It’s 7:00 Wednesday morning and it’s bloody cold. We are finally at Mount Bromo in eastern Java, it took us a whole day to make the trip we left at 9 am and arrived here at 9 pm last night…

Monday was a hell of a day, we got up at a descent time and the plan was to find our own way to Borobudor, the largest Buddhist temple in the world and a UNESCO world heritage site sitting 45kms outside of Yogjakarta.

What we didn’t want to do was just book a minibus to take us there at an inflated price so after a spot of breakfast at our cosy little home-stay La Javanese we went in search of a bus stop. On the way we got talking to a local chap who told us that just across the road was a lady-boy protest… WOW! We had to check that out first. Sure enough outside a official looking building was a troop of lady-boys singing and banging drums, Georgie went in for a closer look and discovered they were protesting about the military and their weapons… Not entirely sure what they meant we left them to it.

The main road at the end of the street we were staying on is dotted with bus stops and the locals were more than friendly enough to help us out. A minibus would have cost us both 120,000rp the bus tickets to the terminal out of town cost us 6000rp, so far it was working out pretty well and we were having a great time laughing and joking with the other people at the bus stop, although they were mostly laughing at my attempts on the Indonesian language.

The buses that run around Yogjakarta’s centre are new, clean air-coned and efficient and the staff aboard didn’t let us worry about silly things like changing, they told us where and when to get off and passed us to the bus stop attendant who would tell us when to get back on another bus… It was all a bit easy really.

We were dropped at Jombour terminal which is as far as the city buses go and then its a free for all to any bus that’s going your way, ours happened to be leaving at that moment so a mad dash was made.

These buses are the same as we saw in Vietnam, the driver is or should be a racing driver he looked a lot like a young, Asian Tom Selleck (I think that’s his name). He had a towel across one knee and the very second a bead of sweat would break on his head he would swipe the towel into action and with one swift (not quite as swift as his driving) almost karate like movement he would wipe his face, hair and neck… What was most worrying is that this was often done while swerving AND when the other arm was relaxing out the window no where near the wheel!

The ticket fella doubles as the one that shouts at passing traffic if it doesn’t move soon enough and holding people in when its too full, he literally lives on the edge!

We hauled aboard and got some prime seats behind the driver and hung on while he literally made maneuvers by the skin of his teeth, these old boys really know how to drive! Most people wouldn’t drive like that on a race track in a race car but these boys do it in a banging old bus full of people.

Towards the end of the journey the bus was packed solid with people and those that had no room to stand let alone sit had to hang on for dear life to the hand rail and flap out of the door like washing on a line.

We survived and got to Borobudur in excellent time and we had still only spent 26000rp, upbeat and excited we strolled into the main complex and bought our tickets but we were ushered through the International / VIP entrance past the queues and throngs of Indonesian school children all waiting to get their tickets.

We sat and talked with a lady who sells fried bananas (we only really wanted her for her bananas) and as has always been the case here, every time we try and talk a little Indo everyone responds well and becomes instantly warmer, sellers stop selling and start chatting and everyone has a good laugh.

Once inside its a short walk to the start of the steps and as we approached them the temple started to reveal itself through the trees, standing at the bottom looking up the 35 metres to the top you really cant help but be a little impresses, not so impressed with climbing the steps though but we did OK. The way to do it is walk clockwise I think on the odd floors reading the intricate carved relief’s as you go like big story book, then once at the top take in the views and head back down on the even floors to finish the story, its like a maze and it’s immaculately restored in places, the top was our main goal though because we all know how I love a good view…     And what a view it was, fuck me you could see for miles, the landscape its set in is apparently key to it being at the centre of the universe, encircled by 4 or 5 mountains and volcanoes it somehow manages to feel higher than them all. The carvings and giant bell shaped little houses that have big stone Buddha’s inside are nothing short of awesome, its just difficult to have one view to yourself long enough to take a descent picture.

I don’t know why but somehow we were expecting something else – something more rugged maybe, it wasn’t that we were disappointed at all just something was missing and we couldn’t quite put our fingers on it. It could have been because many people make it up there for sunrise but seeing as we are planning a sunrise at Mount Bromo we thought best not to seen overly keen!

We walked back through the small bustling town of Borobudur to the bus terminal and sat for a while for a bus, we both had our fingers crossed it would be the same one but alas it wasn’t…

Monday night we sorted out tickets for a 10 hour bus ride to Mount Bromo and Tuesday we went on the 10 hour bus ride… Nothing much to report about the bus ride, although its nice to get a peek into Indonesian life as you hurry past on a ride that long it’s all about distracting yourself so the time passes quickly. By the time we arrived in the small town near Bromo it was 9 pm – 12 hours after we left and pitch black so we couldn’t see the beast. At this height is cold at night so we got a room and got cosy…

Bus,Bus,Bus Borobudur – Bus,Bus,Bus Bromo. was originally published by HappytimeBlog - Backpacking around the world - Learn how to make money travel round the world with you

Yesterday was one of those days that comes clean out of nothing.

We had no plans at all for yesterday because when we went to bed I still had a pounding headache and thought it best we leave the day free, but I was up by seven and Georgie wasn’t far behind me. The place we are staying in Yogjakarta is a home-stay as usual but it’s not a traditional one like we normally stay in it’s a modern home with a few extra rooms upstairs, newly built, cheap and clean with free breakfast and a friendly family, tucked away down a winding narrow alley just off of the main street Sosrowijayan.

We had our breakfast and sat reading on the shared balcony for an hour or two before I decided we should go explore, Georgie was well into her book and didn’t seem to keen but after a few days lying low and being in a new place I was getting twitchy, a few tickles soon broke her concentration and we were off…

We still had no real plan so we set off down the main street, we passed dozens of stalls and shops selling the usual guff but the difference here was that nobody tried to sell us anything, nobody said “looking looking” or “hey you, where you from?” we were free to browse… We have been to just about every market in south-East Asia and never have we been left alone like that, it’s something that wears you down when it’s happening but you miss when it’s not there.

We reached the end of the long busy street – maybe a thirty minute walk and sat under a tree while we decided what we should do, a local guy wandered over and started to chat to us about the sights of Yogjakarta and usually this would make the spidey senses go crazy but he was actually genuinely just being friendly, when he walked away he had left us with nothing but information and he didn’t once try to sell us anything!

We got a drink from a stall and again got into conversation with a smartly dressed local bloke who again just wanted to arm us with facts and information about his home town.

After being told by one of our casual guides that the bird market recently had a few cases of bird flu we thought it probably best we didn’t go there so instead headed for the water castle, not entirely sure what we would find there but we heard there was a good view from the top and I do love a good view.

On the road to the water castle I noticed a man sat on the street making rings, one of mine is bend badly out of shape so I sat down and asked (with an amazing array of hand signals and what little Indonesian I know) if he would fix it, he took the ring and put it to his bar to bash it into shape but my big fat sausage fingers were more than a few sizes too big and the ring just slipped off the bottom, undeterred he got out a tiny hammer and went to town on it.

While Mr Ring was doing his thing Georgie spotted the guy sat next to him was selling fresh tobacco… So I got stuck into some of that too. The fella looked old with a deeply creased face and barely any teeth left but he was one of those people that laughs uncontrollably at anything,

He made me a sample cigarette from one of the pots of tobacco I though smelled good and then shrieked loudly with laughter as I smoked it, nodding like a connoisseur off all things between a rizla I started to try to get down to price, again this took many wild hand signals and he laughed like a drain the whole time. Finally we understood each other, 1000 rupiah for a handful and some papers… That’s 6 pence! At that price I couldn’t say no even the giant blunt he had rolled me for a sample would have cost close to a pound in England, I told him I wanted 5000rp worth, a big bag but he didn’t really understand he just thought I got the price wrong and started waving a 1000rp note at me so I came at him from a different angle, I asked for one of every different type he had… This of course caused him to fall about laughing but eventually we got there and I had myself a big bag of dirt cheap fresh tobacco.

He posed for a picture with me (the whole time laughing) and asked if we would take him a copy, we agreed of course and left for the water castle.

The only way to the water castle was in fact past the edge of the bird market, but we had come this far and it wasn’t like we were going deep inside to feel up some prize pigeons so we headed down the narrow alley past hundreds of beautiful cages filled with songbirds and men squatting around checking their form. Picking a bird definitely seems to be a man’s game.

The water castle is a large old ruined building that is still visited often but is nothing more than crumbling bricks really, it looks out over all of Yogjakarta and from the top it’s easy to see the boundaries but when you get down its a maze of old ruins and peoples houses separated by the narrowest of alleyways if at all, underneath is a large underground Mosque where the sultan used to hang out apparently and that’s in much better shape.

We got a cyclo back to our home-stay and cooled off for a while, I printed out a picture of the tobacco man and Georgie had a little siesta. When she woke up we wandered back down to the water castle to give the old boy his pictures but unfortunately he had gone home, so we left them with a drink seller who sat nearby and seemed thoroughly entertained by the whole affair earlier…

Exploring Yogjakarta. was originally published by HappytimeBlog - Backpacking around the world - Learn how to make money travel round the world with you