Before leaving Ambarawa where we had, by most accounts, had a pretty good time; we had one last stop recommended to us to check out. A little place by the name of ‘Cimory on the Valley’. Those who haven’t been in Indonesia likely wouldn’t of heard of Cimory. Cimory is a widely popular milk brand in Indonesia. I’m not sure who they’re owned by or what else they own, but their wide spread of dairy products can be found in large supermarkets to small corner stores. Having been in Indonesia a little while now, we had definitely seen and consumed this brand, and a place called Cimory on the Valley sounds really nice.
Here’s what we were picturing:
Some sort of agrotourism attraction like you might find in Australia or NZ.
Unfortunately this was not the reality, and Cimory on the Valley is another one of those cutesy selfie places I mentioned in my last post. Even worse though, this one not only has no other draw card other than being a place for cutesy selfies, this one actively makes the world a worse place.
When you first enter the ticketed area of Cimory on the Valley, you are greeted with this sign:
“Anda punya. Saran dan kritik. Kirim ke no berikut: 0821 3740 6688. Foto & sampaikan kepada kami. Terima Kasih.”
Or as google translates:
“You have. Suggestions and critics. Send to the following number: 0821 3740 6688. Photos & send to us. Thank you”.
Let's see what sort of photos you can take here.
So the first thing we get is a cardboard cut out, because they know you like instagram, so you put a cimorygram in your instagram so you can instagram while you instagram. What are we insta-cimory-gramming? Cows. Cows that can’t move. Cows that can’t move on cold concrete. Cows that can’t move on cold concrete with no water or food. Nice.
What else does this place have to offer? As you continue past the cows you find a large dirt patch with hungry deer on it. I suppose they try not to feed the deer so that people will buy the pellet feed on offer as I’m pretty sure the deer would eat anything at this point. Two came running for a twig of grass. I guess only relying on customers to feed the hungry deer is fine until there are only a handful of visitors visiting each day, and the staff can’t be bothered to sell the feed any more, like the day we went. But that probably doesn’t happen.
Past the hungry deer are largish chicken pens. It’d be fine for a couple of chickens. But these pens had all sorts of birds crowded in together. This owl was the king of the coop with his bling around his foot and dangly chain that may or may not have been attached to its perch.
Next up was a lone filthy sheep in a pen with only wood floors. I’m glad I’m not posting a picture of its back side.
The park wanted to show how eco-efficient and friendly it is, and so it had a stylised picture of their water purification process, the cartoon pipes painted on the side of a wall turned into a real pipe which fed this fish pond – the final step of the water process. The fish kept within were very talented, showing off to gawking tourists how they could swim on their side in only one inch of water.
Finally there was the petting zoo. The petting zoo consisted of about 20 rabbits packed into a tiny cage with chicken wire floors, no food, and no water. Mimi eventually lost it and got mad at a staff member telling them they should at least let the rabbits out into the petting area. They opened the cage and took one rabbit out. It ran around confused, and eventually made its way into a drain to drink some water.
On the way out, I also noticed an emu in a back pen. I’m not sure why they have an emu and especially when they have it in a corner most people won’t even notice. The emu has the wonderful choice of two pens to be in, the sunny dirt pen, or the half sunny concrete pen. The half sunny concrete pen also comes with a trough full of slime to peck at.
This was a friendly reminder never to visit anywhere in Indonesia, or most of Asia for that matter, that houses animals. They’re rarely treated well and you only have to witness the 5 year olds on the streets kicking puppies to realise the mentality of an overwhelming number of people towards animals here.
Coming up: Newspaper interviews, being scammed in open daylight, and sneaking in to public places.
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