Yogyakarta

The city of Yogyakarta, in Central Java, serves as a common pit stop along the 24+ hour bus ride that eventually leads to the island of Bali. I didn’t have a strong desire to visit this city, but I’ve recently had my share of long, unpleasant bus rides, so I joined the horde of tourists all on the well-trodden Lonely Planet path.

(While on the train to the city, I finally realized that the city “Yogya” was the abbreviated nickname given to Yogyakarta.  Also confusing is that the Y’s can be pronounced as J’s, vice versa, and not always consistently between letters – a legacy of the Dutch colonization, or the many nationalities of people that have told me where they've been. Because of the varieties of pronunciations, I had assumed this one city was actually a handful of difference cities that travelers kept telling me was worth traveling too.  Clearly, my cognitive thinking skills have diminished in months of traveling.)

I arrived from Pangandaran accompanied by former crew-member and friend, Hollywood. On the train he coincidentally reconnected with some travelers earlier in his trip, a French pierre named Vince and a British bloke named Gordon. Together, the four of us stood on the train platform looking inquisitively at the Lonely Planet map trying to orient ourselves. A taxi tout walked up from behind and asked me where we were going. I read off a hostel name very nearby and he replied, “Oh, that’s far, nearly one kilometer.”  Try lying better, buddy, as I quickly showed him on the map that it was 200 meters. He quietly turned and left.

The main thing to do in Yogya is to visit Boroburdur, where an enormous Buddhist temple resides close to the base of the towering volcanic cone of Mount Merapi. This temple was built around the 9^th century, but it didn’t get much use since their empire soon lost its dominance – supporting of the old adage, “Don’t put your empire’s headquarters at the base of a volcano.”

A corner of the Boroburdur Temple 

Hollywood and I posing in front of the stupas at the top of Boroburdur Temple.

The singular structure within Boroburdur park, an ornately decorated pyramidal temple, doesn't compare to Angkor Wat’s impressiveness or magnitude, and as it is one building, there isn't much to explore after an hour. If there is anything impressive in Boroburdur, it is the audacity of the tortuous tourist maze that one is forced to navigator through in order to leave, taking about 15 minutes at a leisurely gate. My best advice from drive-by sightseeing on this day: Take the bus instead of a scooter to see the temples, and visit Prambatan temple instead to avoid the tourists.

Hollywood and I drove out to Boroburdur sharing a scooter. The traffic was chaotic and even scarier since I felt manic trying watch everything on around us. (I wore my helmet, as I always do).  After exploring the temple for a short time, Hollywood offered to drive back to give me a break from the mental drain of driving on high alert. It was a genuine offer in spirit, but I knew he didn’t want to drive. The real reason I declined  though was a fear he might relapse into one of his occasional spasms of ADD. Sorry, amigo. After a few close calls and handling rush hour into a city of a few million, we arrived back at the scooter rental shop, where we celebrated our lives. Hollywood said to me, “Thanks for driving, Ads. I don’t think I would have been that good at it.” Or maybe he said in his typical way, "I think I would have failed."

I spent a day or two more in Yokya doing some gift shopping and checking out batik artwork. In the evenings of drinking on the curb of a nearby convenient store with locals and travelers, our group picked up a few more people. So when the time came to depart, we were a group of seven (3 FR, 2 AUS, 1 UK, and 1 US)  all setting out on a tour to Mount Bromo, Mount Ijen and ultimately Bali.