What you looking at?!

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Today we flew into Java in Indonesia, following a good nights sleep we headed into the city to take a look at what it had to offer. Being the capital it was very well built with its high rises and western restaurants. One thing we couldn't understand is why absolutely everyone stared at us! Without fail people would lock onto us and not stop until we were out of sight, staring back would not deter them! Due to it being the weekend the city was busy with locals on weekends away. We headed out to Medan Merdeka Square in the centre of the city which is a 1km square patch of land, although most of the grass is pretty sun scorched it is a good place to get away form the traffic of the city. The square houses the National Monument called the Monas Tower standing 137m tall. We caught a lift to the top to get a better view of the city - nothing over exciting but a good experience all the same. The gardens surrounding the tower are really beautiful and well kept - low rise hedges, flowers, green grass etc.

Due to not being very inspired by Jakarta we jumped on a flight east to Yogyakarta (or Jogja for short) which has a little more charm to it! On arrival we got lucky and checked into a cheap but clean hostel, made up of bungalows around a pool - nice! Just as we were about to have a wonder around the city we were accosted by two guys with Becaks (bicycles with baskets on the front) who were desperate for a fare, for 10000R (50 British pence) they would take us on a tour of the city. We made our way into the Kraton, the historic part of the city. First stop the Sultans Palace which was not overly fit for a King. Very bland with a bungalow type of place inside! We then made our way to the local animal market - what an odd experience that was. It all started off pretty normal at first, it is a place where the locals buy live animals - chickens, cockerels, rabbits and the like. Then we rounded the corner to be faced with a young Sloth?! What's that all about? Other animals included Fruit Bats, Owls, Kestrels, Pythons (enjoying a snack of Pigeon) dogs bred for the BBQ and more. It was an experience all right but cruel to our standards. We then made our way around some art galleries where we could buy some art if we liked. Batik art was the rage - difficult to explain but they take some canvas and use wax to block areas off whilst they dip the rest in dye repeating the process to get their desired design. We also visited a traditional puppet making workshop. The puppets are made from Buffalo skin and delicately carved with intricate patterns then painted in minute detail. When asked how they painted the designs the guy produced a skinned CAT and showed us that they uses cat hair... YUK! Then back to our digs finishing off the day with a local meal.

The next day we jumped onto a tour bus heading towards Solo. On route we stopped off at some ancient temples, first stop Borobudur which is the largest Buddhist Stupor in the southern hemisphere. It was originally a Hindu temple but the Buddhists used the foundations when the overthrew the Hindu's. However the foundations were duff and by the 70's it was falling to bits, UNESCO stepped in and dismantled it brick by brick - 1.6 million blocks of local volcanic rock. Then put it back together with concrete foundations. Safe as houses! We then headed out to Prambanan which is made up of the ruins of several temples. The earthquake in 2005 caused significant damage so they weren't as impressive and we couldn't get too close as they were unstable.
And then... we headed out to Solo, another uninspiring city, time to move out!

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