Riding to Central Java with Love part III

Still Day 2:

We went up to our room finally to get some beauty sleep, we made a plan for tomorrow, such as where to go since tomorrow is going to be our last day in Jogja. Off to bed!.


Day 3:

We woke up later than we supposed to, so we got ourselves ready in a flash (okay I did not as I had to iron my hair hehehe), had some breakfast and headed to our first destination, Prambanan Temple. Mbak Shanti (the hotel owner) told us not to be in a rush because Prambanan Temple is so close by "it is only 15 minutes away from here" she said, I was like "no kidding" because based on my experience, 15 minutes in other cities in Indonesia is an equivalent of hours of Jakarta people standard time, as you might have heard from the news that Jakarta is one of the city with worst traffic in the world, so everywhere you go is measured in hour even if it was only 100 m away (especially if you are in the SCBD district of Jakarta) and the ride was supposed to take 5 minutes to get there but in Jakarta standard time it would take 30 minutes or more if you are not lucky. Since the traffic is way looser in Jogja so 15 minutes means that the distance to go is at least 5 km hehehehe Okay back to the Prambanan temple topic, I was dumbfounded by the distance to Prambanan, disbelief to be exact, but then slowly I put on my jacket and my helmet and hopped on to the bike, Yippeee off to Prambanan we went.

Dear God, it was actually took us around 15 minutes from our hotel to Prambanan Temple (if we hadn't made any stop to buy some munchies and water) I was amazed and wished that this state of traffic would happen in Jakarta as well (that would be such a utopia people!!)

The Prambanan Temple wasn't as crowded as Borobudur was, since I guess a lot of visitors were heading back home since the New Year has passed, but I did not say that it was empty either. Unlike Borobudur, Prambanan Temple can easily be seen from the ticket booth and you did not have to walk for a couple of hundred meters to see the Temple. And I forgot to mention that even though the entry ticket was merely cheap but you are also charged for bringing a camera in to the site, the charge was not expensive at all Rp.1000, but I just couldn't get why do they have this bizzare rule. It was quite annoying as I saw some people had to count how many of their family members bringing in camera.

Prambanan Temple was still under going re-construction and from the look of it, it was nearly completed and she was kinda back into her magnificent shape. Prambanan Temple was badly damaged because of the earthquake in 2006 in Central Java (Jogja to be precised) which also killed hundreds of people in Jogja and its surrounding cities. UNESCO and Indonesian government have been re-constructing the Prambanan Temple ever since. A lot of important pieces missing and imagine how hard all these archeologist to glue the temple back in one piece.

The main temple was still partly covered with scaffolding and the whole complex was fenced so we could not look inside the temple, but fine by me, we just took a couple of pictures there and I also told a story as Yufi wasn't quite get on the temple history so I was yapping like a professional tour guide (which is now I wasn't quite sure either, whether I gave out the right information hehehe Sorry Yuf it wasn't Joko Tingkir who forced Roro Jonggrang a.k.a Shiva to marry him but it was Bandung Bondowoso, this poor guy had to built a 1000 temple in one night as a condition to marry Roro Jonggrang, as Roro Jonggrang herself requested, he almost made it as he was on his 999 temple but Roro Jonggrang was freaked out as it means that he only short of one temple to marry her, so she asked all villagers to hit on every mortar they have to deceive Bandung that it was dusk already, whe he found out he was being deceived he was furious and turned her into stone, that stone then placed in the main temple of Prambanan) This is the legend passed for decades, I was wondering whether or not Bandung Bondowoso was a handsome guy..heheheheh as Roro Jonggrang did not say that he was ugly but the reason she did not want to marry him was because he killed her father, like Hello who wanted to sleep with the enemy? Fair enough.

We left the temple complex after spending almost an hour and a half. There are a couple of small temples around the area, Candi Boko was one of them but we did not go there as we had to meet Rigen and Ghesy as we want to explore Kaliurang area.

First we went to Malioboro Street, where you can find all sort of souvenirs ala Jogja (read Batik) and the street was packed with cars and people, I wanted to go to Mirota Batik as the shop has everything in but it was closed, I was quite dissapointed, the lady on parking lot told us that the one in Kaliurang was open so I said to Yufi we have to go there later. We then went to Kraton (Jogjakarta's King's Palace) area, it was not at all like what I had always imagined and I wasn't that interested in exploring Kraton so we only stayed there for half an hour later I found out from Rigen that the one I had in mind was Tamansari is the other part of the Kraton (Shoot!) but what the heck we have to go to Kaliurang, the weather was unusually hot (meaning that rain was on its way) so we headed to kaliurang.

I told Rigen and Ghesy whether they mind or not if we made a quick stop at Mirota shop on the way up, they didn't, great! but eventually we made a stop at the wrong Mirota, it was a supermarket while the one I wanted is a souvenir and batik shop, well, what the heck so we had a traditional "Carabikang" cake instead.

Kaliurang is located on the slope of the famous mount Merapi which is still an active volcano (the last time it was errupted was in 2006), on the way there we passed a long line of shops, cafes and internet cafes, no wonder because one of the famous state universities, Gajah Mada is located around the area. I liked the ambience of the Jl. Kaliurang - Jogja it was different from Malioboro street. It was more laid back I guess.

We went up and down the hill, the air was cooler than Jogjakarta city (yes it sure is, we were on the Merapi slope) since the lunch time had long overdue and the rain was sheepisly showed its existence, Rigen took us to Moro Lejar restaurant, it was Javanese - Sundanese style restaurant where you can have clear water fish like Koi like fish (well it is slightly different from Japanese Koi) and Gurame fish. The restaurant was consisted of ten or more hut and guests can enjoy their lunch in the hut accompanied by the paddy field view. The food was nice and the price was okay, medium price I might say, the only hassle was our hut lcoated so faraway thus it was hard to call the waitress.

We continued our ride up to the Merapi Slope, Rigen told us on an intersection that one of them is leading to Mbah Marijan's house, he is the caretaker of Merapi Mountain which is inherited from one generation to another generation of his family. The kind of Jogja himself appointed Mbah Marijan to be the caretaker. After the 2006 Merapi Erruption, Mbah Marijan became famous he even became a TV star as he endorsed an energy drink hehehehe.

Unfortunately it was raining heavily and our view was blocked so we made a stop at this small "warung kopi' to my horror the warung also sell "satay kelinci" a.k.a bunny satay, I could see the bunny (it was only the bones left) being hunged but the furry feet was still there....crazy.

Some people said Satay kelinci was nice but Man I wouldn't eat it at all, Helloooo... Bunny? Come on!

After the rain was only dripping we went down.

to be continued