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Published: June 10th 2009
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Another fun train to Java's second largest city and we have more train stories to tell!...
As well as all the usual stuff going on we have to add a few updates to our train experiences. Between all of the madness (which included more trannies with musical instruments) a guy with no shoes and dressed in rags drifted down the carriage like an angel with... air freshener!! This man cannot afford clothes .. but owns a full size 1000ml top of the range super smelling freshener..and as we passes he applies a little pressure and just for a few seconds the smell of sweat and dirt disappears..
Of course moments later he re-emerges but this time sticking his hand in front of people.. naturally charging for this 'service'!! ..
The train journey was long but we got to see some amazing views for miles across rice paddies and even further on you could see stunning mountains peer into the blue sky.
Yogya is home to 2 main tourist attractions and we read on the internet that it hosts it's own backpacker ghetto around Maliboro road. We did our usual accommodation search and settled on an excellent place
with a pool for just 6.60 a night. The toilet however was Asia style which means you have to crouch when you ..go.. rather than sit down and read a paper! Of course after checking in we jumped in the pool to cool down after a very sticky train - bliss!
We found an air con shopping mall about ten minutes away which was weird being in Indonesia. It was very posh and for the first time we witnessed the other side of the wealth spectrum. Instead of dodging people in the street begging for spare change we were being out classed by high earners wearing Ralph Lauren jeans (not fake ones) and sporting expensive handbags. Back outside and a walk around the corner we once again found malnourished people with no legs sleeping on the pavements?? this place is very difficult to get your head around.
We took the first few days in Yogya easy before getting up early and catching the local bus to Borobudur. It's one of the most ancient temples in Indonesia and EVERYONE goes to see it. The bus stop was at the end of the street so off we went and waited..
waited... and waited ..1 hour later with black clouds above (it had rained everyday so far in Yogya) we made the decision to go the following day and headed to the closer temple Prambanan which is an old Hindu temple (the other main tourist attraction here).
Prambanan was OK. If like us you have been to Angkor wat in Cambodia it's hard to beat .. and every temple we have done since then has seemed insignificant. Not to say the main temple at Prambanan was small... it was huge... but the three other sites were just big piles of rocks. Upon returning to the bus stop (that took us back to town) we spotted an elderly woman chilling.. sitting on a bench ... with no top on, donning her breasts that nearly touched her feet.. weird?
We also encountered more comedy on the bus back. Sitting next to a guy on the bus we got chatting, he spoke a little English and asked where we had just been and all the usual stuff.. however when we said we were from Liverpool he replied..'ah so you are sousers'!!
It seems Yogya is home to some very talented
musicians. Each night we sat the bar across the road a group of people passing by stopped and jostled into the corner before serenading everyone with drums, bongos, sitars and guitars. Of course they would then cap in hand collect spare change but everyone was worthy of the small donation. It appears this is a sideliner for locals and we even witnessed it in restaurants too.
Art galleries are also big earners here. Some of the paintings for sure look like masterpieces but there is some underground scamming that also comes with it. We heard some dodgy stories and some of the Becak (cyclo) drivers that seem to hang around dark corners who approach you try it on.
Our next stop is one night in Solo before we head onto the pretty village of Malang.
SOLO
We stuck Solo on the end of this blog as we only stayed one night. It's only up the road from Yogya an hour on the train and we had heard that it was picturesque and worth a visit.
Well if you like garages, garbage and grubby hotels this is the place for you. Streets are ugly and one
main road dominates the centre of town. A few streets trail off it with nothing to see .. and I am really struggling to write anything about this place...
We had a tasty porridge and banana pancake... err.... oh .... and we went to the cinema and watched a movie about Germans... hmmm..... we had a picture of Bob Marley on our wall..oh and we had a nice experience for tea. The lady who served us gave us a free tapioca meal, 2 free cups of tea, a free plate of rice, and a free dish of tofu.. how nice!!
The next morning we caught a becak to the train station for our longish journey to Malang in East Java.
Lee and Michelle.
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anonymous
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hope you are both ok all ok at home miss you loads looking forwood to you coming home lots of love mum