Spirtual Wanderings in Java
06th April Yogyakarta
The bus reached Yogyakarta (pronounced ‘Jogjakarta’ and called Jogja in short) at 4:30am and I tried asking for a Guest House I had in mind and read good reviews on the internet but that turned out to be far away from the City and there were no buses at that hour. It was pitch dark and just a few people around , So I got down at Sosrowijayan street where most of the guest houses are located and asked around for a place to stay .I was told that few would be vacated around 8am , so had to sit around for few more hours. It was a grueling wait since I was tired after almost 1.5days on the road after Ijen and in the same hiking clothes. I found a nice little pension Losmen Uttar and dumped by backpack , had a shower and just crashed out for few hours. It was a long weekend (Easter holiday) and when I woke up and headed out to the Malioboro Street to get some food , it was jam packed with people.
Jogja , is the cultural hub of Java and famous for Batik work. I walked in the madding crowd upto the Craton and then a Batik Painting School. The Palace was disappointing though, not much to really see. I walked back and sat at the Patio at the pension with plants and birds all around. I was happy to have found a quiet little place to stay , when I saw tons of travelers walking around trying to find accommodation. Everything around was completely full due to the 3 day long weekend. I walked around and spoke to a laundry owner who had been quite friendly in the morning trying to help me find a guest house when I was waiting . I now had to figure out whether to do the temples on my own or take a tour. I am not used to tours and just detest the time bound stops and being a tourist. Some of the other tourists I met who had taken the 4am tour highly recommended that but I was just not keen at waking up that early and doing a tour. So I just thought I would do the temples on my own by local transport at my own pace.
07th April Borobudur Temples
Borobudur was the initial inspiration or reason behind coming to Java and I was quite happy to have made it this far without any hiccups..
Borobudur was built in the 8th century and was hidden by volcanic ash for more than 800years after Mount Merapi erupted. The structure is a stepped pyramid of square platforms for worshipers to process around clockwise at they climb to the summit , around the backdrop of mountains and jungles .
Woke up early and after breakfast at the Guest House and asked around and went to the bus stop at Malioboro Street to take the Trans Jogya Bus( Half Hour) to Jombir Bus station and then another local bus to Borobudur (1 hrs). Jogya now has Trans Jogya , has Aircon buses that run across the city and very cheap and convenient. As I got down from the bus at Borobudur , I found a young Indonesian trying to ask for directions to the temple and we walked about a km or so to the site. The temple charges 15$ for foreigners and 2$ for locals that I found was way too steep for just a single structure and so he suggested I pretend to be a local (lot of people thought me to be Indonesian earlier) but that trick didn't work and I had to shell out the entire amount. It was about 8:30am and the sun was out in its glory and I found thousands of people inside the temple and was over whelmed since I like taking architectural pictures in its glory without people wandering around. So I big my new friend good bye since I wanted to take my time taking pictures when people cleared out a bit. I was regretting not taking the tour at 4a.m. , so I trudged along waiting for opportunities for my photographs and managed some after long waits and missed a few since there were always people trickling in..
So after spending couple of hours there headed back to the guest house and the entire afternoon and evening was rain soaked , rather heavy downpour and was spent mainly in the pension portico.
08th April Prambanan Temples
Candi Prambanan is a 9th century Hindu temple compound , dedicated to the Trimurti, the expression of God as the Creator (Brahma), the Sustainer (Vishnu) and the Destroyer (Shiva). The temple compound is located approximately 18 km east of Yogyakarta city .
After a good night's sleep took the Trans Jogya Airport Bus to Prambanan Complex , which was about 15mins walk away.
The temples are around serene green trees and spent some quiet hours around it . After taking the bus back and rest , I walked around the shops and in the evening , found some live music being played. Crowds had gathered around one the young teenage band , who other than entertaining were trying to earn some money to survive.
I had spent some great few days in Yogyakarta and exploring the ancient temples and wanted to get away to a quieter place and decided to head over to Pangandaran.
9th April -10th April Pangandaran
Took the 8am mini-bus and found a few locals and another french traveler and we stuck up a conversation and found that he had been working on a working visa in Australia and traveling around and was on his last leg and heading back home. I didn't know where to head for a guest house and he suggested a french run place and so when we reached Pangandaran around 4pm ,after a terrible bumpy ride across non-existent roads, I was more than happy to just follow the suggestion. It was a nice little place with some other travelers and found a nice room for self , dumped by bag and headed to the beach.
Pangandaran is a large fishing village and on either side to the east and to the west of the village and the National Park isthmus are two beaches of volcanic black sand and is also becoming popular with surfers.
At night we walked to the beach in search for dinner and met a Balinese Hindu 'Togo' , living there and spoke about religion and such and then he showed us a bunch of tricks and puzzles with match sticks.. We spent several hours trying to solve those puzzles and playing domino. As I headed back Togo had volunteered to take us around the village and national park the next morning.
After a good night's sleep (never realized i was this tired) I walked to the post office to get my train tickets from Bandung to Jakarta for THU morning and on the way back found Togo waiting by the beach.. I headed back to the guest house and met David and we hired a bike and all three of us started the days exploration.
The village was struck by Tsunami in 2006 and most of it was destroyed and very few survived , even Togo lost all his neighbors and was even thrown around in the giant waves but miraculously survived the Tsunami with broken bones and such. The guest house we were living in and also Togo's house was all washed away and had been rebuilt.
We took the bike around the Green Canyon, Turtle Conservation Park, Puppet Factory and had local Indonesian food and local juices (some of the fruits were new to me ) and then hit the home stay and slept..
11th April-12th April Pangandaran -Bangdung-Jakarta
So after couple of peaceful days around the beach , I took the early morning bus out to another town Bandung . The journey took about 10hours over not so great roads was tiring to say the least . I was warned that Bandung was a chaotic town and as the bus entered into the town and we were stuck in the traffic maze for about an hour , the first thought was to just get away from there.
I got down at the main bus station and asked for the Damri Bus to the guest house area (suggested by Togo) and 5minutes walk from the train station. As I was getting down from the bus and trying to find the guest house I heard the phone and saw a couple of missed calls from mom and sister. They all seemed worried and told me that an earthquake of 8.9 richter had hit Sumatra and I should try and head out as soon as possible. I was however was brain dead and checked into the guest house and asked around but nobody was aware of the jolt and were busy watching a football match. I dumped by backpack and walked outside to find out the route to the train station and grab a coffee ,since I had a 6am train next morning.. What I found was that locals were busy doing their things and not panicking. I got a call again from sister ,asking me to head to Jakarta as soon as possible ,incase Tsunami or Earthquake stuck again and transport and communication broke down. So I headed back to the guest house to checkout, they refused to refund any money , though I hadn't used the room and walked back to the train station to check if there was a train out to Jakarta or else had to look for a bus . Thankfully there was a train after an hour an half and exchanged my morning tickets for that one. The train reached Jakarta around 1am and I spent the entire night in mosquito infested station just whiling away time with nothing to eat either , waiting for the morning and hoping things didn't turn to worse .
The last leg of the journey was then waiting for the first bus out of the station to the Airport and then another long wait there to get the flight out . Thus ended my Java wanderings with the last 2 days on the road and rushing through places to get a safe flight home.
Flickr Pictures :Temples
The bus reached Yogyakarta (pronounced ‘Jogjakarta’ and called Jogja in short) at 4:30am and I tried asking for a Guest House I had in mind and read good reviews on the internet but that turned out to be far away from the City and there were no buses at that hour. It was pitch dark and just a few people around , So I got down at Sosrowijayan street where most of the guest houses are located and asked around for a place to stay .I was told that few would be vacated around 8am , so had to sit around for few more hours. It was a grueling wait since I was tired after almost 1.5days on the road after Ijen and in the same hiking clothes. I found a nice little pension Losmen Uttar and dumped by backpack , had a shower and just crashed out for few hours. It was a long weekend (Easter holiday) and when I woke up and headed out to the Malioboro Street to get some food , it was jam packed with people.
Jogja , is the cultural hub of Java and famous for Batik work. I walked in the madding crowd upto the Craton and then a Batik Painting School. The Palace was disappointing though, not much to really see. I walked back and sat at the Patio at the pension with plants and birds all around. I was happy to have found a quiet little place to stay , when I saw tons of travelers walking around trying to find accommodation. Everything around was completely full due to the 3 day long weekend. I walked around and spoke to a laundry owner who had been quite friendly in the morning trying to help me find a guest house when I was waiting . I now had to figure out whether to do the temples on my own or take a tour. I am not used to tours and just detest the time bound stops and being a tourist. Some of the other tourists I met who had taken the 4am tour highly recommended that but I was just not keen at waking up that early and doing a tour. So I just thought I would do the temples on my own by local transport at my own pace.
07th April Borobudur Temples
Borobudur was the initial inspiration or reason behind coming to Java and I was quite happy to have made it this far without any hiccups..
Borobudur was built in the 8th century and was hidden by volcanic ash for more than 800years after Mount Merapi erupted. The structure is a stepped pyramid of square platforms for worshipers to process around clockwise at they climb to the summit , around the backdrop of mountains and jungles .
Woke up early and after breakfast at the Guest House and asked around and went to the bus stop at Malioboro Street to take the Trans Jogya Bus( Half Hour) to Jombir Bus station and then another local bus to Borobudur (1 hrs). Jogya now has Trans Jogya , has Aircon buses that run across the city and very cheap and convenient. As I got down from the bus at Borobudur , I found a young Indonesian trying to ask for directions to the temple and we walked about a km or so to the site. The temple charges 15$ for foreigners and 2$ for locals that I found was way too steep for just a single structure and so he suggested I pretend to be a local (lot of people thought me to be Indonesian earlier) but that trick didn't work and I had to shell out the entire amount. It was about 8:30am and the sun was out in its glory and I found thousands of people inside the temple and was over whelmed since I like taking architectural pictures in its glory without people wandering around. So I big my new friend good bye since I wanted to take my time taking pictures when people cleared out a bit. I was regretting not taking the tour at 4a.m. , so I trudged along waiting for opportunities for my photographs and managed some after long waits and missed a few since there were always people trickling in..
So after spending couple of hours there headed back to the guest house and the entire afternoon and evening was rain soaked , rather heavy downpour and was spent mainly in the pension portico.
08th April Prambanan Temples
Candi Prambanan is a 9th century Hindu temple compound , dedicated to the Trimurti, the expression of God as the Creator (Brahma), the Sustainer (Vishnu) and the Destroyer (Shiva). The temple compound is located approximately 18 km east of Yogyakarta city .
After a good night's sleep took the Trans Jogya Airport Bus to Prambanan Complex , which was about 15mins walk away.
The temples are around serene green trees and spent some quiet hours around it . After taking the bus back and rest , I walked around the shops and in the evening , found some live music being played. Crowds had gathered around one the young teenage band , who other than entertaining were trying to earn some money to survive.
I had spent some great few days in Yogyakarta and exploring the ancient temples and wanted to get away to a quieter place and decided to head over to Pangandaran.
9th April -10th April Pangandaran
Took the 8am mini-bus and found a few locals and another french traveler and we stuck up a conversation and found that he had been working on a working visa in Australia and traveling around and was on his last leg and heading back home. I didn't know where to head for a guest house and he suggested a french run place and so when we reached Pangandaran around 4pm ,after a terrible bumpy ride across non-existent roads, I was more than happy to just follow the suggestion. It was a nice little place with some other travelers and found a nice room for self , dumped by bag and headed to the beach.
Pangandaran is a large fishing village and on either side to the east and to the west of the village and the National Park isthmus are two beaches of volcanic black sand and is also becoming popular with surfers.
At night we walked to the beach in search for dinner and met a Balinese Hindu 'Togo' , living there and spoke about religion and such and then he showed us a bunch of tricks and puzzles with match sticks.. We spent several hours trying to solve those puzzles and playing domino. As I headed back Togo had volunteered to take us around the village and national park the next morning.
After a good night's sleep (never realized i was this tired) I walked to the post office to get my train tickets from Bandung to Jakarta for THU morning and on the way back found Togo waiting by the beach.. I headed back to the guest house and met David and we hired a bike and all three of us started the days exploration.
The village was struck by Tsunami in 2006 and most of it was destroyed and very few survived , even Togo lost all his neighbors and was even thrown around in the giant waves but miraculously survived the Tsunami with broken bones and such. The guest house we were living in and also Togo's house was all washed away and had been rebuilt.
We took the bike around the Green Canyon, Turtle Conservation Park, Puppet Factory and had local Indonesian food and local juices (some of the fruits were new to me ) and then hit the home stay and slept..
11th April-12th April Pangandaran -Bangdung-Jakarta
So after couple of peaceful days around the beach , I took the early morning bus out to another town Bandung . The journey took about 10hours over not so great roads was tiring to say the least . I was warned that Bandung was a chaotic town and as the bus entered into the town and we were stuck in the traffic maze for about an hour , the first thought was to just get away from there.
I got down at the main bus station and asked for the Damri Bus to the guest house area (suggested by Togo) and 5minutes walk from the train station. As I was getting down from the bus and trying to find the guest house I heard the phone and saw a couple of missed calls from mom and sister. They all seemed worried and told me that an earthquake of 8.9 richter had hit Sumatra and I should try and head out as soon as possible. I was however was brain dead and checked into the guest house and asked around but nobody was aware of the jolt and were busy watching a football match. I dumped by backpack and walked outside to find out the route to the train station and grab a coffee ,since I had a 6am train next morning.. What I found was that locals were busy doing their things and not panicking. I got a call again from sister ,asking me to head to Jakarta as soon as possible ,incase Tsunami or Earthquake stuck again and transport and communication broke down. So I headed back to the guest house to checkout, they refused to refund any money , though I hadn't used the room and walked back to the train station to check if there was a train out to Jakarta or else had to look for a bus . Thankfully there was a train after an hour an half and exchanged my morning tickets for that one. The train reached Jakarta around 1am and I spent the entire night in mosquito infested station just whiling away time with nothing to eat either , waiting for the morning and hoping things didn't turn to worse .
The last leg of the journey was then waiting for the first bus out of the station to the Airport and then another long wait there to get the flight out . Thus ended my Java wanderings with the last 2 days on the road and rushing through places to get a safe flight home.
Flickr Pictures :Temples
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