By 5.30am, the sky was bright and it served as a wake up call for me ! This morning, I woke up quite early and I took a bath to refresh myself. My travel buddy, Ng and I then had a morning walk around the Malioboro area. The main street was quiet as most of the stalls had yet to open for business. We passed a sundry shop owned by an elderly local Chinese who was able to converse with us in simple Mandarin ! We were told that most local Chinese here are no longer able to write and speak their mother tongue !
At around 7.30am, Ng and myself had our breakfast and we enjoyed a bowl of Bakso ( 10,000rp=Rm3.10) from the previous stall before heading back to our hostel to meet up with Lee & Lam who were having their free breakfast at the hostel. As this was our first morning , we did not realize that our hostel served complimentary breakfast !
To pay for the next few day expenses for our food , entrance fees & day tours, the elder Lee suggested that each of us contributes 500,000rp=Rm155 to a money pool and we all agreed. Instantly we had 2 million rupiah ready cash in hand! I was appointed the money keeper - what a noble job and overnight I became a millionaire treasurer !
Our tour driver showed up at around 8.00am in our hostel to take four of us to visit Borobudur temple, Kaliurang (Mt Merapi) and Prambanan temple. Joining us were two travellers from Spain. A total of six in a Suzuki jeep.
1) Borobudur temple - Built in the 8th century during the Caqilendra Buddhist dynasty and it took 80-200 years to construct. Located about 42km from Yogya, this place is a popular tourist attraction in Central Java. Borobudur was destroyed by Mt Merapi twice and had been buried for centuries, it was subsequently re-discovered by a farmer in 1,812. The temple has 6 terrace levels, 3 oval levels and a main stupa. The entire building structure was made from volcanic rocks. The bottom terraces had many carved panels and stone inscriptoins reflecting the glorious past. Most of the Buddha heads & figures at the oval level had been pilfered and removed, only a few still exist.
We paid 100,000rp=Rm31 to our travel agent in advance for entry to Borobudur temple as this could save 10,000rp for each person.
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2) Kaliurang - This is at the foot of Plawangan Hill on the southern slope of Mr Merapi. An ideal place for picnicking and mountain trekking. As it was a very cloudy day in the mid afternoon, we were not able to have a clear view of Mt Merapi. However, we could see 3/4 view minus the peak which was covered by puffy white clouds, Mt Merapi is an active volcano and the last eruption was in Nov 1994 killing 69 people. There are various day trips organized by local travel agencies to view Mr Merapi and you could pick one to go as near as the foot of the Mt Merapi where you could walk on a larva path created during the last eruption.
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| Mt Merapi |
3) Prambanan Temple (UNESCO) - Built in 9th century, this is the biggest Hindu temple in Indonesia. It has three main temples as the symbol of the Hindu Trinity Gods ie Brahma, Civa & Vishnu. We paid 100,000rp in advance to our travel agent for admission to this temple. Others had to pay 10,000rp more if paid at the front gate.
At the front entrance, we met a solo traveler (Gan) from Malaysia , who was on the same plane with us and he decided to join our group for the next few day. From two travelers ( Cheng & Ng ) , our group now had 5 people so this made our travel arrangement much easier as it could be more economical to hire a jeep with a driver to take us to any destination of our choice around Jogya.
It was drizzling at the time of our visit so the sky was getting gloomy and the ground was wet making it difficult for us to walk around. We also visited a museum and took some pictures of the relics and artefacts on display.
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