ANDY AND ANA, JAKARTA, INDONESIA, 30th JUNE 2014

Wowser... So as soon as we landed in Jakarta we were back in the realm of the Asian way of doing things. So we paid the $50 USD for our landing visas at one counter, got issued with a ticket and got stamped into the country at the next counter.

We then jumped on the bus from the airport into the city centre. We'd only booked to stay in Jakarta for one night as we were sprinting across Java Island to meet a flight to Flores on 8th July.

Before we headed to our hotel we got off the bus and booked our onward train ticket to Yogyakarta the next day. 

After checking in at our hotel and sorting a mishap with Andy booking the wrong date, we headed out into the city. We also quickly realised that we'd arrived in the City on the last Monday of the month when all the public galleries, museums and places of interest were closed. Ah... So we grabbed lunch at a local waring (local eating house) and set off for some more shopping to replenish the missing, sorry, delayed, bag. 

The first Indonesian meal in a warung - eating place

My fave dish throughout Indonesia  Soto Ayam (chicken noodles and veg and crackers)

Indonesian style tuk tuk

Just getting a little busy in town - Jakarta rush hour

All shopped out it was time for dinner. A local cafe was our choice and it had brilliant food, so we ordered far too much and ate our way through it ;) 

One of many dishes ordered at dinner, greedy guts!

Next morning we continued to stuff ourselves with a hotel buffet breakfast and walked the 20mins to the train station. We sat comfortably in our first class seats with every other person being a backpacker or middle class Indonesian for the next 9hrs.

The train journey to Yogykarta was very easy,comfortable and I suppose it's what you get when you travel first class ;) 

Next stop - Yogykarta

This was pretty much the view for the next 9hrs.. not bad, eh?!

We jumped off the train and into the worlds biggest ticket queue. We needed to book an onward train to Probilinggo and thought it best to do whilst at the station... 2hrs later and possibly the last in the queue (it was after closing time) we got our tickets and jumped in a cab to our guesthouse for the next two nights.

The place was OK! Housed in some nice gardens with a pool which was a bargain at 200,000 per night :) (£10) We headed out to search for food and stumbled across the restaurant (Via Via) we would eat at for the next few nights! One chicken salad and 'Indonesian special' later we listened to some live music with a drink and made the short trip back. 

Next morning we headed to the main touristy site in town - the Kraton.  The Kraton is still the official Royal seat of Indonesian Java and is therefore their version of a palace.  Sadly the Kraton is very run down and didn't have much on show for its visitors although there were loads of people there.  Lots of Javanese paintings and a few manky old artefacts later we left through the hubbub of 'taxi', 'tuk-tuk' and 'batik sir?'.  We then headed down town to the main drag to survey what the city had to offer.  Namely batik shops, tourist tat shops and a few fruit markets, so we headed back to the hostel.  On route we dropped into a technology mall to find a memory card reader.  After a few funny conversations and lots of pointing at things Andy spotted the right guy and we got our card reader for less than a quid with the vendor still making a nice profit!

Taxi!

Guys who man the Kraton, they didn't really do much other than sit and chat with each other

We get afternoon tea bought to us at this hostel!  Some tea and lapis cake - nice touch

Dinner again at Via Via- the food was good enough for us to want to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner there.  Early to bed as we had planned a trip to Borobudur the next morning and were being picked up at 3.10am!  We got up around 3am, put on whatever was in sight and headed out to the minivan along with around 10 others.  We left so early as 'apparently' you cant to go to Borobudur without seeing sunrise - balls.  The sunrise location was rubbish as was the weather so we didn't get to see much at all so after the sun had crept over the grey landscape over the speck in the distance that was Borobadur Andy grumpily tucked into his hard boiled egg and dry bread breakfast.  Next we headed off to the temple (Borobudur) for a few hours exploring.

So this is it before the sunrise - good view!

The sun is up! - as good a view as it was in pitch black... Can you see the temple?

We enjoyed climbing up and looking around the temple itself, set in beautiful grounds and for an old relic it was very well preserved.  We needed to be back at our minivan for a lift back  into town by 9.15am so we made sure to head back a few minutes early the way we had come. Unfortunately the local security and police had other ideas and insisted that we were not permitted to leave the way we had come in and we had to leave through their one-way system. By 09:20 we were already lost in a maze of tourist vendors. The only way out of the temple is through a maze of stalls selling everything from buddha to birds - yes live ones.  At this point Andy snapped and was one more small carved version of Borobudur away from flipping at the maze of vendors (Andy: this exit route had been designed to be as long as possible and held half of the tat sellers in Indonesia - I was very unhappy at pretty much anyone by this time who was deliberately making me late and was ready to insert some of the pointier tat into the next guy offering it to me).  Luckily we got out by 9.30pm and the bus had waited for us, phew...

Early morning visitors to Borobudur get tea - worth the extra couple of quid entrance ;)

Ta-dah! Looks must better close up

Andy modelling his Borobudur skirt

When i saw this i thought of the times that my brother would pretend to steal my nose as a kid... Maybe this ones brother did it to him and they actually didn't give the nose back! My brother would give mine back, obviously.

You climb all the way to the top to capture these structures, petty cool to see them up close.

Back to town and back out to Via Via for our last dinner there.  They had a street band come in and start playing very good covers of pop music to the diners, sung in impeccable English by a troupe of local guys - they really put us to shame with our lack of languages!

Last dinner finished off with coffee at Via via

Given a good send off with the local band, these guys were pretty good!

Up early the next day to catch our onward train to Probolinggo, gateway for Mount Bromo.