We stayed in a lovely guesthouse/hotel in Sosrowijayan, which is a small neighbourhood of small traffic-less lanes lined with houses and restaurants and guesthouses. It was also close to the famous Malioboro Street with the many cheap batik and souvenir stores.
The main things we did here in Jogja was visit the temples of Borobudur and Prambanan. We got picked up at 5am and were at Borobudur by the time it opened at 6am. It was quite misty, but it just added to the ambience, and after a while the fog burned off to reveal beautiful blue skies. Borobudur is a 9th century Buddhist temple. It has nine levels, covered in thousands of intricate relief panels and over 500 statues of Buddha. The temple is topped by a central dome, which is surrounded by 72 Buddha statues sealed inside stupas that look a bit like bells. While it doesn't quite have the same mysterious jungle atmosphere as the temples of Angkor, the sheer size and grandeur of Borobudur is certainly an impressive site to behold.
Our next stop was the temple of Prambanan. It is a 9th Century Hindu temple (the largest in Indonesia) and it is dedicated to the expression of God as the Creator (Brahma), the Preserver (Vishnu) and the Destroyer (Shiva). The complex has a large central temple surrounded by small temple structures. Apparently if each of the smaller surrounding temple structures had been rebuilt, there would be 252 of them! Each takes 6 years to reconstruct, but after significant damage was caused by an earthquake in 2006, the focus has been more on preservation and strengthening the existing structures.
The next day we walked through the city, visiting the Taman Sari Water Castle, which was once a formal garden of the Sultanate, where the Sultan and his 150 children and 35 wives would come to bathe in a series of pools (one for the kids, one for the wives, and one all for himself).
We also visited the Independence museum that told the story of Indonesia's struggle for independence in a series of 52 detailed dioramas. This coincided with the parade that we stumbled across a couple of days earlier celebrating Indonesia's Independence Day.
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| Diorama in the Independence Museum |
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| Views around Jogja, including a parade we came across. |
After Jogja we took a train to the central Javanese city of Madiun. This is not really a place that tourists have any reason to go, and we got a lot of funny looks.
Madiun, or more specifically, the small village of Pagotan to the south of Madiun, is where my grandfather grew up in Indonesia prior to the war. His father worked as an engineer at the sugarcane factory in Pagotan, right across the street from where they grew up. When we visited my great uncle Rob back in April, we heard many funny stories of the adventures my Opa and his brothers and sister had growing up in Indonesia.
As I think I mentioned in an earlier post, the family were put into internment camps when the Japanese invaded, and my great grandfather was sent to work on the Burma railway. I asked my uncle Rob about it and he said that he doesn't remember the bad things, only the lucky things. After the war the family were reunited and eventually moved back to Holland.
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| The house where my Opa grew up, across from the Sugarcane factory, which still operates. |
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| We stumbled across a night market with preparations for some kind of acrobatic performance underway. Unfortunately I almost passed out and we couldn't stay to watch. |
After a night in Madiun we took a long train ride to the town of Probolinggo where we were to make our way to visit the famous Tengger National Park and Mt Bromo. Thankfully we weren't the only tourists to arrive on the train at Probolinggo, and having read up on the scams, we successfully made our way to the bus depot and negotiated a reasonable price for all 15 of us to be squashed into a minivan, with our luggage tied on top, to take us for an hours drive up into the mountains to the town of Cemoro Lawang, perched on the edge of the Tengger Caldera.
As it was dark by the time we arrived, I was glad that we had decided to book ahead our accommodation. The next morning we got up before 3am and met up with an Austrian couple who we'd met on the bus ride the day before. We hiked for an hour and a half in the dark up a mountain to one of the main viewing areas. To avoid the crowds of others watching the sunrise, we climbed up a small hill at the back of the viewing area. Here we shared beautiful views of the sunrise with only four other people. It was magic, if a bit cold!
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| With our hiking companions |
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| Feeling the cold! |
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| Lots of spring onions growing here! |
After the sun came up we hiked back down to Cemoro Lawang for breakfast at our hostel and for a rest. It was just as well we had two nights here, as I had been hampered by an upset stomach all morning and needed a break before hiking into the caldera and up Mount Bromo itself.
One thing I should mention about Bromo is that the place is effectively run by the tourism mafia, and everything is very overpriced (by Indonesian standards), however there isn't a lot you can do about it! So, taking matters into our own hands, we found a shortcut into the caldera, bypassing the $25 per person entrance fee. No one noticed, nor seemed to care. I felt like quite the rebel, and was sure Tamson would be proud!
Once down in the caldera, we had to hike across the 'sea of sand'. It was more accurately the 'sea of volcanic ash'. It was so fine that it billowed up into swirls around our legs with each footfall, and we had to pull our headbands over our faces to avoid inhaling the occasional dust storm picked up by the wind.
The hike up the volcano itself didn't take too long, but was up a lot of ash covered stairs to reach the narrow crater rim. The volcano was rumbling loudly and steaming vigorously, and I wondered whether we should have bought an offering from the guy at the bottom of the stairs to repent to the mountain for sneaking into the park.... In awe of the raw power of nature and also a bit spooked, we made a hasty retreat down the mountain and scurried back across the sea of sand (all the while grateful that my stomach allowed me some respite so that the walk was not across a 'sea of embarrassment').
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| Taking the shortcut into the caldera... |
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| The dusty sea of sand |
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| Looking back down Bromo |
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| The vast caldera |
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| At the top of Mt Bromo |
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| Coming into the town of Cemoro Lawang |
Unfortunately, I ordered the Gado Gado for dinner again, thinking it surely couldn't have been the source of my troubles and innocently shared it with Shaun. Low and behold, the next morning he was crook too! However, we made it to Surabaya for our flight to Bali, and then on the ferry to the Island of Lembongan. We are staying at a lovely homestay a stones throw from Mushroom beach where we have been relaxing, and where Shaun has been recovering from heat stroke.
As Murphy's law would have it, he is feeling a lot better this morning it is now pissing down with rain outside! Never mind, it is a good opportunity for me to catch up on my blog!
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