#wonderfulindonesia Jogja: Day 3

Woke up early again and 430am already on the road. You know, I will only be super energetic and become a morning person when I’m on holiday 😄 (kalau bangun pegi keje macam nak kena pukul rasanya).

It was still dark and cold when an uncovered jeep took us to ride up to the mountain base and ‘picnic’ at the rocky lava field to watch the sunrise. I will never forget the fun of the bumpy ride, OMG it was awesome and crazy!

Merapi is the most active volcano in Indonesia. The tragedy happened in October 2010 had claimed 353 lives. The last eruption was in 11 May 2018. 

My thought and prayer to all the victims. 

Taken at 7:12am. We were lucky to have a good weather, clear skies which made us able to view the summit of Mount Merapi. Absolutely wondrous view. 

Tips: I would suggest you to wear a proper shoe, best with boots if you wanna come here because as you can see, the field is full with volcanic stones. And also, bring a wind breaker. You’ll need it the most when riding on the jeep. 

After the fun-ride and a visit to Merapi Museum, we went to Borobudur Temple.

It was damn scorching hot day!

This is the largest Buddhist temple in the world (while Angkor Wat is the largest Hindu temple in the world cum the largest religious monument in the world). 

The temple designs inspired by Javanese Buddhist architecture and Gupta art. It has undertaken (and still preserve) several restorations by Indonesian government and UNESCO, as one of the World Heritage Site. 

To be honest, I wasn’t interested to go to these kind of places. I don’t like cities and buildings. But then I found myself fascinated when listening to the stories, the history, the meaning of those sculptures and drawings, also the basic of Buddha teachings (although it was scorching hot at that time). I guess our tour guide knows how to make it exciting, with addition of some jokes. 😄

So in my opinion, if you want to visit especially historical places, it’s better to hire a tour guide or at least read about the history before going there. Or else, you gonna miss a lot of significant points. 

Next, with our sweaty shirt, we continued to our next location à Kalibiru.

First, the driving up there requires some impressive skills. And our young driver totally nailed it. It was a bit scary to ride on the winding road and up to 45 degrees’ hill, but it was really fun. Scary but fun! 😄

Not only our car must be ‘fit’, but we need to pump up our stamina too when we required to walk up about 100m. Pheww it’s tiring to be frank. 

Overlooking the artificial lake Sermo Reservoir, The Kalibiru National Park offers many photo spots, with a price. Starts from 10k, you can choose a different platform, with the same view basically. We chose the big stage to fit 5 of us. Then I chose this High Rope Adventure which has 6 activities, the 2 meter Rock climbing + Spider web + Single line rope + Hanging bridge + 30 meters Flying Fox. For the sake of good pics. Hehe.

We went there almost at the closing time and the sky was dark, so we missed the blue-ish view of the lake. I would recommend to go during sunrise or before the late noon because it has a perfect brightness for your photo. Tak la jadi macam gambar di atas yang di edit terlampau oleh jurugambar berbayar, sampai nampak macam tampal guna Photoshop je 😄

We were so exhausted after a looong day and went back to hotel. Oh before that, we stopped at the food street stall to buy ‘Murtabak Manis’. It’s actually an ‘apam balik’ with many toppings such as cheese, chocolate rice, nuts, almonds and yeah, its SOOOO MANISSS! Seriusly bole kena kencing manis. But sooo sedap!

Reached hotel, bathed and rest for awhile, then out to Malioboro street again to enjoy coffee. The famous coffee here is Kopi Joss, the charcoal coffee. Pahit namati. Eark!

But I enjoyed the Indonesia cappuccino, sambil ditemani alunan lagu dendangan seniman jalanan yang asik bermain gitar.

A good way to end a day J

Esok da balik KL. Sobb~

#wonderfulindonesia Jogja: Day 2

We left as early as 5am to catch the clouds at Jurang Tembelan. The carpet clouds will be gone if we’re late. This place is amazing to watch sunrise, feels the fogs and the morning dew from the country-side hill’s edge. Interestingly, you can choose as many props and take as many photos as you want, because they’re free, unless you hire a pro-photographer that always available there.

You can walk on the clouds.

Next, we went for cave tubing at Goa Pindul, it was so fun! We learnt facts of the cave, got to see alot of bats and many beautiful crystals. The significant was, we had a good laugh with the tour guide, forgot his name tho. He’s damn hilarious and his jokes were unpredictable. Some of them hit straight to my liver. Haha! 😂

Let me tell you one of his jokes – but I have to say it in Bahasa. Please read it in Java slang. Hehe.

*while cruising on the tube, he pointed to the crystals on the cave ceiling, with torchlight.

Me: Bole tak ambil kita ambil sedikit kristal tu?

He: Iyaa semestinya boleh. Kristal ini sangat unik dan ajaib ya. Setiap hari ramai orang yang datang dan mengambilnya selama berpuluh tahun tapi ianya tidak pernah habis.

Us: Woahhh

Me: Gimana mau ambilnya? Tinggi tu harus dipanjat.

He: Caranya mudah aja yaa. Sambil-sambil duduk didalam tiub, bole diambil saja menggunakan hepe (handphone)

Us: HAHAHAHAHAHampeh!!!

The tubing activity took about almost 2 hours, from the cave we continued to the nearby river for a tube-rafting. It was so fun, you should try it.

The color of the water is not the same as you googled.

Then, we went to Timang Beach. The most awaited gondola ride. Yeheayy!!

Luckily I accompanied by my bestfriend, we took gondola ride while the guys chose to take hanging bridge instead. 

Here’s the fun fact:

• If you’re scared, take the gondola. Trust me, it looks scarier but it’s just less than a minute. 
• The bridge, may look steadier, more secured and more convincing, but it’s actually scarier. Haha. Seriously, you may get startled, stunned, petrified and hardly move in the middle. That what happened to the guys. Wahaha!

You can only choose either one of these two, unless you wanna pay for both. Glad I took the gondola, it’s really enjoyable but too bad, I missed the fun on the bridge. Well, I should try both. 

In the middle of 2 options

After spending almost 2 hours at Timang Beach (damn it was so hot but didn’t realize because we were too busy taking photos), we headed for lunch at Pak Sis Lobster. Yeah lobster guys! You got to choose your own lobster and type of dishes you want. The lobsters were big, the food soo yummeh and it’s cheap!!

You will not get this for RM320 in Malaysia

Before heading back to hotel, we stopped at Bukit Bintang to enjoy a sunset view. The journey took about 1h 30m drive to reach here, so I was about feeling hungry again. Hehe. From this hill top, we can see the airport and city landscape. While having Pisang bakar cheese and chocolate for tea-time, we adore the scenic panorama, from bright sky turned to dark night with beautiful lights. 

The desserts were too sweet to handle but too yummy to resist

Then, we headed straight to hotel for a little rest and then went out for dinner at Malioboro street. I had Nasi Ayam penyet, no photos taken because it’s too ordinary. Hehe.

A beautiful view from the top of Bukit Bintang

#wonderfulindonesia Jogja: Day 1

Oh yes finally! 

After googling the beautiful places and feeling jealous looking at photos posted by some friends, finally Jogja here I come! Add to more happiness, this time I went with one of my bestfriend. Yeaheyy!

“As with any journey, who you travel with can be more important than your destination” INDEED.

We touched down Jogja at about 11am then went lunch at Pondok Bakaran. Their specialty is grilled fish and fried seafood. When we reached, they’re on a break for Friday prayer. Although we had to wait for almost an hour, we were truly satisfied because all the food we ordered were sooo yummeh.

Here's what we had:

with Mixed Vege soup and ulam.

After lunch, we went to Wisata Seribu Batu. It says this place has many form of rocks, but honestly I didn’t notice much when I was there. (Oh yeah, now I remember that one big rock). The significance things were the bridge with small stream underneath, the huts, the woody bear and the 2 hobbit house (well, its actually dwarfs I think).

If you wanna have some kind of activity, you may try the flying fox. Also, you can actually hike a bit more to the top - Puncak Songgo Langit where you can see an awesome scenery. I climbed up half way and tired and stopped. Anyway, didn’t see any sign of the place, might have to hike up higher.

For me, nothing much at this place but it’s definitely great for your photoshoot. And at least, we did enjoy the smell of the forest and had a very good fresh air.

Yeah that's a big rock.

For day 1, we spent for sightseeing. From Wisata Seribu Batu, we rode 600m away to Pinus Forest. This place is about 28km from Adisucipto Airport, another cool fresh air around the standing tall pine trees. And of course, its an Instagram worthy, or Flickr, Pinterest or whatever app you like, like I care 😝

From Pinus Forest Mangunan, we headed to Puncak Becici which the distance is about 3.5km only. When we reached there, time was almost 6pm and started to rain. We walked up to the hill and taraa! here’s the awesome view!!

It’s already 630pm in Jogja. 

The grey sky started pouring lightly so we had to leave although we enjoyed the cold and calmness. As it’s still raining, we had to cancel the plan to go to the last place, Hutan Pinus Pengger. So we went straight to have dinner at Sate Klatak, where the others enjoyed so much. 

Klatak is a lamb aka kambeng and I don't eat kambing. Pftt! I had a plate of nasi goreng for myself -__-

The juiciness of the klataks meat.