Yogya (again)

Well, after posting, I met a girl who had done the Merapi trek and decided it was really not for me. Basically you set off at 10pm, and start walking at 01.00am. It takes five hours to get to the top and it is constant uphill in the dark. She lost her guides for a while and was rather worried she may never find them. Also it was largely scrambling up volcanic scree which gets increasingly hot as you get to the top. I wound up going out for dinner with her and it was really good to have some company for an evening.

The next day I set of for Borobodur adamant I would try to stick to public transport and not the chartered bus services for tourists. First I got a becak (small seat on the front of a bike) and asked to go0 to the bus station. He stopped by the side of the road as it was the stop for the bus. Bus stops appear to not exist in Indonesia, you just wave at the bus and it stops for a fraction of a second to haul you in and then speeds off. If you don't have far to go the approach seems to be to hang on to the outside. This took me to the bus station and there I jumped on a slightly bigger bus. It took about three hours in total to get there and cost me the princely sum of 1.20 GBP.

I decided not to stay at Manohara, which is a posh hotel inside the grounds of Borobodur but went for the budget option. Initially I decided to hire a bike to take a look around. Sadly the bike was designed for the little people so I stopped when my knees started to scream and decided to explore on foot. Borobodur is in huge grounds and it is a lovely wander. I found out later that there was a huge disagreement a few years ago as all the locals were ordered off of their land and were only given alternative living arrangements after going on hunger strike. I had a nice time walking around the temple though which takes some time to view all the carvings on the five levels. At the top it suddenly spaces out and there are beautiful views out to the surrounding mountains and the volcano to the south. I was a mystery hit with other visitors and was asked to pose for lots of photos, especially by around sixty girls on a school trip all in matching orange dresses and white headscarves. It was tiring being a celebrity so I headed back to the guest house for a beer. Over dinner I had a lovely chat with Ronny and Johnny. Ronny is a politics and English student who was happy to practice his english and Johnny seems to do a lot including owning a shop, teaching English, and being a tour guide.

I agreed to go out with Johnny the next day and had one of the best tours I have ever had. He told me all about the agriculture of the area and then we went to a tofu making village, pottery making village, buddhist monastery, some temples associated with Borobodur, his house and shop for a sign-a-long, the local market, pigeon races and Taoist temple for a fortune reading. The next day I got the bus back to Yogya with a German guy I met over dinner the night before and today I have mainly been making a mess with batik. As I could not find a cookery course I decided to try something else and as there seems to be a lot of batik around I have tried my hand at that. My poor teacher has been very patient and had to remove countless unwanted drips of wax from my bit of fabric. Even with his help my attempt does look very "my first picture", similar to if three year olds tried batik. hey ho.

Right now I am trying to kill time till my train leaves at ten thirty for Jakarta. As I have been going to bed at nine thirty most nights it may take some concentration. The only other option is sitting in a cafe for five hours and there is only so much juice you can drink. I could start on the beer but that way I may never get to the station.

Just a note on the earthquake. Thankfully not felt a whisper here although I believe it was felt in Jakarta which is a huge distance away. The papers here are reporting that there were only two deaths although lots of damage was caused on Sumatra.

So just one more day of Indonesia and then I fly off to see lovely Liz and Craig in Australia. I have had a lovely time here but I am also looking forward to a bit of relative normality and staying in one place for a while. And it will be great to see L&C again obviously.