Back from the brink

Trip Start Nov 01, 2006

110

179

Trip End Oct 31, 2007

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Flag of Indonesia Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Friday, May 18, 2007

Things started looking up a couple of days ago and have continued to get better, so you'll be glad to hear (I hope!) that I think I can now say I'm out of my slump. We took an executive train from Bandung to Yogya (as it's affectionately known) which was less 'executive' than we might have hoped, but we had relatively comfortable seats, were served free tea and lunch, and had lovely views all day of rice paddies and the odd volcano. So it was a pretty enjoyable journey. And then we got to Yogya, found a hotel pretty easily, a little above our usual price but a lovely place with a swimming pool and where they serve free tea on your balcony every day at about 3ish - a lovely, slightly quaint touch.

A brit (who's lived in Jakarta for 15 years) we chatted to in a bar in Jakarta said that Yogya was lovely, and whilst I wouldn't go that far, it's certainly a lot nicer than anywhere we've been so far in Indonesia and one of the nicest things about it is that they get tourists here, so it's set up for them in a way that the other places we've been haven't been

01 Borobudur Buddha

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On our first afternoon here we didn't arrive till gone 4, so we just stocked up on fruit at the nearby supermarket (having lots of fruit to hand always makes me feel better!), did some internet and then went out to eat and tried Gado Gado for the first time. It seems to be a plateful of whatever vegetables, both cooked and raw, the restaurant has to hand, a hard-boiled egg, some tofu with a peanut sauce on top. That probably makes it sound not very nice but it was lovely! Yesterday we did a bit of sightseeing, the main part of which was visiting the Kraton (the royal palace). I'm afraid we were quite disappointed as it wasn't very pretty and didn't seem to have very much interesting history. However, at least there are 'sights' here and it was nice to see a couple of them.

Today we went to Borobudur Temple, and did it under our own steam - minibus to bus station, followed by public bus to Borobudure, and then a walk to the temple - rather than taking one of the many tours available, and it felt really good to do it independently. It was also much cheaper and meant that we could do it at our own pace, so it was great. The temple has about 7 or 8 terraces leading up to a central stupa and there are friezes all along the walls of the terraces. We were too cheap to hire a guide (especially after the very steep 11 US dollar entry fee) so we decided to make things more interesting and interpret some of the carvings for ourselves. Who knows whether or not our descriptions were correct, but we had fun doing it and it was a great way to make a temple visit a bit more interesting. This afternoon we got absolutely soaked to the skin when the heavens opened on us on our way to the mall for a posh coffee. Fortunately a lovely hot, sweet hazelnut latte made us feel better. (R)