Kebun Raya

At the heart of Bogor are the fabulous botanical gardens, known as the Kebun Raya, the city’s green lung of around 87 hectares. Governor General Raffles first developed a garden here, but the spacious grounds of the Istana Bogor (Presidential Palace) were expanded by Dutch botanist Professor Reinwardt, with assistance from London’s Kew Gardens, and officially opened in 1817. It was from these gardens that various colonial cash crops, such as tea, cassava, tobacco and cinchona, were developed by Dutch botanists including Johannes Teysmann, during the infamous Cultivation Period in the 19th century. The park is still a major centre for botanical research in Indonesia. This was the one place in Indonesia George W Bush visited when he dropped by the country in 2006.