The Circle of Enlightenment
Trip Start
Jun 12, 2006
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119
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Trip End
Jul 01, 2007
Yogyakarta, Java,
Indonesia
Thursday, February 8, 2007
We had to take the first ride to a near by town of Surabaya and then swap buses for Yogya, at one split moment on the bus everything was happening. Not only was it raining out heavierly but our bus driver was doing his best to hit every on coming traffic, Dan was making his move on a local girl that sat next to him, I had a crazy bloke with two hats sitting next to me (also wrapped in my sarong to keep off the chills of aircon) and with all this on walks kareoke man. Now people in Asia do love to busk, but not before had i see someone pull on a whole sound system and start singing...all very sereal!!!
We arrived late in Yogya and crashed at the first half desent place
Bird Market
. Next day we found accomidation for 1 pound a night and started wondering around the city. More crazy stuff was to follow...we had heard about a singing bird competition at the market, but got the wrong day..instaed we found a bloke who insisted showing us his pet 4 foot iguana. He did however turn out to be very useful. Most of the palaces were shut in the afternoon, but this bloke took us through a maze of back gardens to steps that led into the back enterance of the water palace. He also showed around some art and craft markets and a look out across the city. Day one also over we meet two Solevian girls Simona and Anna, had a couple of drinks and crashed.Day 2 was cracker, up at 6am we may our way out to the Buddha temple of Borobudur. This turned out to be a mission, two bus rides and a drop off in the middle of these paddy feilds, not having a clue where to go, luckerly we found two old local women who put us on the right bus. Borobudur is a 9th ventury temple with 6 square bases and 3 circuler bases on top, thoose who climb it are chosing the cicular climb of enlightenment. On top are large bell structures, each containing a stuture of Buddha and the climb up reveals 1000s of carvings. Not only was the veiw and surroundings spectacular on top, we also had fun with the locals again.
Now I dont really understand why people dont travel through Indonesia, maybe the bomb in Bali has effected this, but at the temple was us and another two western looking blokes and heaps of locals
Borobudur 1
. The people here just dont bump into white people and with that comes the questions and photos. I can understand kids or girls taking pictures, but grown men would come up to us and ask for a pictures, I'm not kidding I must of been in at least 30 pictures that day, i was in my element!!!Later that day we took it easy had an early night ready for more temple. The next day we got up at mid day and haeded out on the shorter trip to Prambanan, hindu temples built shortly after Borobudur. We had been warned by a lot of people that you cant see much due to earth quake damage from a massive quake in may 2006, that caused a second mini sumnami. With this knowledge we didnt want to take a tour, instead started to walk around the outside. A little around we spotted a hole in the fence and decided to seek in!!! Poeple saw us but we just waved, success 11 dollar enterance saved!!!
I thought the temples were quite good, yes you cant get inside the main complex, but as you can see from the phots you can get fairly close. Also towards the back of the site are a second group and only three of us were in there, not bad for free. Later we decided to hit a club called liquid again celebratory status, everyone wanted to dance and speak with us.
Borobudur 10
Hungover we went up the close by volcano in the evening of Gurung Merapi, but the weather was too bad to see the lava in the dawn sky, however we did get a specular sunset.
Later the solevian girls were to tired to come out, but we decided we wanted to hit the town again We meet two Swedish girls and an ozzie bloke in the local bar and headed out.....Comedy moment again, they would let us into the club with flip flop, so the door man took us to his mates in a local bike shop and we rented trainers, only in asia...not so drunk this night, but the swedish girls we chundering in the toilets after one to many scorns!!!
Last day in Yogya, we walked around the city again, the orginal idea was to spend some time in Jakarta, but due to the floods i changed my mind and got a flight straight to the island of Batam, the indonesian gateway to Singapore.
