Jakarta and Yogyakarta

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After a short one night stay again in KL it was time to leave Malaysia and head to a new country. This time we took a flight to Jakarta, Indonesia where we would stay for two nights before making our way over land and water to end up in Bali. The first thing to say about Jakarta apart from the size of the city is the poverty, it was pretty much everywhere. In our taxi from the airport to hostel we were stuck in a bit of traffic and suddenly all the taxis were surrounded by kids begging which was quite a distressing sight.

We didn't want to stay in Jakarta long because there is very little to do there and the best of Indonesia is away from the capital, so the first afternoon, evening and night we headed to the train station to buy tickets to Yogyakarta. I say afternoon evening and night because that's how long it took us to find the station, work out how to buy tickets and then queue up and get the tickets! Tickets bought the next day we did a little exploring of Jakarta and for lunch headed to a place which has become well known for delivering their dishes. We walked in and taken to a table and then a man came along with 9 dishes up both arms, they can carry up to 15 but as it was only me and Carly at the table he only needed to carry the 9!

The next morning we boarded our train in executive class (the seats had padding and the coach had a/c) and made our way to Yogyakarta, the cultural heart of Indonesia. The people here were the friendliest we met at any point of our journey to date. Our hostel provided a local breakfast wrapped in a banana leaf every morning but I have to say this will probably be the only time I have curry for breakfast but I'm pretty sure Carly really enjoyed it! A very small city we pretty much walked everywhere including one day with another English girl we met in the royal palace who was equally confused as us about the palace as it had absolutely nothing there. The rest of that day turned into a random mix of other palaces, graffiti art, another trip to the station and a tour of a market by a man whose stall we had bought something from so in return he gave us a tour and showed us a mix of spices, teas and nuts! This day was also one of the reasons I can say it was the friendliest Country, apart from Bali the rest of Indonesia gets very few tourists and so I think they are all playing a game of tourist bingo because they all wants

I think they are all playing a game of tourist bingo because they all want a photo with you. Whole families would walk up and ask for a photo with us and in one museum it must have been a school trip but about 30 school girls all with their smart phones wanted photos, a few days later all the photos had been taken and we left Yogya to begin an eventful journey to Mount Bromo, the volcano.

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