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Published: December 23rd 2006
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We arrived in Yogyakarta on a very nice bus from Semarang. For 40,000 rp (under 3 quid) you got air con, reclining seats and a snack box, we were most impressed. We were also impressed by Duta Guesthouse, which had beautiful gardens, a pool and a bathtub (although the water had black bits in it), even an open air garden in the bathroom! On our first full day we visited the Kraton, the old part of the city containing the Sultan's palace. The palace itself was interesting but it is starting to get quite tiring whenever we step outside several people will descend on you to offer you taxi rides/food and drink/any amount of souveneirs. It is virtually impossible to sit down and look at your map or guidebook without being continually harrassed. Bah!
The following day we took a bus trip to visit Borobudur, Prambanan and the foot of Gunung Merapi (the world's sixth most active volcano). Borobudur is a 8th centuary complex of Buddhist shrines, telling the story of Buddha's journey to enlignment. It is set against a stunning backdrop of smoking volcanos and lush paddyfields. Built from some 1.6 million blocks of volcanic rock put together without
mortar it is amazingly well preserved, and, because we were visiting in low season, reasonably peaceful. Unfortunately I had contracted Lor's Legionnaires disease and was walking around in something of a daze and required parking under a tree after a while.
We then went on to see Gurung Merapi (Giving Fire) by driving up to the hill station, Kaliurang. It would have been spectacular had it not been completely shrouded in cloud. We were forced to content ourselves with buying a postcard of what we should have been looking at. However the pictures of it's most recent explosion, in 1994, the various hawkers were selling are pretty impressive. It is not a volcano to mess with.
Our final stop was the Hindu equivalent for Borobudur, Prambanan. Built in the 9th centuary it consists of three major shrines (again built without mortor) and several smaller surrounding shrines that lie in ruins. Due to last year's earthquake in Yogya, you can no longer walk amongst the shrines and so you are a bit restricted to what you can actually see.
After a couple more days of trying to kick this cold into touch we caught a plane back
up to Jakarta in order to make our way down the west coast to a town called Carita and to Krakatau volcano. This was one of the first times we didn't have a clear plan laid down on how to get there or where to stay, and proved to be somewhat of a headache. The first warning signs were when we arrived at Kalideres Bus terminal in Jakarta, where upon stepping out of the taxi were descended upon by a huge group of locals all trying to vye for our business, speaking in broken English. After some discussion we eventually found the right bus, but then made another mistake in not being clear what the price for the journey was and after later discussions with some other passengers found that we'd paid probably double the real price. We paid 50k rupiah instead of about 30k, so not too bad considering 17k to the pound.
The journey itself did not provide us with much relief from the bus station melee either. I think the best way we can describe it, is that imagine someone has hijacked the bus and is trying to get out of the city as fast as
possible, just unbelievable considering how packed the roads are with motorcycles and cars. It was hot, humid and cramped, with every stop (numerous in the city) loads of local sellers boarded the bus thrusting various wares in front of all the passengers. After about 4 hours of this, we finally reached the end of the line in Labuan, only to be once again beset with hoardes of local Bemo (small MPVs) drivers trying to get our business. Although this time we ensured we were clear on a price and bargained it down, later we found out again we were over charged (50k rupiah) for the short 10km trip to Carita (for example it only cost us 15k each for the 56km ride to Cilegon on the way back).
However we were now on our way to Carita to the guest houses, so our hassles were over we thought, not quite. Up to this point we had been relying heavily on our 'bible', the Rough Guide to SE Asia, and it had been superb, this unfortunately was one place that it failed us. The recommended place in Carita is Rawayan, so this is where we headed. What greeted us was
little more than a bomb site. The area was unkept and run down, the rooms were filthy and less said about the bathrooms the better. Trying to be polite we said we'd look at some other places but may come back (no chance!) and asked our bemo driver to take us to Lucia cottages. At this point some woman who appeared part of Rawayan also boarded the bemo. Either she was a nut job, or smashed out of her head, either way she guided the driver to a a hotel called Desiana, assuring us that Lucia cottages had been renamed and this was it. The prices were far higher than we'd expected (in hindsight we think was a ploy to get us to go back to Rawayan), but the rooms were clean and we'd had enough for the day so decided to check in. Final confrontation with the bemo driver as he wanted another load of cash for the extra 3km he'd just driven and finally we could relax.
Later at dinner we met a guide from the Black Rhino tour agency who spoke good English and we found out that in fact Lucia cottages did still exist, just
another kilometre down the road. We also found that we were paying massively over the odds and that for a 3rd of the price we could get a much better room at Sunset View and couple of hundred metres away. Needless to say, we checked out and moved hotel first thing next morning. The most disappointing part of the experience was that if we'd just stuck to guns a little longer we would have got to a good guest house. I personally was also disappointed that our Rough Guide (2005 edition) was so scant on information with either distances, expected amounts to pay, and it's recommendation of Rawayan that got us into this whole mess when we needed it most. The other point to note is that all the phone numbers for the area listed in our guide were incorrect, they were at least 1 digit short and sometimes completely different. Very verbose I know, but for anyone else thinking of going to Carita, beware, an easy trap to fall into.
Our main plans for Carita were to take a trip to Krakatau and chill out on the beach. While we could do the first, chilling on the beach
was a no-no. It wasn't a particularly clean beach, and once again anywhere we went, because we seemed to be the only Europeans around we were constantly haranged in one way or another.
Our helpful Black Rhino tour guide, Agus, arranged our trip to Krakatau which involved a 1 hour boat trip to where the original Krakatua once stood. The original volcano exploded in 1883 with such force it was felt in the UK, equivalent to some 10,000 Hiroshima bombs and subsequently removed all but a small part of the volcano from the map. What is there now is the Son or Child (Anak) of Krakatau which emerged from the ocean in 1927 and has been growing by approximately 5 metres each year. Fortunately when we visited the volcano it was quiet and we were able to hike all the way to crater rim (about 350m high) and look in. Here the stench of sulphur is very strong, and the views spectacular. You can quite clearly make out the lines of previous lava flows down to the sea.
After our trip we decided to head back to Jakarta a day early as there really is little else to do in Carita. Agus helped us by travelling part of the way back to Cilegon and ensuring we took the right bus for the right money! Our advice to anyone going to Carita, seek out one of the Black Rhino tour guides (office is next to Sunset View hotel) as they are extremely helpful.
Next stop, Christmas in Australia...hmmm, reminds me of a song.
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China Mike
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Merry Christmas Campers
Good day Weasel and Laura, Just a quick note to wish you both a very Merry Christmas (albeit you might be in Muslim territory...so Allah be with you and Inshallah for a beer). Hope all the travels continue to go according to some plan in 2007 and look forward to reading more of the news as it transpires. Seasons greetings from China