Category: Holiday 2016

Up early to buy hats and make some photos around the homestay.

The guys from Griya Harja take us to the bus station “Indonesia style” with 3 scooters.  It’s quite fun.  This time we’re in the front of the bus so we can see more of the street life.  The shops don’t really stop on this 1 hour drive to Jogja.  From the Jogja station we take the “1A” bus and Jane has an argument about the price (which we later find out has genuinely gone up – or not – who knows).

Our “Hotel Seribu Satu Malam” is in a an alleyway of a side street of Jalan Malioboro.  It’s nice with an open courtyard with palms and fish – but it’s got mosquitos (Emma and I find this out).  The older guy on the desk tells us to buy our train tickets in the supermarket which we do, although we have to game the machine a bit by lying about mobile numbers.

Evening entertainment is a wayang puppet show.  You can watch both sides, the shadow play or the back where you can see the colouring of the puppets and the large band with traditional Javanese instruments.  Although wayang is heralded as a Javanese invention, it bears similarity to the Chinese puppet plays.  To follow the stories you need a better grasp of Javanese mythology.

On the way back the tuc tucs get lost and try to charge us double.  Jane’s not having any of it.

Wake up early to go to Borobudur.  Although we said we might go “Indonesian style” with the scooters we decide to walk.  The weather looks rainy.

At 6:47.54 we walked to the Buddhist temple in Borobudur where tourists pay double the entry price.  You had to go round the temple clock wise to bring good fortune.  There were many Buddha carvings which all meant different things.

Drinks and ice cream was needed before we left the temple through all the people trying to sell things.  After finally leaving the temple we walked through the market where every 5 shops sold the same thing, bought bananas and ate some pancakes.  At the bus station we took a becak (tuctuc) to the hotel.

A few hours later after Alex had taken many chicken photos we woke up the people working at the hotel and borrowed bicycles to cycle around the quiet tofu village.

The 4am taxi is only welcome because it makes us miss the morning call to prayer.  Check-in and security is very quick and we have time for a snack: some chocolate bread from the supermarket.

The Air Asia A320 flight is efficient and the airplane has advertising inside it.  Has Michael O’Leary missed a trick?  We’re sitting all over the cabin, Jane in the middle, kids next to each other at the back and me in the front.  I get woken up 30 mins before touchdown to take the pancakes I pre-ordered (forgot about that).

Yogya airport is very small.  When you land it seems like the pilot has decided to land in the rice fields until the familiar thud.  A few weeks back a jet did fail to toga and ended up in the rice field at the end.  The terminal building is right on the runway so the taxi is short.

We buy more money and the girls use the toilet which has a long queue.  Jane has worked out that we will take the Trans Jogja busses to get to Borobudur.  For RP 1200 (7.2p) we get to the north bus terminal (with one change).  A further RP 100.000 (£6) gets us to Borobudur bus station in an hour.

The first Trans Jogja has lively music in it to make the working day more pleasant.

From Borobudur bus station we take the motor tuk-tuks to Griya Harja Homestay, another great place with friendly staff.

After a short rest we decide to try to walk up the path to the viewpoint.  It’s a concrete path, then some worn away steps and after that it becomes muddy.  Jane is the only one with sensible shoes so we need to abort.  The views are nice though.  Emma has a mosquito bite on her eyelid.

It stops raining softly as we walk down the road to Borobudur village for dinner.

There is a really cool “Camera House” a few KM down the road:

Because everyone is hungry, it seems a lot further than it is.  We hide from the rain at various houses and shelters and finally find a restaurant.  It’s ok, even if we do spot a large rattus-rattus under the tables.  Finally we walk back to the homestay and mum reads to the kids.