5 Days 4 Nights in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

When we were trying to come up with a list of potential places we could go as a family, Yogyakarta wasn't on my list. Our criteria was this: affordable, not experiencing winter, something with a mix of shopping and sightseeing.

I happened to meet up with someone from Holiday Tours and she suggested Yogyakarta. All I knew about Yogyakarta was Borobudur. So I embarked on a short research (this YogYes site was extremely helpful) and it became more and more interesting as a place to visit. Mum was like, "what's Bodobodoh?" (Bodoh means stupid in Malay).

Yogyakarta (or Jogjakarta) is in the middle of Java Island, Indonesia, Jakarta and Bandung on the west and Bali Island on the east. Hmm... 4 of the 5 Indonesian cities I've visited is on this map. 

Nevertheless, I pressed on and got a consensus somewhat from the entire family and proceeded to make the bookings.

So now that we're all back from Yogyakarta, I must say it was one of my most favourite Indonesian city to visit, discounting Lampung because we were well taken care of by my relatives. I believe what really makes or breaks a trip is also the guide and I'm glad that we had Mr Budi from Keisha Luxury Transport who was extremely professional, brought us to good places to eat.

Three things which stood out for me:

The Food:
In terms of touring on our own, we found the food in Yogyakarta so good, we were still having cravings after we came back. Sure it was chicken with rice most of the time but almost every meal was memorable. You've got to try the Warung Spesial Sambal, which is a chain restaurant originating from Yogyakarta. They boast of having 18 types of sambal and we tried three of them, named Bull Shit, Teroris and P3K (I don't know what that means). As you can imagine, Teroris (or was it P3K) was pretty spicy. So affordable and good that my dad wanted to eat it again before we flew off on our last day.

The sambal menu from Warung SS.

The People:
The people are friendly, relaxed and trusting and it was such a pleasant surprise to notice that the streets were very clean! No spitting, no throwing of cigarette butts all over the place. Horse carriages are equipped with a simple sheet behind the horse to collect dung instead of having it strewn all over the streets. We also witnessed a quick cleaning of horse pee using half a bucket of water mixed with some salts and chemicals.

The Heritage:
Despite the many earthquakes and volcano eruptions, the folks preserve as much as they can with the historical structures. Borobudur was rebuilt a couple of times when all the pieces fell from earthquakes, each block pieced together like a jigsaw. And even though Borobudur is a Buddhist temple and Prambanan a Hindu temple, the structures were preserved with respect despite most of them being Muslims.

So, what was our itinerary? The car rental company owner actually did the most work. I gave her the dates, what I wanted to cover (which was just Borobodur and a bit of shopping) and she filled up the blanks for me with a very good understanding of what I wanted. That's what made her stand out from the rest of the car rentals I asked for a quote.

We touched down in the late afternoon and headed straight to Manohara hotel, which is on the grounds of Borobudur. Sunset was about 6 p.m. so we reached when it was already dark. The hotel room was good but the gardens and the distant view of Borobudur was what made this hotel stand out. We took the sunrise tour which had us up at 4 a.m. and really think we made the right choice as there was only about a hundred people, almost half of them with their professional cameras and tripods perched facing east, waiting for the sun to rise. Unfortunately, the sun was partially hidden behind the clouds but it was still splendid.

We were given sarongs to wear to differentiate the sunrise tour from the rest of the crowd that came in later.

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I really like this panaroma, minus the warped human who invaded the photo on the left

What was missing from this sunrise tour was, well, a tour. We were just led to the temple and left on our own. Luckily, we watched a half hour documentary in the hotel room the night before to get a gist of what this temple was about.

After Borobudur, we rested for a while before Budi took us to Merapi Volcano.

Along the way and also thanks to the documentary, we also stopped by this small temple which had a lot of Aesop-like stories carved on the sides. It was used by pilgrims who stopped by to rest and focus after their long trek to reach Borobudur.

Merapi last exploded in 2010 so it's still an active volcano. The roads leading up the mountain was cracked and the only way to get up there was via a 4-wheel drive. Since it was already almost lunch time and the tour would have taken 2 hours, we decided to skip this and just gaze at it from the foot.

Prambanan temple was really beautiful. This time, we got a guide who entertained us with jokes and gave so much explanation that the whole place was made so interesting for us. Gods are carved with their feet together to symbolize a state of rest. Feet apart means you're always working, striving. And the shape of the pieces that fit together to form the temple, the Z, the I and the L blocks, each with a male and female (one bulges out, the other has a concave bottom to fit the bulge... aah, when I find a better explanation I'll revise this) version so that it fits over each other like Lego.

Maybe sarongs are just worn as a sign of respect for these temples.

And on the way back to Yogyakarta, we had a flat tire. We sat in a shop selling tyres to motorbikes and had a chat with the owner who was most hospitable. At one point, he got us to look after his shop while he took Budi to a nearby shop to see if they could assist us! His customers just patiently waited for him to return and a supplier who helped out another customer didn't simply pocket the cash but really handed it back to the owner when he returned.

In Yogyakarta, we visited the Sultan's Palace, a much better palace compared to the one in Medan, and with a tour guide. We also visited Tamansari, which was a Water Castle.

View of the bathing pools where the Sultan would watch his 27 wives bathe in the pool in the foreground and his kids in the pool in the background.

We were told the Sultan would throw a flower from this balcony to the wife he'd want to spend a private bath with that evening. Once the lucky lady caught the flower, the rest of the wives and children would file out of the place and the lucky wife would join the Sultan in the private pool behind. I had loads of questions, like what if the flower fell to the unintended wife because of a puff of wind? What if the wife he wanted was bathing at the far corner of the pool? What if the flower fell onto the roof beneath this balcony? Was a flower heavy enough to be hurled at such a distance? Alas, the guide couldn't answer my questions.

Anyway, after that, we headed to the street which sells leather goods but found the quality wanting. After that we visited the street which sells pottery which also wasn't much. We also went to the beach, Parangitis and I think that was the biggest waves I've ever seen.

Parangtritis beach was packed with activities from football to surfing, businesses such as horse cart rides to buggy rides.

And ended off the day at Malioboro Mall along Malioboro Street. Unfortunately, we didn't find Malioboro shopping interesting as the shops were selling repeated touristy stuff the entire stretch.

The next day, we went to the two factory outlets for shopping, de Kosmo Factory Outlet (which had more quality clothes) and Omah Mode Factory Outlet. They were quite similar to the ones in Bandung.

We also visited a biscuit factory where we bought their famous green bean cookie. And based on a recommendation from a friend on Facebook, we visited Kotagede with it's silver factory and excellent food in a beautiful Dutch building.

Sekar Kedhaton is the name of the restaurant in Kotagede. We really enjoyed our meal here.

Our food at Sekar Kedhaton

Part of the Kotagede building

And here's just some random photos:

We stayed in Phoenix Hotel in Yogyakarta, our rare splurge on such a beautiful hotel.

Gudeg (goo-dak) is made from jackfruit cooked in gula Melaka, a traditional breakfast for the Javanese.

The Yogyakarta Monument which serves as a roundabout.

Medan - Berastagi - Lake Toba Family Trip

As my parents didn't get their holiday this year, I decided to go somewhere nearby as a family, somewhere we've never really thought about going. So we settled on a  4D3N tour to Sumatra, Indonesia to cover Medan, Berastagi and Lake Toba.

Someone asked where Medan is so here's the Google map just in case. It's just a 50 minute flight west off KL.

Scouring the internet for information, I found that there wasn't really much trustworthy details that I could rely on for my usual trip planning. I found that I am not very comfortable without trains (Paris, London, Japan had good train systems which became the backbone for our planning). 

I decided to ask my husband's cousin who's working in a tour agency. She quoted me a price I couldn't refuse and it seemed, well, safer to go on a tour.

So here's a brief overview of where we went. Our first day brought us around Medan, covering the Maimun Palace. What's interesting here for me was that the Sultan, who's a teenage as his father passed away in an accident rather young, has no powers except for ceremonial. 

Right after that, we went to the Al-Mashun Grand Mosque. It is a beautiful structure. And, shy to say, it's the first mosque I've ever stepped into. 

Thereafter we went to a huge Buddhist temple called the Vihara Maha Maitreya (hehehe, thanks to KS for his research in his blog post on the trip). I had just woken up from my nap in the bus en route so I didn't take much photos there. 

After picking up another family from the airport (there were 20 of us in the bus!) and lunch, we rushed off to Berastagi. Berastagi is a little town in the valley between two volcanoes. Unfortunately, we didn't visit either of the volcanoes nor did we do much sight-seeing except for a short stop at the fruits and flower market. The roads to Berastagi is windy, narrow, steep, full of large vehicles and it was raining. I was so glad we weren't driving on our own!

The fruits colours were extremely vibrant! The carrots were the orangest I've ever seen, the red peppers a fresh red, it was amazing! There were several fruits I've never seen before either. Alas, I'm not adventurous when it comes to food so I didn't buy to try.

Colourful fruits and vege!

Mum went a little nuts over the bulbs and flowers.

We were quickly brought back to the hotel to check in and have a quick dinner before calling it a night. It was very cold that night as it was raining. Plus, there wasn't hot water at first so I was shivering so badly I could hardly wash my face!

Gaya eh? Dad was so tickled to pose like this.

Dad insisted we take one with us standing in a row. With us are some of our tour passengers.

Moving off quickly, we journeyed to the Sipiso-piso waterfall. It's quite impressive if only we had time to go nearer.

From here, the waterfall looks like an endless big drain but it's 120m tall!

There was also a fantastic view of the northern tip of Lake Toba. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't so cooperative so the view was rather grey.

Along the way, we saw loads of trucks with workers heaped upon fertilizers on their way to farms.

As we made our way to Parapat, where we would take a boat to Samosir Island to stay the night, we were greeted by magnificent views of the lake. Couldn't capture the views from the bus. Saw a large fish along the way. It's not open to public but the owner built it as there is a legend about a large fish which goes something like this (very condensed version of what I remembered the guide telling us):

A young man caught a large fish and was happy to have caught it for food. As he brought it back, the fish spoke to him and begged him to release it and that his wishes will come true. At that point, he was pursuing a love interest but the girl wasn't interested in him. So the fish told him he would meet a beautiful woman who would love and marry him.

Confused, he walked out of the house and when he returned, he was greeted by a beautiful woman. The fish had turned into the woman. She cautioned him that he should never tell anyone that she was originally a fish otherwise a disaster beyond his imagination will occur. 

Well, they got married and had a kid. One day the kid, who's duty was to bring his father his lunch, forgot. By the time he arrived, the father was extremely angry and scolded him, "You really are a son of a fish!". 

Of course the wife found out and wept so much that the lake begin to fill with her tears. Hence the birth of Lake Toba.

The fish structure.

Our boat ride to Samosir Island took about 45 minutes. The lake was calm that day so it was a good ride.

Lake Toba

Just as a comparison, Samosir Island is larger than Singapore. It sits in Lake Toba and has only about 20,000 people living on it due to the mountainous terrain. They are mainly the Batak people. Lake Toba was created from a volcanic eruption ages ago.

Map of Lake Toba

Our first stop was to the tombs of the Batak kings. In the picture below, the oldest tomb is the one on the right followed by his grandson (second from left) and the last one which is the tomb on the left. By that time, Christianity was introduced to the Batak people and hence the last tomb is a Christian tomb. 

We then got onto the boat and were brought to Ambarita Stone Chair Tribal Village.

Traditional Batak houses.

See the space at the bottom of the houses? They used to store their cattle at night to prevent people from stealing them. They also locked prisoners there before their trial. The king then, as a symbol to spread fear amongst his enemies and would kill a prisoner and eat the flesh and drink their blood.

Mock execution. 

We finally reached our hotel just as the clouds started to cast its gloom. We had just about an hour to freshen up before dinner but KS and I decided to walk around the hotel just a bit.

A little mini island to relax on at the hotel.

KS torturing himself with the reflexology stones.

Angel's trumpets which are poisonous according to Ron but gave such a wonderfully strong fragrance .

There were cats waiting by the steps into the lake. Schools of fish would swim up to the shallow part of the last step and the cats would go fishing. So cute!

Next morning was a pack! eat! go! as we had to reach Medan to send off 2 from our company to the airport. The distance is about 170km but due to the uncertainty in traffic, the guide didn't want to take the chance to be late.

Last few glimpses of Lake Toba from the bus.

Once we dropped off the two girls at the airport, we were brought to this strange church, the Annai Velankanni Catholic Church, which incorporates influences from Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. Apparently there are two of such buildings in the world, the other one in India. 

The view as you enter the gates.

Flanking the entrance is this carving

And this is the other matching set of the carving.

After that, we insisted we wanted to do some shopping and we were brought to Sun Plaza. With less than an hour, after battling the terrific jam in Medan, all I managed to buy was some packets of Indo Mee Goreng as KS said we can't get those back here in Malaysia.

In summary, if I were to do this again, I'd hire my own personal tour guide (and not having to try to squeeze some other person's itinerary into ours), stay an extra day in Berastagi to walk around the town which looked quite interesting as it whizzed past the bus window and definitely stay a couple of days in Lake Toba and explore the island a bit more.

Perth to Albany: Pemberton to Denmark

The next leg of our journey was to travel from Pemberton to Denmark where we based ourselves for the next two nights (point A to B), stopping by a couple of places along the way.  

First stop was at Walpole where we bought our tickets to the Valley of the Giants at the Visitor Centre, grabbed a sandwich and headed off to the Walpole Inlet at a picnic spot. It wasn't particularly pretty, just that it was secluded. It was also quite a challenge to eat and not chomp a fly! This is the first time I've experienced so many flies trying to park themselves on my face!

Right after that we took a drive along Tingle Drive, a dirt road which led us to view the Tingle tree with the largest gap at it's base. Basically, Tingle trees are very hardy. Despite fires and bacteria attacking the base of the trunk, as long as there's a little bit still stuck to the ground, the tree will continue to grow. The holes can be as large as allowing a vehicle to pass through. Sadly, that tree which allowed cars to pass through died after it's roots were too run over by the vehicles and thousands of visitors. So this one here is currently the one with the largest gap.

A short distance from Tingle Drive was the Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk. This is a 400m walk on a suspension bridge as tall as 40m.

That's KS and Yen

The ticket also allows you to walk to another area beside the suspension bridge see more tingle trees.

From here, we then drove to Denmark where we stayed at this lovely cottage along Ocean Drive. This was our base for the next two nights. 

The next day, we took a drive to Albany for a day trip. First stop was The Gap and Natural Bridge. This is where Australia broke off from Antarctica. The rocks here are exactly the same as those found at the northern point in Antarctica. Of course, everything here is carved by the pounding waves.

See the humans at the top? That's how huge The Gap is.

As I approached the viewing area of The Gap, I could hear and feel a thunderous rumbling, very much like a huge trailer passing by but much louder. I was wondering what it was and when I looked over the railings, I was greeted by a frightening but majestic sight of huge waves charging into the narrow gap, slamming into the wall of rocks and spraying a fine mist into where I was standing, about 70 feet high?

We were free to walk around but I didn't dare stand close to the edge for fear of being blown off. KS and I were then told by Yen to walk on to this area which looked pretty easy to walk down to.

We slowly made our way and heard more pounding waves. Little did we know we were walking on The Natural Bridge then and the pounding waves were right beneath us! Later, we heard someone say that there was once the waves were so high that it splashed onto the bridge itself! Thankfully, nothing of that sort happened when we were there.

KS doing the star jump on The Natural Bridge

From here, we went into Albany town itself (a very pretty town) and had a quick lunch before we headed to the Sandalwood factory. We were just in time for their gong session, something about using the gong vibrations to relax. I think most of us fell asleep in that session! We also joined the free tour to learn more about sandalwood. Interestingly, the Indian Sandalwood originates from South East Asia especially Indonesia but illegal logging has deteriorated the trees so much so that there's not much of it left. It takes decades for the sandalwood to be ready for harvest, hence it's price.

After that, we headed off to Emu Point and had a snack at The Squid Shack which is right at the jetty.

Emu Point pier

When we got out of the car, I saw some large birds and thought they were statues. They turned out to be wild pelicans! One was astray from the flock so I hunted it down, going as near as I dared to. Luckily, it was a bit shy so it kept putting some distance from me.

Hello!

KS as a point of reference to the pelican 

So that was our day trip to Albany.

Our final day, we headed off to Williams Bay to visit the Green pools and Elephant Rocks. My goodness! It's such a lovely beach! The rocks beyond the shore blocks the strong waves so that by the time the water reaches the shore, it is calm and clear. How I would have loved to swim in this peaceful bay!

The crystal clear blue waters. I don't know why it's called Green Pools. 

On the way to Elephant Cove

See the strong waves beyond hitting the rocks?

A little walk of about 5 minutes from the Green Pools and we came to the Elephant Cove. Here we saw rocks which looked like elephants and another peaceful bay.

Can you spot the elephant?

After that, we headed to a nearby honey farm and bought honey, wine made with honey and honey ice cream. Yumz!

Our final stop was to have lunch at a vineyard called The Lake House where we had the most unusual lunch of our entire trip, a platter of antipasti, cold cut ham, cheese and crackers, fresh bread amongst other stuff:

The lunch platter

Vineyard jump!

We reluctantly left this beautiful place at about 3pm to head back to Perth for a 6 hour drive.

Bye!