Day 18: Westward to Jogja

Much less eventful day today. All we really had was an 8-hour train trip westwards from Malang to the city of Yogyakarta (or Jogja, as it's actually called). Our train wasn't scheduled to leave Malang until 1pm so we just sort of mooched around near our hotel. There was a small cultural park nearby that we checked out, as Sunday mornings supposedly had dance performances, but when we got there we were informed that no dances happen during Ramadan. Oh well!

Managed to find a small Western-style coffee shop that was actually open (it's surprisingly uncommon, particularly here in Malang), so we dropped in and had a frappe/iced tea. Back to the hotel and check out, then head for the station just before midday.

Since the train ride was going to be 7.5 hours we'd splurged for "eksecutif" class, meaning we had large comfortable recliner seats, luggage racks, (paid) meal services, power points next to our seats etc. It was still only $35 each which is pretty cheap all things considered though obviously a fortune by Indonesian standards. We noticed that our fellow passengers were obviously much wealthier than those on the coaches - better dressed, iPhones rather than Samsungs or Chinese yum cha brand smartphones. Some of them even had tablets - they've been a surprisingly rare sight here other than in the hands of Japanese tourists.

The train left very promptly at 1:30pm, just as we finished munching our lunch of supermarket cheese & chocolate roti and Tim Tams. I passed the time mainly by listening to podcasts and staring out the window, though after a while the scenery got fairly tiresome. Lots of green rice paddies, crumbling concrete towns and ramshackle dwellings clustered along the train lines. A few viaducts over rivers and things like that, but otherwise not much changed after the first hour.

This was how I'd imagined travelling across Java, and I couldn't help but draw comparisons between the awful coach trips earlier in the week and the relative luxury in which we were now ensconced. My only complaint was that the air conditioning was way too intense - it was almost a relief to visit the squat toilet because it meant going into the hot and humid air outside the sealed carriage area!

Eventually it grew dark and the train rumbled onwards, stopping occasionally at large-ish stations. It's about this time you realise that Java is the world's most populous island - 160 million people give or take, in an area the size of Tasmania! There's metro areas with several million people that nobody outside of Indonesia has ever heard of.

At 8:20 on the dot we rolled into Yogyakarta station and off we hopped. Found our way to the taxi rank no problems, though we had to fight off the usual horde of touts and pedal-cab operators who want to haggle and offer fares etc. Managed to find a meter taxi and rode to our hotel (with slight difficulty, the guy didn't know where it was and had trouble reading my phone in the dark!). After all the pedal cab operators being unwilling to negotiate down from 50k rupiah, the fare on the meter was under 20k (and we actually had to pay up to the minimum fare of 25k).

Our hotel is quite new and modern, bright and colourful though the room is a little compact. But no real complaints. We unpacked and went to bed, a little perturbed that we were literally across the street from a mosque blaring sermons at 9pm. But thankfully it went quiet fairly quickly. Off to sleep in preparation for a few days exploring Jogja, the cultural capital of Java.Read more