In the morning, we wake up and have a nice breakfast of fresh fruit, cheese sandwiches and tea, and then catch a bus for the hour and half bus ride to Yogyakarta.
After a bit of searching, we find a great guesthouse to stay at. The room is nice & cozy and the bed seems very comfortable, but the selling point is the small swimming pool right in front of our room.
I mean it – it’s literally 5 steps from our front door and 8 steps from our bed!
The setting is perfect and we are now ready for a good couple of days of exploring and swimming.
We spend the rest of Day 74 wandering the streets of Yogyakarta, checking out the Kraton – the historic “city within the city”, the shopping district and playing hide-and-go-seek with a couple of “tour guides” in the local market.
Once again, I wake up the next day super excited because we are going to visit the Prambanan Temples.
These are dubbed as the most beautiful Hindu temples in the world and yes, they are beautiful!
Unfortunately, in 2006 a massive earthquake caused quite a bit of damage to the temples, but slowly they are being restored. All of the temples could be seen but only two of the six were safe enough to enter, so Eric and I spend a good deal of time walking around the grounds.
Later in the afternoon, we wander around the Kraton, looking for the Taman Sari or “Water Palace”, which was created for the Sultan in the 1700’s. We eventually find it, but we’re a little too late – it’s closed. However, a local directs us to a “secret route” and we’re able to scramble up a small wall and see into some of the pool gardens.
For dinner we go to a not-for-profit restaurant called “Milas”. It’s a vegetarian restaurant with an organic store and local craft shop that’s set up as a project centre for street youths. Within Milas, the kids can learn skills working in the kitchen, the craft shop, the garden and the daycare centre.
The food is delicious and the atmosphere is great. The restaurant is located in a garden with various sitting areas – tables & chairs in little huts, sitting on cushions on a bamboo floor and comfy dining furniture on a patio. It’s a great way for us to end our stay in Yogyakarta.
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