Grage Jogja Hotel Yogyakarta

... posing, and also with the driver. He seemed rather bemused by the whole thing, but I'm sure he loved me hugging him round the shoulder and posing for a cheery drunken photo once we got to the hostel! We stopped at the 24 hour mini market - Circle K - for more beers (why?!) and sat outside drinking till about 4am when we eventually went to bed. I had forgotten ,or rather chose to ignore, that the next day I had to be up at 7.30am to go to Borobodur...

... sun go down the view is over trees and paddy fields and out to a ring of big hills some with jagged edges, and Marapi in the mist is the perfect cone shaped volcano. Just magical!

Back at the hotel we decided the menu was a bit expensive so walked up through the village to see what the options were. Several “warungs” (small wheelbarrow stalls that serve food) were interspersed along the pavement. This was a ...

We left Bali for Central Java and based ourselves in Yogyakarta ("Yogya" for short) which is the cultural heart of the country. The flight was a short hop (as opposed to a very long bus ride) and we arrived in the early evening. We had booked a hotel which was recommended in the Lonely Planet for our first night. Our room, although not cheap, was modelled in the "Nelson Mandela Robben Island Retreat" style. It was dark, depressing and was directly under the ...

... that they would like to take a picture. Thinking that they would like for YOU to take a picture of THEM, you reach for their camera and smile, saying “Sure.” No, you are wrong. They would like YOU to take a picture WITH THEM, even though you don’t know them and they have no idea who you are. It doesn’t matter that they don’t know you --- you are white and therefore they want to take a picture with you! To be fair, it’s probably all foreigners ...

... that it was about to leave Yogyakarta for god knows where!! Blearey eyed, I jumped to my feet, grabbed my things, hoping i'd not forgotten anything jumped off the train!
Yogyakarta is a much cooler place with planty going on and much more geared up for tourists, so I'm planning to use it as a base for the next few days before heading to Bali.

************************** *************************************** *********

Yeah as I said before I was going to use Yogya ...

... es eh regnete,da war noch ein anderer, der kuenstler, der uns erklaert hat wie errr die Bilder macht...Also: Er pfeifft sich immer ein Paar Magic Mushrooms rein und geht dann an den Strand und laesst die Farben auf sich wirken,die er dann speaeter malte was man echt auch sah, da alle gemaelde farbenfroh und total schoen waen. Der Mann fuerhrte uns dann noch in das Reisebuero seiner Frau, wo ich dann auch gleich meine weiterreise nach denpasar, mit dem Bus ...

... and will probably end up killing each other in the end but before that final curtain comes down, we sure can do some amazing things when we find time to put the guns down and pick up a chisel or a paint brush. I know I am about the 1 billionth person to lament man's violent disposition but if we could just harness all of the hateful energy that we expend on killing each other and put it to a better use....say, building temples in a jungle....this world ...

... store. I can, however, find whitening cream for sale EVERYWHERE, promising women to lighten their complexion. Whitening cream commercials here are as common as Bud Light commercials in the USA. There is a sort of caste system in Asia, where the lighter skinned people are considered as more handsome/attractive and of a higher social class than the darker skinned people. Every woman ...

... them) and 3 Koreans - party bus! As soon as we got to Borobudur Lydia's flip flop broke and there were cries of "I hate this f*cking country". All I could do was laugh (to Lydia's annoyance). Borobudur, an old Buddhist temple was really impressive. We had been told by a few people that its one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World but I'm not sure if it is - really impressive though. I thought it was better than Angkor Wat in Cambodia ...

We spend our Xmas in Yogyakarta (Jogjakarta), which has an old palace (still in use) in a kraton (walled city). The city is much smaller than Jakarta, and is much more relaxing. We had tons of delicious foods here, including cobra! Mmmm! We also checked out a wayang shadow puppet show where one guy plays all the parts accompanied by hypnotic gamelan music. The show was quite interesting, especially since we could watch it from behind ...