so prettyyyy.

Taman Buaya & Reptil (Crocodile Park)
Mangwi district, Bali
Indonesia

Admission: local Rp20.000,-, foreigner Rp 70.000,-