Yogyakarta, Indonesia, Asia

Today started out with a ridiculous 3:45am wake up call so I could catch my flight at 6am. I got to the airport in plenty of time and had some time to just watch people at the airport. I figured something out that I’ve been wondering for a while. I thought some Asian people wore surgical masks to combat the smog in the cities, not true. It turns out they wear the masks because they all burp and fart wherever they are with no concern for the people around them. They don’t even try to hide it. At first I thought it was just this old woman behind me but then I realized it was most of them. It was pretty gross.

Then I got onto the plane and had the privilege of sitting next to an older English man who had a hot young Indonesian girlfriend. I’m assuming he’s bought her, or she only stays with him because he buys her things, because he was absolutely awful to her. The first ten minutes of the flight were spent just berating her for not getting them an exit row. Then when the plane started to move he cuddled up to her to rest his head on her shoulder and then got made that her shoulder was too skinny and was uncomfortable to lay on. It was a pretty messed up situation, but I think it’s something I’m going to have to get used to seeing around here.

The rest of the flight was fine and I arrived in Yogyakarta, Java at 6:30am. I picked up my bag and my driver from the hostel (Nanda) was waiting there for me. He’s a very nice guy who speaks English really well, so the 30 minute ride to the hostel flew by. I got to Green Garden B&B and was greeted at the door by the owner of the hostel, Anita, and her daughter Ninka. They are a very nice Dutch family who have been running this hostel for ten months now and are doing a phenomenal job. Ninka sat down with me for about 15 minutes to show me a map of the town and tell me what things are worth seeing and showed me all around the hostel. It’s another place where I will have my own room for three nights, but this place makes it much easier to meet other travelers.

I dropped all my stuff in my room and gave Ninka some of my laundry to do. This is the only hostel I have ever heard of that will do your laundry for free, so that’s awesome! They also give free bike rentals, so I took one of the bikes and headed off into Jogja. It is a bigger city than I anticipated, so having the bike was definitely a plus. It would have been difficult to walk this city in the searing heat (96*). I saw the Sultan’s Palace, the President’s house and a few monuments in town, and also stopped in to another bakik shop to see how they make them down here. It is a bit different from the process in Bali, but still similar.

I got back to the hostel and ended up joining a group of guests to go up to Merapi volcano to watch the sunrise. Unfortunately, we left the hostel too late so by the time we got to the top, it was already dark. We’re going to try again tomorrow in the middle of our temple tour day. At least we’ll get to see it in the light of day. We all went out for dinner at this traditional Indonesian place near the hostel called Depot Banung, and it was the best meal I’ve had on the whole trip. I had chicken fried kwe tiau and a glass of watermelon juice (amazing!!) and it came to just under $3. I’ll definitely be heading back there. Albert (Spain), Vincent (Canada) and myself walked back to the hostel and got there just in time to watch the last half of the Hungarian Grand Prix on tv. I was happy to see Jenson Button take the victory and now I am calling it a night. It’s only 9:30pm, but that 3:45am wake up call is really getting to me now. Plus, I have a big day of site seeing tomorrow!