First time to Yogya

I've just returned to Bali after spending three days (2 nights) in Yogyakarta.

This was my first time on the island of Java. There are other places I've thought of going, but Yogya, had one big draw card. Borobudur!

Essentially I have always wanted to visit the 9th century Buddhist temple Borubudur. Realising that time is slipping through my fingers and my life has seemed a bit of a pointless and failed experiment, I figured there is no time like now for turning tables and resetting broken patterns. So I booked a ticket and I went.

After a few days in Bali, and settling into the meeting routine at Sanur packed my stuff, got a ride to the airport and flew to Yogya. It was pretty easy to catch a bus from the airport. 

Bus A1 took me to stop 3 on Jl Malioboro for rp3,500. (Less than AUD $0.40) The busses are crazy. An elevated platform, about two feet off the ground. Bus has a sliding door to match a similar door on the platform. The driver regularly pulled away from the platform before everyone had fully boarded, people had to literally jump on the bus.

I got off the bus about 1.5 km from my accommodation. Snooze guesthouse. As I walked a local becak rider offered me a ride and so I arrived at my lodging in style. It was a motorized cart. Slow and comfortable.

Snooze is inside the boundary of the Kraton, which is essentially an area defined by a giant wall surrounding the Sultains palace. The streets in this area are quiet and leafy full of well maintained colonial and more traditional housing. 

The hostel was quiet, friendly and comfortable. A good base for two days.

Malioboro street was busy on the day I arrived. Apparently it was some kind of national day. Jl Malioboro is full of t-shirt vendors, kaki lima, horses with carts and becak. 

On day 2 I wasn't able to arrange a dawn visit to Borobudur so I went walking and met an older man who wanted to chat and practice his English. He said the was a school teacher. We talked a while and he showed me around the Kraton. I asked if I could buy him a coffee and he said yes. He knew a good place with the best coffee in town... We walked on, through a maze of ancient streets.

Eventually we arrived at the coffee shop. It was a lewak coffee place. I was in a tight spot, couldn't back out without causing offense or embarrassment. I bought two coffee lewak and pretended it was nothing special at all. Cost me rp 240,0000! I'm not even going to translate that to dollars! 

Since the hostel couldn't send the shuttle to Borobudur for a single visitor I decided to hire a scooter.

Was daunted at first but soon found my confidence. Rode out to Borobudur in the afternoon for a practice run. Got lost a bit but found my way, with help from Google navigation.