Novotel Yogyakarta

... enough to get a short nap in from time to time. Where the train stopped at a station however, you would be woken by loud shouting from food sellers who would board the trains and pester you to buy their stuff (just like on the boat from Bali to Lombok). We are pretty much accustomed to this now, and are no longer offended by the persistence which we get hounded. In fact, a journey wouldn’t be complete without the food sellers ambushing your vehicle every so often. Besides ...

... 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!<br><br> 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 &#8220;warungs&#8221; (small wheelbarrow stalls that serve food) were interspersed along the pavement. This was a ...

... quite ironic really - the government here (elections coming up - pick between 46 parties!) have elected an anti-corruption commission to clean up Indonesia's corrupt look. Last month the chair of this board (all senior MP's and business owners) was arrested for allegedly murdering another business associate and bribing someone to cover it up. Madness. If you want something doing here - the greenback works. Although it's different at street level. The ...

... and then the next. The setup was huge and was really intriguing to see it with the locals at work and to the amazement of how they leveled each tier. It was one of the loveliest trips across a country, definitely up there with the mountains of jungle in Borneo. Here we were basing ourselves for the day trip to apparently the worlds biggest Buddhist temple, Borobudur. Oh and it is pretty huge! We booked a trip to get there in the ...

... books for kids, I am well versed in the story and the Indian depiction of the characters in the story. The Javanese interpretation of the great epic was entirely different than what I learned as a child. Rama and Lakshmana were masters with their bow and arrows and the basic characters and storyline held true, but there was definitely a different story told. The ballet starts not as in the epic with Rama as a ...

... durch 1m breite, einsame Gassen bis zum Hotel. War alles ok - Zimm** noch frei, und ich bin d** einzige Gast hi**, alle and**en Zimm** sind le**. Naja, ist hi** nicht g**ade d** Hit (wenn LonelyPlanet meint, daß ist eine Budget Unt**kunft, dann ist das auch eine), 70.000 pro Nacht und ich bleibe auch nur eine Nacht hi**, mehr würde ich hi** wahrscheinlich auch nicht üb**leben. Hab meine Sachen auch nur abgestellt und bin dann gleich los, weil um 11:00 im Kraton diese ...

... strangest "buffet" I've ever seen. Can't say i was a fan of my first indo meal - stuck mostly to the white rice - everything else just kinda tasted "strange" to me. Both Trev and i were fast asleep by 8pm and went on to bag a dozen (hrs of sleep that is!) - think Kate was enthralled by the extensive satellite TV so all was good. Never met a breakfast buffet I didn't like till Tuesday morning... It was like a dinner buffet with chicken, rice, desserts, fish ...