#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~