Yogja's surroundings & a chicken church

So many things to tell about Yogja, so many places I've been, I could make several more postings about that great city... 🙈
So two more to come, this one packed with all the most impressive sightseeing I've done with other travelers.
As I've changed the hostel to an awesome place in old town (The Patio, tiny, cozy, family like 🥰) and met Dan, a guy from Northern Ireland, there, he joined my planned trip to a more unknown, less touristy, waterfall north of Yogja.
Very much liked it, hiking down was nice, and to get close to it we had to cross the river two times.
No swimming (which I generally don't like too much, I prefer saltwater 😅), unfortunately no showering (which I love 🙈) 'cause stream to strong, but refreshing spume and amazing nature.
Another day Daniel joined the trip to Borobudur temple, I had already planned with Robin. We got up very early with a lot of plans for a great day, everybody on its scooter, we started to the biggest one-structure Buddhist temple in the world. It's even 400 years older than Angkor Wat, but for many reasons had a lot of similarities with some of the temples there, it was really huge, very well kept and restored and a guide was included. Sun was burning, as most UNESCO world heritage sites, tourism was very well organized and many people visited. But due to limited entrance tickets it wasn't too packed, but sun was burning 🥵.
Amazing tour, after grabbing a nice dinner at a warung, we went on to the chicken church.
One the one hand a very crazy place, I really love the Indonesian "craziness", they sometimes put into very serious things, as they've done here. It's shape is funny, but it was built in 1989 as a connecting place for all religions, as they call it a church for all nations. Providing several praying rooms for Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hinduists and even Taoists, and even having some neutral praying rooms for any other religions, they are very eager to spread the idea of religion as a connecting, not a dividing part of society. Haven't seen that too often, for now.
Due to our early start, we decided it's still enough time left to go on to "Nepal of Java", a tiny village in the mountains, built on a Nepalese style. So colorful, built into the steep mountains, lot of stairs, narrow steep alleys and artworks on the walls and streets everywhere.
But the last 15 kilometers were on quite bad roads, you wouldn't want to ride in the dark, so we had to leave quite soon. Exploring some new, tiny streets, down the hills, having amazing views, under the clouds or when clouds opened, for a few moments, amazing moods.
And, finally, on our way back, we stumbled upon an impressive Chinese temple, had to visit that, too, and immediately were guided by temple's staff, showing us around and explaining all the statues and shrines. What a great, unexpected, end of our tour, going to a traditional restaurant in Yogja for a extremely tasty dinner brought that day to a perfect end. 🥰Läs mer