Yogyakarta, Indonesia

  Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia
Wednesday, October 8, 2008

We arrived in Yogyakarta (known as Jogja) at 5pm on Saturday evening, smack in the middle of the Hari Raya (end of Ramadan celebrations). We went to the main accomodation area to find everything booked out. I left Lydia in a cafe while I ran round looking for rooms. Got shown a few dives (expensive dives at that) and was losing all hope of getting somewhere even half decent to stay when I was approached by a teenage boy who told me his family have just opened a new home stay and they had one room left. I went to check out the room and apart from the fact that it had a shared bathroom I was really impressed. It was spotless clean, brand new building, there were only 2 other rooms in the home stay and it was cheap enough. So I dropped the rucksack, ran off to pick up Lydia and we checked in. It was then that things took a turn for the worse, Lydia checked out the bathroom and said it was like a matchbox - ah well, not the end of the world. Then I went to have a shower, but there was none, just freezing cold water trickling out of the shower head, and I mean trickling. How could this family spend so much money making the home stay look so nice then not even install a shower, I don't know!

Karl Doing Japanese Tourist Pose

Lydia doing Japanese Tourist Pose

Anyway, we decided that we weren't gonna get anywhere better that night and just went out for a few drinks in a nice bar and had some more good Indonesian food. Next morning I got up early and ran round the whole town looking for somewhere to stay (we couldn't go 3 nights withouth showering!). I went to about 15 different hotels, all of which were booked up or really expensive then I spotted two Australian backpackers who looked like they'd just checked out of somewhere. I asked them where they came from and was it ok, found the guesthouse (the cheapest we've stayed in to date by the way - 1.50 Euro each!) and checked in there. It was quite basic but had an attached bathroom and balcony. The shower actually had water in it too even though it was cold, not freezing though, bearable! For the rest of the day we walked round the town, went to some shopping centres, did some research online for the rest of Indonesia and walked to the Sultans Palace, the Kraton. That was closed but we heard it wasn't worth the entrance fee anyway so we were happy enough to take a quick photo from the outside and leave.

3-Karl the Buddha

2-Lydia & Buddha

We met so many nice people along the way, they are really really friendly and unlike certain other countrues, they don't expect anything in return for their friendliness. The funny thing is, most conversations start like this:
Local: "Hello Sir, where you from?" 
Me: Ireland
Local: "Irlandia.... Robbie Keane?"
Me: Yeah
Local: "Roy Keane?"
Me: Yeah
Local: "U2"
Me: Yeah (and here's the worst part...)
Local: Westlife!!!
Other common questions are:
Your Wife? (pointing to Lydia) Where you work? Children? How long you stay in Indonesia? etc etc

36-Sights from Borobudur

1-Sights from Prambanan

The next morning we had a rude awakening by the loudest call to prayer ever at 4am. It was like someone was sitting at the end of our bed with a loadspeaker, really load. Then, we left for out tour to the two nearby temples of Borobudur and Prambanan. We were in a car with two Polish (who hadn't got a sense of humour between 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.

2-Sights from Borobudur

7-Sights from Borobudur

Prambanan was not as impressive. There was a lot of it being renovated and under excavation, it was packed and as a Welsh guy who we met along the way said "it's like Disneyland in there" due to Sponge Bob Square Pants and other cartoon characters posing with kids around the place. We were told we had 2 hours to look round Prambanan - it took us 15 mins, so we went to a restaurant for something to eat then sat buzzing off some salesman for an hour when we were waiting for the others to arrive so we could go home. The salesman was funny, we had such a good laugh with him. He wanted my watch ($2 in Bangkok market) for a load of carved wooden statues, I would have traded only the statues wouldn't fit in my rucksack. He said Lydia was probably 40 years old and said she was a bit fat, then he told her she was very sexy, she must be a model, to which Lydia replied "What a 40 year old plus size model?"- think he was a bit confused!!!
That night we bumped into the couple from Leeds who we shared a taxi with in Jakarta, had a drink with them then met the Welsh guy from earlier with his German girlfriend (met in Switzerland, live in Ireland, long story!!!) and had some more drinks with them.
We really liked Jogja and we might have stayed for another night but we're on a bit of a tight schedule in Indonesia so we booked a bus to take us to Malang the following day.