We had to wake up at 3:00 a.m. to catch a one hour 6:00 a.m. flight to Jogjakarta. We stopped at J.Co Donuts at the terminal. This donut place is off the hook! They have some of the best inventive flavors and naming of donuts (Avocado DiCaprio, Blue BerryMore, Berry Spears). They taste as fantastic as they look. We shared about twenty donuts between the five of us. You have to check out their assortment of donuts here.
After getting off the plane and being followed by a bunch of taxi drivers begging for our business, we finally got into the a taxi cab. I was advised to look for any blue taxis, no other colors, if you want to be safely taken to the place you ask them to. I was told we have to be extra careful when choosing our taxis.
We checked in at Hotel Cakra Kusuma. The hotel had a beautiful garden with a koi pond right as we entered the main lobby. Since we arrived there around 8 am and check-in is not until Noon, the hotel allowed us to keep our bags in a secured area. I also asked if they could recommend some sort of transportation to tour around the area. They gave us a list of travel agencies complete with the types of package and price of each package. The hotel even placed the phone call for us and we didn't need to pay anything up-front. We paid after the tour is over and they drop us back to the hotel. Indonesian are too trusting.
We checked in at Hotel Cakra Kusuma. The hotel had a beautiful garden with a koi pond right as we entered the main lobby. Since we arrived there around 8 am and check-in is not until Noon, the hotel allowed us to keep our bags in a secured area. I also asked if they could recommend some sort of transportation to tour around the area. They gave us a list of travel agencies complete with the types of package and price of each package. The hotel even placed the phone call for us and we didn't need to pay anything up-front. We paid after the tour is over and they drop us back to the hotel. Indonesian are too trusting.
30 minutes later our van showed up with a super smiley driver who seemed super excited to drive us around. He is super conversational, an awesome tour guide and gave us a ton of tips of places to see and things to do.
Our first stop is Borobudur. On the way to Borobudur we went through the area affected by Mt. Merapi that erupted just last year in October. Boston.com had collected pictures taken around this devastating natural disaster. Here are some of the pictures I took from the van. As you can see the city is still recovering.
Mountain of ashes from Merapi eruption. The coconut trees on the background show half of the leaves drooping down, weighted by the ashes.
Houses that are now abandoned. Rocks that got spit out by Merapi and gathered.
This giant rock came from Mount Merapi
These are workers gathering ashes from Merapi. The ashes are to be repurpose for farming as well as house building.
View of Mt. Merapi
There were a lot of these horse carriages used for public transportation
Saw stone sculpture stores along the way. I wonder how long does it take to make that lion sculpture?
Headstones/grave marker store
Children wearing elementary school uniform. All grade schools students in Indonesia must wear a uniform. Grades 1-6 red and white as shown above. Grades 6-9, navy blue and white. Graded 10-12, light gray and white.
rows and rows of papaya trees
>>>>> Click here for our arrival to Borobudur >>>>>
