Indonesia (Yogyakarta)

The train from Jakarta took just over 8 hours but was surprisingly comfortable. We had okay seats and even the opportunity to get some food from a small kitchen however the food wasn't the best. The landscape changed often between town and agriculture, guessing that the world's most populous island of 240 million people doesn't have a great deal of unworked land.

The first problem is that we planned to buy our train tickets to the next destination at the train station when we arrived but they were all sold out on the days we could go so back to the drawing board which was annoying.

We have no hostel or guesthouse to stay at and plan to find one on arrival. The books say its a popular jaunt for backpackers and tourist so we don't expect to have trouble. We headed for the main backpacker area where two tiny streets no more than 2m across and about 150m long are lined with guesthouses and resturants. We went in 6 guesthouses and looked at the rooms before finding one we liked in our price range and which ticked the right boxes. I was surprised by some of the places, they were small, dingy and dirty and I expected like other places the diggs to be of better standard if it was so popular. In the end we found one for about $20 a night with bathroom, a/c, wifi and cold shower. Hot showers haven't seemed to have made it as far as Indonesia yet but its surprisingly refreshing and you get used to it. If you always shower on a night the water is more tepid as the water has had all day to slightly heat up in the big silver looking water buckets which every house in Asia seems to have, or atleast that's what we think.

First night we head for some food and way up our options for moving on. We find a tour package which will take us to see Mount Bromo and then back to Surabaya which is where we planned to go to on the train but were unable to get tickets for. After some research its seems like the best option.

The first day we get the local bus to Prambanan temple, South East Asia's biggest Hindu temple complex.  The bus was fun and very local, lots of starring and this old man insisted on trying to get this small girl to wave and sit on izzi's knee, the child obviously didn't want to and I'm not sure izzi did either. It was fun and very cheap albeit very cosy as the bus was busy & the seats were miniature.  We didn't see one other tourist on the bus which was odd as its easy to find and very cheap but I guess people pay 20 times as much and go on organised tours. On the way back a women started to talk to us and said we were brave coming to Indonesia which made us wonder why. The temples were okay, they had been partially rebuilt after an earthquake in 2006. When entering the complex you got given a sarong thing to where which made us look funny and I'm not to sure why we had to wear it, even the locals all seemed to have one on. The main complex had a sign stating it was 'relatively stable' but to enter you still needed a hard hat! The temples felt a bit like Angkor Wat, built in a similar style but less of them and some completely destroyed. We got dinner at one of the many eateries around the entrance, the food was okay until the bill and she had added on extra costs for some chicken which she at first made out like it was part of the meal, not so bad as it only added an extra £1.50 to the meal but it did double the bill!

The following day we planned to stay around the city. As we were walking twice people who wanted us to use their rickshaw mentioned a free art gallery open this weekend so we decided to go. The 2nd man even started to walk us to show it us it which is when we started to think it wasn't all kosher. He led us up the stairs to a nice room covered in paintings. Then someone came out and stated to talk about the works on display. Then someone with coffee and another man, we immediately realised this was a scam and this was actually a art shop with highly inflated prices aimed at tourists and this isn't free this weekend and that's simply the hook to get you in. We politely spoke and walked around the room towards the exit then said thank you and scarpered down the stairs. Late that day when we actually got a rickshaw the nice man peddling warned us about these shops and called them touists mafia. He said they were not only 2x the price but maybe 3 or 4 times what the art would normally cost.

We visited the royal palace and a old dutch fort which was now a museum, both were average however we luckily went to the palace when a traditional puppet show was on which was interesting. After we got a rickshaw to a bird makeet we had read about, it started off well but soon turned into disappointment after what we saw. We saw huge birds, owls, crows and other massive birds in tiny cages looking very miserable and sad. We also saw cats, dogs, bats, squirrels, chipmonks (we think) all in small cages and not looking good. The worse was a set of young civets (beautiful wild cats) which made me sad.

We leave Yogyakarta for Mount Bromo which is an epic 10-12hr bus journey away, lets hope its not that bad.