A Scenic Jamu House on Lawu Mountain

The Indonesian government is getting serious about working on the potential of health tourism in Indonesia. The Government mapped health tourism into four clusters, namely medical tourism, fitness tourism and herbal medicine, sports tourism, and health scientific tourism. From the potentials, according to the Minister of Health, Terawan Agus Putranto, fitness tourism and jamu will be a priority for the health tourism sector. Those sectors have higher advantages for health, cultural and economic values.

B2P2TOOT

The potentials for health tourism lay at the hands of Indonesian Center for Research and Development of Medicinal and Traditional Medicinal Plants (Balai Besar Penelitian dan Pengembangan Tanaman Obat dan Obat Tradisional or B2P2TOOT) of the Health Research and Development Agency (Badan Penelitian dan Pengembangan Kesehatan or Litbangkes) of the Indonesian Ministry of Health (Kementerian Kesehatan or Kemenkes). B2P2TOOT is a government agency responsible for the development and preservation of medicinal plants.

“The main task of B2P2TOOT is to carry out research and development on traditional medicinal plants. The institituion has a long history. Before transforming into B2P2TOOT, it was a medicinal plant gardens supervised by Dutch botanists,” said Akhmad Saikhu, the current Head of B2P2TOOT.

Located in a cool Tawangmangu region, on the slopes of Mount Lawu, B2P2TOOT not only presents a garden of various herbal plants but also offers a beautiful natural landscape. The fertile soil is a suitable ground for various medicinal plants for jamu. Those are main reasons why B2P2TOOT Tawangmangu is a potential top spot for herbal health tourism.

Etalase tanaman obat

At B2P2TOOT there is a display garden where you can find stunning medicinal plants in a beautifully laid out garden. You can walk through the eye-spoiling lush-green garden. If you want some in-depth information about the plants, you could always drop by the Fitomedika Cinema. The place also the house of Museum Jamu Nusantara dan Pengobatan Tradisional Indonesia Hortus Medicus (Nusantara Herbal Medicine Museum and Indonesian Traditional Medicine Hortus Medicus), where you can find thousands of medicinal plants and tools for jamu-making by our ancestors.

In the B2P2TOOT area, you can also find a scientific Hortus Medicus Herbal Medicine Clinic. According to dr. Danang Ardiyanto, the clinic coordinator, this clinic accepts patients from various cities in Indonesia. In fact, according to dr. Danang, patients from Malaysia and Singapore also came to the B2P2TOOT clinic for treatment. In this clinic patients will be at the hands of doctors specializing in herbal medicine. The given-medicine is also prescription for herbal medicines.

Klinik Hortus medicus

“We call this herbal scientific clinic the same as the Hortus Medicus garden. The Hortus itself means plant and Medicus is medicine, hence a Medicinal Plant Garden. It has the same function as the research process, researches look for scientific evidence related to the safety and efficacy of medicinal plants, “added Akhmad Saikhu.

The combination of relaxation, recreation, and education is the key core of various activities you can do in the program of B2P2TOOT scientific tour of medicinal plants. Along with the existing facilities in the B2P2TOOT complex, you can visit the medicinal plant garden which is also managed by B2P2TOOT. To get to this place you have to go to the upper part of Tawangmangu. The place is quite far and the contour of the road is steep, but it all paid off when you arrived at the herbal garden. Apart from providing a recreation room, B2P2TOOT also prepares education on various herbal plants. Coupled with natural offerings in the form of a very neat and instagramable view of Mount Lawu.

A Visit to B2P2TOOT surely opens up our horizons. It’s a lind of revelation to see kinds of (we think useless or wild) plants and it turns out that those plants have medicinal properties. For example, the suket teki (Java grass) that we often see growing wild in rice fields turns out has properties for herbal medicine or jamu ingredients to cure various diseases.

“Well, like to visit this lovely place? the visiting procedure is on the  B2P2TOOT  website. You can access it at any time. The working hours are from Monday to Friday, 08.00-16.00 Western Indonesia Time. We also plan to open on Saturdays and Sundays for scientific tours, “said Akhmad Saikhu.

So, are you ready to learn while having a good time at B2P2TOOT, Jamupedia friends?