Java

From Singapore we flew to Yogyakarta. The plan was to meet a driver from the hotel at the gate, but we were at the international gate and the driver was at the domestic gate and as soon as we exited the gate another driver asked where we were going. After I explained our situation he declared that the driver from the hotel would not come until tomorrow and that he would happily drive us to the hotel for less than we were going to pay. So we waited for an hour and since we never found the hotel’s driver we hired the first guy, who had been sitting with us for the entire hour trying to convince us to hire him and generally chatting with us.

Driving in Indonesia is crazy. There seem to be some general rules, but they are easily dispensed with if it suits you.  The roads are shared by cars, buses, cargo trucks, many scooters, bikes, animals, and pedestrians, but our driver seemed to think that he owned the roads.

We stayed at the Manohara, which is a hotel that is actually on the grounds of Borobudur, a huge Buddhist temple. The advantage of staying here was that they let us go to the temple a half an hour before the grounds opened to the public. So we could watch the sunrise from the temple.

Be sure to check Laurel’s blog too. http://beyondboulder.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/golden-week-part-2-java/

This is before the sun rose. The light is from the flood lights.

The pyramid like structure is covered in these stupas. Each stupa, has or had a Buddha statue inside.

This is after the sun rose after we came back down.

The Manohara. A very nice hotel.

Pomelo tree out in front of the hotel.

It was salak (snake fruit) season. One bag for $0.20, and that’s the foreigner price.

Gamelan band at the sultan’s palace in downtown Yogyakarta.

Tasty drink! We were taken to a very touristy restaurant for lunch, but it was also very good.

The next few pictures are from a temple complex called Prambanan.

There was a lot of damage done by a large earthquake a few years ago so they are both trying to keep the still standing structures standing and rebuilding the others.

Inside.

We parted company with our driver in the evening. He was very helpful and very nice, but riding around town in his nice car made us feel disconnected. It felt like we were watching our trip on TV. So that night we headed out on our own. We had a wonderful padang dinner at a very local place. Great food, super cheap.

Main shopping street.

We ran through the morning market. I wish I would have taken more pictures and I wish we had more time, but we were leaving that morning on a minibus bound for Mt. Bromo.

The minibus was operated by a local tour company that we got hooked up with through our driver. The minibus ride was delayed multiple times by a couple of other selfish customers, but after 10-11 hours of crazy driving we made it.

View of the volcano from our hotel.

We found a cool little hotel on the edge of the crater, but we were only there for a few hours of sleep. At 3:30 we took a jeep ride to this lookout point above the crater of Mt. Bromo to watch the sunrise.

Popular thing to do.

Next we jumped back into the jeep and went down tot he active part of the volcano and took a peek in.

You could rent a little horse to take you to around, and as usual the salesmen we quite insistent.

There were a few other tourists in our little jeep and somehow we got paired with another group of extremely slow ,selfish people. They delayed us so much that we barely had time for a shower and had to take our breakfast to go, but it all worked out.

So, back in the minibus to head for another 10 hour drive to Bali. The views were nice.

I wish I would have gotten more pictures of the scooters becasue they seem to find ways to carry anthing on a scooter in Java.