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Published: July 13th 2023
Don't stand on the dew until the sun reaches its highest… ~ Indonesian Proverb
HE SAID... Today we were travelling north (then southeast) from Pangandaran to
Yogyakarta– by road and rail.
A violent thunderstorm had erupted the previous evening and continued throughout the night, only subsiding around 5am. Each thunderclap shook the hotel, as if a bomb had exploded just above our room. Luckily, we could anticipate each thunderclap. We left the curtains to our room open, and the night sky would turn white with each flash of sheet lightning – then the thunder would explode a few seconds later.
We settled in Sunrise Beach Hotel’s large airy breakfast area around 7am and enjoyed a substantial breakfast, as we would not be stopping for a meal until dinner. I enjoyed cornflakes, yoghurt, fresh pineapple, fresh dragon fruit (tasteless), noodles, fried egg, banana fritters, tea, coffee, guava juice (watered down) and sweet pastries. We even pilfered a few of the pastries for the impending four-hour train journey to Yogyakarta.
We checked out of the sprawling Sunrise Beach Hotel complex (our accommodation in Pangandaran for the past two nights), jumped into a minibus and headed north to Sidareja – a one hour drive. The scenery was very similar to the three-hour road
trip we’d undertaken from Purwokerto to Pangandaran two days earlier. Rice fields prevailed as the primary crop. Much of West Java’s rural landscape seems to have been monopolised for rice production.
We arrived in Sidareja mid-morning and headed straight for the train station. We clambered out of the minibus, collected our packs and made our way through to the small platform. The place was deserted. Apart from a handful of travellers, we were the only passengers. We waited a short while for the train to arrive, then walked across the tracks and clambered into our carriage via metal steps that had been placed by the friendly train station staff. It was a relief to walk into an air-conditioned space. We settled in our seats, grabbed some hot drinks (jasmine black tea and a cappuccino) from the friendly snack cart staff and prepared ourselves for another long train journey. I love train travel, and it’s the primary form of transport on this trip.
We left Sidareja around 11:15am, and we were due to arrive in Yogyakarta around 2:15pm. We occasionally stopped at train stations along the way, including Maos, Kroya, Gombong, Kebumen and Kutoarjo. We cut through the middle
of expansive rice fields, crawled through small villages, received friendly waves from school kids, crossed bridges over muddy waters (churned by the previous night’s storm) and passed trains travelling in the opposite direction as we gently rocked towards Yogyakarta.
As the haze lifted, we could make out distant mountains on the horizon, while rice fields continued to prevail in the close to mid-distance. Coconut trees appeared every so often in the lush green landscape – even the river water in this part of the countryside was green. The only non-green elements in the vista from our carriage window were the buildings – dwellings, sheds, factories, shopping centres and schools.
The sky began to darken just after midday, and rain threatened for about 30 minutes. Then it hit. We watched people trudging out of rice fields while being buffeted by torrential rain. Before long, I could barely see out the window. Then water started streaming down the inside of the window and pooling on the sill beside my elbow – things were not looking good. We shifted our day packs from the floor, and I wiped droplets that had spattered on my laptop screen. When we stopped at Kebumen
train station, water was literally pouring from the sides of the roof. When a storm hits in Java, you certainly know about it.
Kids were swimming in storm water catchments, where the water level had risen so much in a short period of time. The rain didn’t worry them. Water streamed down narrow streets in small villages, and people continued to ride motorbikes and scooters on the busy roads. It appears torrential rain storms are run-of-the-mill in Java.
Visibility was now very low. I could no longer see the mountains on the horizon, or the rice fields in the mid distance. All I could make out was the verge close to the rail tracks. Then the rain stopped. People returned to the rice fields, and our vision to the horizon returned. The sun came out and Java’s lush green countryside prevailed.
Just before we arrived in Yogyakarta, another rain storm struck. It was raining when we walked outside the train station to wait for a taxi around 2:30pm, so we were fairly damp when we arrived at Greenhost Boutique Hotel, our accommodation for the next three nights in Yogyakarta. From the moment we walked in, we realised
this was a fantastic hotel – very green in focus, very urban and very similar to Yello Harmoni Hotel in Jakarta. The most visually striking aspect of the hotel was its internal garden, which cascaded down three floors to a swimming pool on the ground floor.
Our third-floor room may have been a little dark, but it was a huge improvement on the basic room we had to endure at Sunrise Beach Hotel in Pangandaran. We headed out in the rain to drop some clothes at a small local laundry just along from the hotel, then continued walking to a nearby Alfa Mart to get some snacks. I also picked up some batteries for my head lamp, which had stopped working – or so I thought. My potted hypothesis? The lamp had somehow turned itself on in my pack during our flight from Australia, and this had completely drained the batteries.
We walked back to hotel in the rain, and when I put the new batteries into my head lamp, it still refused to light up. After fumbling around for a few minutes, I suddenly (and embarrassingly) realised that I didn’t need new batteries after all. I just
needed to hold the ‘On’ switch for 10 seconds. It pays to read the instructions! On the plus side, I had a spare set of batteries…
At around 6pm we headed out in the rain to Warung Heru, a small popular eatery only minutes from our hotel. The place had a great atmosphere, so we settled at a table and ordered the following:
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nasi soto ayam (a very delicious and very Indonesian chicken broth with vegetables and sprouts)
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nasi pecel (a very delicious and very local dish comprising rice, vegetables, peanut sauce, rice crackers and a fried egg)
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baligur (a warming drink of ginger, brown sugar and coconut milk)
> singaraja beer (a refreshing local pilsener beer).
It was a fantastic meal. Feeling very happy and tired, we made our way back to the hotel. We had an early start the following day, so we decided to relax in our room – especially given the incessant rain.
Before signing off, I want to share a preliminary observation about Yogyakarta. In the short period of time we’d been wandering the streets of this atmospheric and bohemian city, it became very apparent that foreign tourists flock
to this area of Central Java. Up until this point of our journey, we had encountered few foreign tourists. I felt a slight tinge of disappointment. I’d loved being far from the madding (tourist) crowd. I’d loved exploring Java as a peculiar stranger. An outsider. A marginal foreigner. I’d loved being different, unusual and unique. Now I was just another face in the foreign tourist crowd. I was unremarkable, common and ordinary.
SHE SAID... We woke just before 6am to a Pangandaran morning that was pretty stormy looking, and without even a hint of a visible sunrise. The eight- or nine-hour heavy thunderstorm the night before had only completely ceased an hour or so earlier! So far it had rained every second day since we’d been in Indonesia, but this had been the worst of it.
I woke to two realisations – the good news was that my slight jetlag seemed to be passing (yay for not waking at 4:30am anymore!); but the bad news was that with the distraction of the storm, I’d forgotten to apply insect repellent the night before. I paid for it with seven massive bites on my arms. The little love
I had cultivated for our inadequate hotel room – solely for its great view – was totally decimated; and I reverted back to the loathing I felt on our first arrival. 😞
We were leaving for
Yogyakarta later in the morning, so we did some last-minute packing before walking to the Sunrise Beach Hotel’s open-sided breakfast room at 7am. I had high expectations, and thankfully the food was as good for the second day running. I’d normally be conservative in my food choices on a travel day, but everything tasted so good, and we’d skipped dinner the night before! From the fruit station I helped myself to pineapple and dragon fruit – I keep eating dragon fruit in the hope that one day I’ll understand the fascination with this tasteless and purely textural fruit (today wasn’t that day). From the savoury buffet I chose
nasi goreng (fried rice),
mee goreng (fried noodles), a fried egg, stir-fried greens, and an egg roll filled with minced chicken and vegetables. My breakfast was rounded off with delicious banana fritters and multiple cups of tea with condensed milk (an unusual but enjoyable taste).
Andrew and I went for a quick walk along
the promenade just outside our room before we had to check out. I’m not sure if it was because of the storm, or if I just hadn’t noticed it the day before, but the beach was strewn with a heavy carpet of plastic. It was so sad to see. I hope the hotels along the beach have some sort of clean-up program after storms. While walking along, we noticed two mopeds had pulled up along the promenade, and four high school-aged girls in school uniform were very engrossed in taking selfies. They looked so happy and chirpy that I couldn’t help myself… I asked if I could take a photo of them. They giggled self-consciously, but within seconds had posed for me. I love the energy and glee of youth, it’s so contagious. 😊
We regrouped at reception for our 9:30am start, and then piled into two vehicles for the hour-long ride to the train station. I shouldn’t speak too soon, but the minibus transport on this trip has been quite generous to-date. It was an overcast day, and even though the vegetation looked very lush and green, there was a sense that the landscape we were passing through
was nursing its wounds from the storm. The Cijulang River was in stark contrast to the gentle green river we’d cruised on the day before; the storm had churned it into a fast-flowing muddy coffee brown torrent. We had been so lucky to experience it in its calm state.
We climbed into the hills once more and into the town of Sidareja. The Sidareja Train Station was very small, but it was on the important Jakarta/Bandung to Yogyakarta/Surabaya route. I’ve been so impressed with the efficiently run train stations (very clean toilets!) and train services in Java. The train arrived right on time, and we departed to the minute at 11:12am. We were in the executive class carriage again, and it was exactly like our last train experience – super clean and comfortable for our three-hour train trip to Yogyakarta.
Our much looked forward to hot drinks trolley didn’t let us down, and soon after we departed we enjoyed our ‘usual’ drinks – a cappuccino for Andrew and a jasmine flavoured black tea with rock sugar for me. The only downside of the train was the Wi-Fi – it didn’t seem to be working on this trip… a
very small issue.
For a while the track followed what seemed like a belt of small to medium towns, with even the smallest piece of land between the tracks and the houses being used to grow rice. Then it opened out into rural lands with rice fields as far as the eye could see, which alternated with views of coconut tree and banana plantations dominating the horizon. The smaller farming plots were full of cassava (both the red stems and green stem varieties) and corn.
We were crossing from West Java into Central Java, but I saw no real change in the landscape. At some point the heavens opened and we travelled through heavy rain, obscuring the view thereafter. Very surprisingly, I found I was finally up to date with my travel notes, so I rewarded myself with a lovely train nap for most of the rest of the trip… with the rain persistently following us as we continued to travel along Java’s southern coast to Yogyakarta.
Yogyakarta is pronounced Jog-Ja-Karta, but most locals call it Jog-Ja for short. I’d been fascinated with this city for many years, possibly since I read a comparison of it and
Chiang Mai – one of my favourite places in Thailand. My pre-reading gave me the impression that this was one of Indonesia’s gems, and a place where traditional and contemporary culture lived happily side by side. This was Susi’s (our group leader) home town, and she was excited to show it off to us. And I was very eager to experience it.
Arriving in a new city in heavy rain is never nice, and it didn’t help that the Yogyakarta Train Station was packed. We hastily divided up into a few taxis and made our way to Greenhost Boutique Hotel. Even before stepping into the hotel, I could tell that this place was going to be a massive step up from our tired old hotel in Pangandaran!
The Greenhost Boutique Hotel prides itself on its eco-friendly credentials, and it felt like entering an oasis of green calmness. The external facade of the building was covered in a cascade of greenery, as were the balconies inside. The ground floor had so many plants that it actually managed to make the vast open atrium space feel slightly jungle-like. I loved walking out of the lift or out of our room
door and being bathed in the sight and scent of mint plants – which were planted all along the balcony that opened to the atrium. The Greenhost Boutique Hotel also has a strong commitment to making sure every single room smelled very strongly of lemongrass… so it’s a good thing we both like the smell of lemongrass! 😊
As much as I absolutely loved our cute and trendily designed room, some functional aspects like a fridge, task lighting, adequate power points and enough space for luggage had been sadly missed off the list. However, we didn’t have long to linger in our room or indulge in the Chinese biscuits and peanut brittle we’d received in a welcome goodie bag at check-in (an excellent touch). We were on a mission to drop some washing off at the laundry, and a few minutes later about half our group followed Susi in the rain with all our dirty clothes in tow. Luckily the small laundry was very close to our hotel.
Andrew and I kept walking to the closest Alphamart to find the BCA ATM (our preferred ATM) and to stock up on drinks and snacks for the rest of our
stay. While sheltering under awnings and darting between broken gutters, I really hoped the rain would cease for the rest of our time in Yogyakarta… because most of the activities we’d planned were outdoors! Yet even walking through the pouring rain, we could see that we were going to really love this city. Street art is usually a sign of a vibrant urban area and even the little street our hotel was on was full of beautiful and expressive street art.
While the rest of the group were going to a western-style restaurant for dinner that night, Andrew and I really wanted to have a local dinner, so we went to Warung Heru. It was literally a five-minute walk from our hotel, cutting through the narrowest of graffitied dark lanes onto the next street. It had been recommended by Susi, and it was a great place with a small local menu. Andrew had the
nasi pecel (a local rice, peanut sauce, vegetables and tempeh dish) while I had
soto ayam (chicken soup). Each region has its own version of
soto ayam, and it had become my go-to Indonesian dish on the trip so far. I’d tried quite a few
already, and I probably should start trying other dishes on the menu.
Nasi pecel is a very local dish, and while quite simple, was served with that peanut sauce we have both been absolutely loving on this trip.
Since we’d arrived in Indonesia, we’d been seeing lots of ‘herbal’ drinks. They were offered in hotel buffets, sold at small stalls at markets and I’d even spied small bottles of them in special fridges in supermarkets. We hadn’t tried them yet, so we thought this was as good a chance as any. We ordered the
baligur drink, which was described as a warming drink of ginger, brown sugar and coconut milk. It sounded positively delicious… but I have to honestly say, those flavours didn’t quite translate into the watery brown concoction we received. However, once I put aside my expectations of what I thought it was going to taste like, I quite enjoyed it. 😊
Even though we were at a restaurant with a very small local menu, the entire place was full of western tourists. Since we’d arrived in Indonesia, this was the first time we’d eaten in the company of, or even seen, so many overseas tourists
in one place! Although I should make the point that judging from the conversations around us, some were actually expats living in Yogyakarta. We soon realised that even though our hotel was in a small local street, this next street (Jalan Prawirotaman I) was full of bars and restaurants that were tourist magnets.
Feeling very tired, we returned to the hotel straight after dinner. However, we were very excited about spending a few days getting to know this city a lot better.
See you around Yogyakarta!
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Storms and bugs
As always the food fest sounds great. We love storms and would have enjoyed the all night storm. If there is a bug that bites within a mile it will find me. Sorry you were suffering. Accommodations can impact the joys of the trip. I don't need fancy put I need the basics.