We ain't scared of no ash!

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As we had a few days to spare we headed to Java to try and see Borobudur, a giant Hindu temple set near the erupting Merpati. This was apparently closed to tourists but we had bumped into a few people on our travels who had just come from their and said it was fine so we thought we’d chance our luck. Getting from Jakarta airport to the city requires nerves of steel. The touts are pushy, persistent and true rip off experts. Buses stop running at 5pm, so if you arrive later than this you have to get a taxi. Chose a price you’re willing to pay, half it and start at that - they will immediately quadruple this price, if your lucky (and you master the art of walking away until they drop their prices) you will be able to hit somewhere close to your target.

Jakarta is a big smelly city, but it does have a lively vibe to it and the backpacker area near the train station has some fairly decent rooms for a cheap price. It also has some great bars, and after 15 hours of traveling we felt that it was definitely Bintang time. We settled on a karaoke bar (they do love their karaoke over here) that seemed to have a good mix of tourists and locals. Took us a little too long to realise that it was a lot of male tourists and female locals, a sort of singing hookers bar. They would get on stage, do a number and see if anyone was interested. Poor Andy was petrified - every time I went to the loo at least 3 of them (and one bloke…) would crowd round our table. Hilarious! Andy seems to have a knack for being singled out by ladies or ‘ladies’ of the night, but more on this later.
Anyways, it was an interesting night - though we found it so entertaining that we ended up staying up far later than we should have done so it was with 4 hours sleep and a bit of a sore head that we rose to go the train station the next morning.

We had decided to take the train from Jakarta to Yogyakarta for two reasons, 1) we were sick up of airports (our three flights the previous day had all been delayed) and 2) it would allow us to see the beautiful scenery. Sadly, the train was delayed (Indonesian time is the time they say on the ticket plus 2hours) and it poured down the entire time, so I’m sure there was beautiful scenery but we couldn’t really see it. The train also ended up costing more than the plane… We had been warned that buying tickets from the travel agents would be a rip off so we went and bought them from the station. They still managed to rip us off by selling us a normal ticket but stamping TOURIST over the price and then charging us double. Ah, how I love the Indonesians. That aside, the train was still a nice way to travel - Andy slept and I did sudoku. Lovely Jubbly. Oh, except for when we were boarding the train a man in uniform came and checked our tickets, showed us to the seats, put our backpacks onto the racks and then tried to charge us 100,000Rp (about 1/3 of the price of the ticket). I stood my ground on this one, which I’m especially glad of as it turns out he had put us in the wrong seats! Warning to all - the uniform does not mean he works there.

Yogyakarta is actually pretty nice. It’s not pretty (no Indonesian city could ever be described as pretty) but it was fun (if you ignored the touts) and has some great markets. It was eerily empty of Western tourists though, as everyone still thinks it is closed, but full of Indonesian tourists instead. Our Hotel owner tried to tell us that Borobadur was closed, but he could take us on a personal tour of the other sites (apparently ash free) for the small sum of 400,000Rp. We politely declined and boarded a public bus to Borabadur for about 10,000Rp which, lo and behold, was open!

We couldn’t climb the monument as men, in what looked like yellow radiation suits, are still cleaning all the ash off it. It was still worth visiting though. The building itself is beautiful, it’s square and consists of different layers all covered in either carved relief’s depicting scenes from daily life or with little temples housing carved Buddha’s. It would have been nice to have climbed up and seen it all up close, but there is a museum with pictures of all the different relief’s; we had a great time trying to guess what they all meant - seemingly a lot of the old times consisted of drinking, being nice to rich people and women dancing naked. Why religion ever got so stuffy I’ll never know.
The museum is actually quite good - there’s a whole section with a giant replica boat built from the pictures that some rich guy commissioned and then sailed one of the old trade roots all the way to Africa. Which would have been great to do (especially the two week stopover in the Seychelles they had!)

Possibly the most fun thing about the trip was that, as we were the only Western tourists there, we almost became an attraction in our own right. People kept running up to have their photos taken with us - including three little old ladies who took about 10mins to get a good shot because the one taking the photo couldn’t find her glasses, thus kept getting shots of just our heads (mine and Andy’s that is) or everyone’s feet. Then when we went for lunch at a little local restaurant the owner suddenly appeared with a candle, ran up and plonked it between us. Then a few mins later appeared with a camera and took a sneaky photo. I’m pretty sure we’re going to be on a flyer somewhere to advertise that westerners eat here too!

If we hadn’t been on such a late schedule I’d have loved to have stayed in Yogya longer but my visa was nearly up so we flew up to Singapore to meet our friend Jen and Krish.

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