Yogyakarta & Surabaya : Part 1 - Cycling in Borobudur Village

Happy Eid Mubarak! The month long celebration (for the Muslims) has started from 19 August 2012. Before the celebration, the Muslims fast for a month. Malaysia had a long holiday weekend for this festival, as the first day of the celebration fell on a Sunday, and so Tuesday became a public holiday too, because we observed the second day of the celebration as a public holiday too. For the long holiday weekend, I went to Yogyakarta (informally known as Jogja) and Surabaya (which is located in Indonesia) with my sister. I was a bit nervous as I was expecting a large crowd at these 2 places and traffic would be terrible. Regardless, it was an interesting experience and I shall tell you my story. 

17082012 - For the Eid Mubarak long weekend, I had booked a flight to Jogja, one of my must-go places as it is a district to the home of 2 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Well, I only knew of Borobudur Temple in Jogja and I only found out about the 2nd UNESCO area in my Internet research on the places to visit in Jogja. Our 7am flight took 2.5 hours to Jogja Airport. The taller mountain is Gunung Semeru.

At 8.35am Jogja time (which is 9.35am Malaysia time), we reached the airport. Despite being a small airport, it has good wireless connection! I had booked a car from Manohara Hotel (the hotel we were going to stay for the night) to drive us. I would have opt for the public transport, but seeing it was the Eid Mubarak holidays, I chose the safer alternative on booking the car. It cost Rp250,000.

The roads were surprisingly not as hectic as I imagined it to be, as I was expecting a jam-packed road due to the upcoming Eid Mubarak festival in 2 days time.

As we were hungry, I requested the driver to bring us to a local eatery center. So, he brought us to a place which sells the must-have local food, Gudeg. Jogja is also known as 'Kota Gudeg' which means Gudeg Town. 

One of the gudeg eatery centre that is famous is Gudeg Yu Djum. Gudeg Yu Djum is located at Wijilan Street. This place is very near the airport. It was about 5 minutes' drive. Wijilan Street is famous as a gudeg center.

Gudeg is made from young jack fruit boiled for several hours with sugar, and coconut milk. Teak leaves are one of the spices added to give the reddish brown color to the dish.

Gudeg is usually served with chicken, hard-boiled egg, tofu and/or tempeh (fermented beans), and a stew made of crisp beef skins (sambal goreng krecek).

This is krecek (beef skin). It is cooked with coconut milk, tempeh and other spices for approximately 3 hours and coconut milk started to dry.

This is the chicken. The best chicken I tasted in Jogja because the chickens I had the next few days were hard. There were chicken heads too.

Chicken liver is one of the dishes too.

I had nasi gudeg telur + paha bawah (gudeg with egg and lower thigh). This costs Rp20,000. The gudeg is sweet. The egg was a bit hard. I think it was really thoroughly hard-boiled. I like the krecek. Who knew beef skin could be so spongy?

My sister had nasi gudeg telur + ampela hati (gudeg with egg and chicken liver). Chicken liver not so tasty. Well, I am not a fan of liver anyway. This costs Rp20,000.

For drinks, I had es jeruk (iced lemon). Look at the amount of sugar at the bottom of the mug. I think it is about 1cm in height. Drink costs Rp3,000.

After the meal, we were back on the road. It was about an hour later before we reached Borobudur Park. I was very excited as this is the place I have been looking forward to go - UNESCO World Heritage : Borobudur Temple. World Heritage Areas always excite me.

The gate read - Welcome to Borobudur Park Area, Magelang.

It was about 20 minutes from the entrance of the Park to the hotel. Manohara Hotel is the hotel that is next to Borobudur Temple. There are other hotels around the area too, but I chose this hotel because the ticket to view the sunrise and sunset is cheaper (compared to other customers who stay outside) if you are a customer of Manohara Hotel.

We got a welcome drink - lemon grass with honey, and a damp towel.

The room was nice, with a book of the history of Borobudur and its photos. The room costs Rp828,000 per night. It was charged an additional 20% due to the festive season which was not stated in the website, and I voiced out my dissatisfaction in the email correspondence then (I booked in April). Just because they had the upper hand of being the hotel next to the area, it does not give them the right to put a surcharge without it in black and white. I believed if you check the website now, they would have put the surcharge period. 

We were going to view the sunset at Borobudur Temple today. As it was still early, we decided to cycle around the village in Borobudur area. Walked around looking for a shop that rents bicycles. There was a shop which was 5 minutes walk away, that was opposite Saraswati Hotel. We rented 2 bicycles for Rp40,000 for 7.5 hours. The rental rate is up to your negotiation skills. 

Manohara Hotel does offer bicycle rental too but it was a bit pricey. I was a bit surprised when the staff at the hotel did not know any shops that rents bicycles. They must really want to discourage the customers from renting outside.

I asked for the direction towards Jowahan Hamlet. It was a scenic ride. I had looked up the place in yogyes.com, but I did not manage to find any clue in the village to indicate it was Jowahan Hamlet. Despite that, I still enjoyed my cycling activity across the path surrounded by paddy fields, vegetable plantation and the mountains. 

After cycling for about 2 hours, we went back to the Hotel, parked our bicycles at the garden next to the reception area, headed to our room and slept for a bit. We put the alarm for 4.30pm to view the sunset at Borobudur. Excited!