Surabaya to Jogyakarta

It’s a 5am start to catch the train at 7am to Jogjakarta (Jogya to the locals). Entering the train station we’re greeted by a live band doing covers of well know 60’s music but in Indonesian.

We manage to get upgraded to ‘flash’ class, which means seat allocation and air-conditioning.

The train takes us out of Sarabaya via the slums and into the countryside. Java’s soils are rich, supporting a thriving agricultural industry. Rice, corn, bananas, teak and other crops endlessly stream past and the fields are busy with people. Men and women dot the landscape, head down bum up. Mount Merapi appears in the distance through the smog. It looks like it’s still smoldering from an eruption last year where several villages were wiped out. Visiting the mountain is now on the tourist trail.

Jogjakarta is a very different city to industrial Serabaya. The pace is noticeably slower and the air is cleaner. Walking to our hotel via a shortcut I couldn’t get over how friendly everyone was. Freddy explains we have just walked through the ‘red-light’ district! That wasn’t in the Lonely Planets handbook! Can’t beat local knowledge.

Agung, Freddy’s friend, is a regular visitor to Jogya and is our guide here. We hit the town at pace via a couple of peddle cabs (insert pic) and start down the main tourist strip. This is very glitzy and over the top, equivalent to something you would find on the Gold Coast. It is Thursday night and there are people everywhere. Agung explains it is a bit busier than usual because it is school holidays here at the moment and Jogya is a popular holiday destination for Indonesians also. Like all tourist strips it ends and we are now in the real Jogya. I’m amazed at the number of people out and about eating at street vendors, shopping, socialising. Eating out is the norm it seems. Whole families sit around their favourite vendor and eat. If they are anything like Freddy and Agung, they will travel miles to seek out their favourite food. And the food is so cheap. I shouted a light dinner at one of Agung’s favourite spots and it cost me $3.50AUS! That was for the three of us and included coffee, a very special coffee.

We came to this vendor because they have a very special way of making coffee. It is instant coffee with a chunk of red-hot coal thrown in! It is a very unique technique and tastes interesting but i don’t think it would take off in Australia.

But prior to having dinner we visited a park area or huge public space that was alive with people. Push bikes and peddle carts were decked out in colored lights and risen around a circular track. There were hundreds of these things all decorated differently peddled by kids or whole families. Agung explains this happens every night!

There are two huge fig trees in the grounds here and it is said that if you can walk straight between these trees while blind folded then you are a good and decent person. So it is a feature of this place to see people testing their decency by donning a blindfold and heading off in the appropriate direction, with hilarious consequences. I didn’t see anybody prove themselves decent and good!