Choo choo to Yogya!

We decided to take the train to Yogya which would pretty much take us the whole day and the scenery on the way was stunning once again - flying past volcanoes, rice paddies and small villages! Most amusing watching 2 little boys having a gunfight over the head of a teenager trying to catch some zzzz's! We arrived late afternoon and once we escaped the touts running after us, we found the very cute 'Superman' homestay (we were even supplied with Batman and Robin outfits to make us feel at home!). We literally only had what was left of the afternoon and evening to see Yogya so headed out straight away and luckily it turned out to be the last day of a local festival so we could go into the 'Kraton' - a huge palace from the time of the old sultans and basically the centre of a small, walled city! It was great wandering around seeing the old costumes and some of the masks were scary to say the least! We ended up scaring lots of children again who had obviuosly not seen many white people before! Reckon they were more scared of Paul than me! What do you reckon?

Ceremonial Outfits

I ended up getting collared by a Batak painter which ended up being really interesting as he showed me how it was done and it just makes you realise how much work goes into it! Made the big mistake of asking how much a piece was though...thank God Paul came to my rescue...again!

Royal Carriage (not as good as ours Big Geoff)