Finding ourselves to be major celebrities in Yogyakarta (Day 170 - 173 by Chris)

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Friday 4th March 2016

Yogyakarta, which is pronounced Jogya-karta, or simply Jogja, is the next town on our list. We'd bought the train tickets on our first day in Jakarta and after leaving the hostel at 7am for our 8am train, we boarded for what would be an 8 hour journey. We'd paid a little more for an 'Executive' train which according to the hostel was going to provide us with a more comfortable journey. The tickets had cost £18 each but for the long journey we wanted to be comfy. When the train pulled up at 7:30am I noticed it was quite a run down old looking train, for some reason, in my head I was picturing the Shinkansen bullet trains in Japan. This was not of that standard, but having said that, once on the train it wasn't that bad. The seats were very comfortable and reclined quite far back and offered loads of leg room. The train was mainly full of locals as most tourists don't come this way, or as it seems. After just over 8 hours of travel we arrived in Jogja.

We walked 5 minutes to 'Laura's Hostel' which would be our home for the next 3 nights. We checked into our simple 6 bed bunk dorm and then went out to get a coffee and something to eat. We ordered some Nasi Goreng, which is Indonesian for fried rice and a national dish. When ordering the waitress kept on pointing out that it was a spicy dish. We told her again and again that its not a problem. When it arrived however we struggled to finish it. Its seems they poured the contents of one of the nearby volcanoes into the rice - it was unbearably spicy. We then headed back to the hostel as it was getting dark and we wanted to save ourselves for the next day. Whilst at the hostel we met the 3 resident kittens and one of the 2 snakes as well as the iguana. The kittens were very playful but fluffy the snake (yes that was his name) didn't seem very energetic. We also got chatting to the people from our room, all of which were Dutch. There were 3 Dutch friends (2 guys called Tom and Thomas and a girl called Houda) and another dutch guy who was travelling alone, but we cant recall his name. The evening was spent chatting before falling asleep.

Saturday 5th March 2016

Jogja has 2 big temples which the tourists flock to. Prambanan temple which is a Hindu temple and Borobudur temple which is the largest single Buddhist temple in the world, although I'm sure we've been told that about most temples we visit. These temples can be visited on the same day, but everyone suggests that you wake up at 5am to watch the sunrise from Borobudur and in the afternoon head to Prambanan. We were never going to wake up for the sunrise so we decided we'd split these over 2 days.

After being given instructions by the guy on reception on how to take the local bus to Prambanan temple, we headed out for breakfast before squeezing ourselves onto a small bus which took 1.5 hours to arrive at Prambanan temple which we were told was a 45 min journey at most. As we arrived and left the bus station, we got chatting to 2 Indonesian guys who were on holiday and visiting Jogja from Jakarta. Luckily for us they were here as the entrance wasn't easy to find and we were able to follow them straight to the 'Foreign Tourist' entrance. We felt a little put out that we had to pay more than double the price of a local, but we were able to buy a combination ticket for both temples and it only worked out at £5 per person, per temple, so not too bad overall.

As we entered the area the heavens opened and the rain didn't stop for almost 30 minutes. It wasn't a simple rain shower, it was biblical, much like our experience in Kuala Lumpur. It transpires that we have entered Indonesia during the final month of the monsoon season and as such, the days are split between intense sunshine and crazy amounts of rain. Whilst walking around Brahama Mandla temple (Prambanan is the name of the area, not individual temples) we could see a volcano in the distance, which kept disappearing behind cloud. It was quite a sight and mixed with the rain gave an eerie feeling. The temple itself wasn't very busy compared to others we've seen and it was quite nice to find spots that had no people around at all. The temple itself reminded us quite a lot of Bayon temple in Angkor Wat, only without the faces. We saw a plaque that stated that this whole area had been broken up by an earthquake in 2006, but thankfully the restored pieces had been done so with original pieces so that it looked as it would have hundreds of years ago.

We spent the next 30 minutes walking through the complex visiting the other 2 small temples, Candi Lumbung, which was only 10 metres square and was a much smaller version of Brahama Mandla. We then headed into Candi Sewu, which although not really being mentioned in any guide books and quite hidden at the back of the complex was actually our favourite. It was only a little bit smaller than Brahama Mandla, but there was no none else there and we had free rein to walk around uninterrupted. We were able to get some great photos, as well as some silly photos on account of being alone.

As the rain started again we located the bus station and thankfully, after only 45 minutes we arrived back in the town. We headed into a mall to get some food and then went back to the hostel where we stayed for the rest of the evening. We spent our time chatting to everyone in the hostel, as there is nowhere to go in the evening so the hostel is packed. It was fun and also interesting chatting to people who have traveled through Indonesia already so that we were able to pick their brains.

Sunday 6th March 2016

To visit Borobudur temple which is a 45 km drive out of the town we opted to hire a scooter. Most people wake at 5am and go on a guided tour, but we wanted some flexibility and we also find using a scooter allows us to see parts of the country side that we wouldn't necessarily see otherwise. The scooter only cost 70,000 Rp, which just under £4 for the whole day. Armed with a map on our phone we set off around 11am.

The drive was easy and there was hardly any traffic, especially in the countryside once we had left the town. We saw some very green fields with views of the mountain range and volcanoes in the distance which made for a very scenic drive. When we arrived we parked up and entered the complex housing 'The largest Buddhist temple in the world' as it had been described to us. Like yesterday, as we arrived the skies opened on us and 2 months worth of rain fell. We took shelter and bought an ice cream before we headed along with the crowds to the temple proper.

The temple was very impressive and felt similar to some of the temples we'd seen in Bagan, Myanmar. There were 4 levels to climb and some small stupas on the top. We actually found it difficult to see much of the temple as hoards and hoards of children, and grown ups, flocked to us to ask for a picture. We said yes to one and couldn't then say no to the other hundred. This is no exaggeration, we were in at least 100 photos, if not more. After 25 minutes of feeling like celebrities we decided to leave the temple. We had a good time but it was quite difficult to take in the beauty of the temple on account of being approached by everyone. This is how we imagine celebrities must feel. I think next time we will wear disguises.

We got back on our bike and attempted to locate 'Chicken Church' which is so called because its built in the shape of a chicken. The story goes that someone many years ago was spoken to by god in a dream and god told this person to build a church in the shape of a dove. Once built though people couldn't help notice the church resembling a chicken and so the name stuck. We followed our map and arrived at the bottom of a hill which some locals told us (by using chicken wing arm movements and clucking) that the church was at the top of the hill. It was unfortunately too muddy and slippery to get to so we were unable to visit. A real shame as it could've been the highlight of our trip. Instead we decided to head back to the hostel and drove through the rain for almost 2 hours (taking it slowly) and got back around 6pm absolutely drenched. After drying off a little we headed out for some food and returned to the hostel to relax and then sleep.

Monday 7th March 2016

After a lie in on our final day, we decided to spent the last day here visiting the Sultan's palace and set off in the blazing sun. As we were almost at the entrance having walked for almost 30 minutes we got chatting to a local man who began explaining about Batik, which is a traditional way of painting on fabric and is especially big in Jogja. He told us so much that instead of heading into the Sultan's palace, which we were only doing as a way of using up the time we had before we headed to the airport, we instead headed to a small shop which has students making the batik in front of you. After a short cyclo ride we arrived at 'Ori Batik'. Once inside we had short demonstration of what Batik is and how its done. Batik is the art of painting on fabric, whether it be clothes, wall hangings or just other types of fabric. Its done by first penciling a design and then colouring the fabric by dipping it in ink layer after layer. You first cover the areas you don't want to be coloured in wax, then dip the fabric and once dry, you cover the next section in wax and dip into another coloured dye. This process is repeated until the design is completed. We were able to try our hand at drawing with the wax pen and came up with some award winning designs ourselves. Before we left though we treated ourselves to a souvenir which had been created by one of the students.

After we left the batik place we went to a cafe for 30 mins and when we left we saw that the heavens had opened. Again we witnessed an end of the world thunderstorm and after giving it 10 minutes to pass we had to jump into a taxi. The driver took us to the end of our road and because the street was so narrow we had to walk the rest of the way. We walked in our flip flops ankle deep in water to the hostel hoping the storm would pass before we took off on our flight later on.

Luckily we were flying to Lombok, another on of Indonesia's many islands and from there heading to some small islands called the Gilis, so too were the 3 Dutch people in our hostel, and they were on the same flight as us. We shared a cab to the airport and boarded our Lion Air flight and after 1 hour arrived at Lombok airport at 8pm. At the baggage carousel we got chatting to a German girl called Nicole. The plan was for the 6 of us to share a taxi as we were all heading to an area called Sengigi, which is a small town not far from the port where you can catch boats to the Gili's, which was our plan for the next day. The taxi could only fir 3 people so Gemma and I shared with Nicole. We didn't actually see the Dutch again as they were staying elsewhere. Its become the norm to meet people and without a proper goodbye, not seeing them again. Suppose that comes with traveling and everyone having their own routes.

After just over an hour and having haggled with a very annoying taxi driver we arrived in Sengigi and we checked into our already reserved room. Nicole arrived without anywhere to stay but luckily our place had a spare room so she stayed there. We bought some mini bus-ferry combination tickets from the hotel manager for only £4 each which would take us to the islands early the next day. It was now 11pm and we'd done quite a bit of traveling, so after a quick drink we headed to bed excited for the islands tomorrow.

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