Yogya Day 2

The next day we booked in a double walking tour. 9am walking tour around the Kauman area and then a 3:30pm tour around the Moliboro area. The Kauman District is entwined with the history of Yogya and the sultanate. Here the Sultan has his Palace and there are many historic buildings which were formerly owned by people in service of the Crown. Javas history encompasses various different cultures from Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and European and all of these cultures have left their architectural footprints throughout the district. Traditions are shared and accepted between the religions. For example we went to see the largest mosque in Yogyakarta and its design was influenced by the Javanese architecture during the Hindu and Bhuddist era. The tour guide Ranga was really informative and his English was fantastic!

After the walking tour myself and Will carried on our own walking/ foodie tour. Firstly we visited the Water Castle which was famed for the Sultan watching his Queen and concubines from the tallest tower in the pols beneath. Then we visited the underground mosque which was really different.

For lunch we had the famous Brongkos which is a stew made of potato, beans, red beans, coconut milk, lemongrass, ginger, galangal, bay leaf, cooking oil, salt and the seasoning is made from young jackfruit, garlic, onion, tamarind, sugar. It wasn't the tastiest dish but it was OK. We then wandered round and got speaking to our second scammer of Yogya. To be honest for a long time we thought he was just being genuinely nice but we later found out everything he told us was a lie including a celebratory parade, free performance the Wayang Kulit a local puppet show, free Batik art exhibition only today, gamelan dancing at the Kraton and if we wanted he could get us a BLAH to take us to the art museum now for only 5 Rp. If I'm honest I don't really understand what he achieves from making these lies but hey this is what they do! We did not accept the lift, instead we wandered towards the art gallery. Gosh we've walked a lot already today. We began heading up Malioboro Street where our next tour was. We got there a bit early and to be honest hadn't really sat down properly all day so we grabbed a coffee to rest our feet. It was soon time to meet Ranga again for the tour and he was just as good for the second tour. He really knew his history and answered any questions we had. We tried Backpia which is the local sweet speciality of green bean paste wrapped in a flaky pastry casing. After the tour we were dead. We sat where he left us and saw some people dressed as soldiers but giving out treats. Obviously I went for a nosey and we ended up being filmed while trying their sweet cake delights. I'm sure we are now on the adverts for Mamahke.

Even though we felt like death we still had lots to do, well mostly eat. So we headed towards alun alun where we met a really sweet man who wasn't a scammer and in fact told us about all the different tourist scams and how he hates them. We chatted to him for a while and he told us how he in the 70s the BBC world service used to broadcast english lessons 3 times a day on the radio and that is how he learnt English. The plot of the lessons was about an alien called Sam who visited England and met a human called Miller and Miller taught Sam English. We then told him about all the food we had eaten and what we planned to do in the evening and he told us we'd got it all wrong and the places we were hoping to eat/drink were tourist places and instead we should try the little old ladies stalls. We greatfully took their locations and headed off to finish our eats list. First we went for wendang bajigur which is a hot drink of coconut milk, young coconut, palm sugar, ginger, sweetened bread and a pinch of coffee. It got very busy around the area and there was a live band so we stayed for a while and I've been so far behind on my blog that I took some time out to update it. Although we were full we then went to try wedang ronde which is a hot ginger syrup with sticky rice flour balls and peanuts. Then we wandered to Alun Alun South Park to try the blindfold ritual. Indonesians congregate to the park after 6pm, blindfold themselves and walk through the two Banyan trees to receive good luck. Being blindfolded in the dark and walking in a straight-line is actually way more difficult than it looks, but we both successfully did it (with one slight adjustment!). Alun Alun was absolutely chaotic, it was like being at the Blackpool illuminations. All the tourists were driving illuminated pedal cars around the park and it was total grid lock. I felt sorry for the poor drivers who were stuck in the chaos and clearly just wanted to get home. We were now very broken and had eaten/ drank far to much sweet food and although pretty full we had to eat something savoury and the lovely man had recommended Warung Angkrikan which has buffet trays of various dishes and you pick and pay for what you want. I was dying for Nasi Pecil and temple and Will had Nasi Pecel and Ayam. It was so cheap and yummy, but by god we were dead. We got a grab home and went straight to bed. It was an unexpected late night.Read more