Jakarta
After some weather delays in Edmonton then again in Vancouver we got to Hong Kong 40+ minutes late for our 1.5 hour lay over/ transfer. Hong Kong was great in having reps waiting at the gate with people's names and destinations on plackards, waiting to whisk us to our transfer flights. We had time to spare, thanks to their efficiency.
When we got to Indonesia we went to get our 30 day visa only to be told we were staying for 31 days. We said we'd just go to the bathroom and wait the 20 minutes for the midnight hour to skip us into the time allowance. He apologetically smiled that he understood our reluctance to pay an additonal $50 each for the extra day on the visa.
Our luggage was waiting beside the luggage carousel, the taxi ride was quick and the Atlantic Hotel was very nice. We didn't do much in Jakarta, other than checking out a local market, buying some fresh mandarin oranges, peanuts and vegetables for salad. We were absolutely knackered from the flight and spent 1/2 a day sleeping, which left us very refreshed for our jumper flight to Yogyakarta.
Yogyakarta
We flew into Yogyakarta and Irene was surprised to have her son Len and his wife Michaela meet us there. Apparently, Ed and Len had set this up, totally unbeknownst to Irene. What a great surprise! There was no room at their charming home-stay so we stayed just a 2 minute walk away.
We treated ourselves to the long running ballet “Ramayana”. We were picked up at our hotel and taken to the venue, where we had a delicious banquet, complete with live musicians and dancers, prior to the ballet. Ed & Irene had seen the same ballet in Laos and that the performance was definitely better here, but the character playing the monkey king was far superb in Laos. This was the first show for Len & Michaela.
We took a bus to Borobudur, about an hour away. It is an ancient Buddhist temple that was discovered in the 1800's buried under the jungle. There has been a huge reconstruction of this site, in that they have disassembled it (over 2 million stone bricks), cleaned it, and put it back together and securing the foundation at the same time. There are dozens of workers continually brushing the ash and dirt from the cracks to prevent the vegetation growth which would bury it again. Merapi volcano, close by, erupted a few months ago, killing thousands of people. Apparently, everything was buried under about 20 cm of ash.
On the way to Borobudur, we came across a massive land slide. The erupting volcano's ash combined with the recent heavy rains funnelled the mess through this particular area. Surviving houses and shops that once lined the road that are half filled with dirt that poured in through the windows and doors. Normally tall palm trees have only the tops sticking out.
Atap: Cafe & Resto in Yogyakarta
Kuta next.....
