We had originally planned to head out to Dieng Plateau on Sunday. Both Rickey and Indiana had recommended it and it sounded pretty awesome. Its basically a hilltop above the clouds where the ancient jogyanese had built temples. Supposedly wonderfully beautiful and cool. It was either that or to visit the Kraton (Palace) complex in Yogya, and then explore the town. If only I had one more day, then I could’ve done both. We ended up deciding on staying in town and visiting the Kraton. Having not been to Dieng, I can’t say which was the better idea, but sitting in the car for a 3 hour (per way) ride definitely lessened the blow of not going to Dieng.
Ministry of Coffee has a fantastic breakfast service. You can arrange for your breakfast the night before, and they will prepack the food for takeaway. This is wonderful for those setting off early for day-trips. Even then, it’s definitely worthwhile to stay in for breakfast at least once. The breakfast menu is different for dining in and packing away. They designed their pack-away breakfasts to be portable, and convenient to eat in a car. Their dine-in selections on the other hand, are classic Indonesian dishes. We both had the nasi goreng with keropok, a fried egg (they ask you how you want your egg, I like mine well cooked, BH had hers runny) and sausage. The fried rice was delicious.
A motorcycle, a couple of trolleys, bright-paint and presto, you have a kid-friendly tramride. We found this at the circular road around the center of the Kraton Complex area. There was an entire carnival going on in a wide open field. I do like that all the attractions we went to seemed to be catered for local tourists rather than foreigners. The local tourists are the ones who will sustain the industry and unlike some country I know, locals are more important than foreigners. Everyone knows the foreigners come and go, sometimes never to come back, whereas the local is there to stay. Shouldn’t locals be treated better than foreigners?
Of course we got lost, so we ended up at the
Taman Sari (water castle) before the main palace. Supposedly, this place was built by the sultan to view his concubines.
From that tower, one could look into the pools (especially if they were filled with nubile bathing beauties) and select the choicest concubine for a quick afternoon romp. The tower had a bedroom as well. How wonderfully decadent. I can almost imagine it. Sitting up in the tower, enjoying the ‘view’, then calling out to the chosen beauty to have one’s itch scratched.
The humorous byline would be ‘This is how they supported their buildings back in the 10th century’. In actual fact, the structure suffered substantial damage during the 2006 earthquake, and it was actually only recently re-opened to the public after restoration works.
Egg or grass, which came first? Definitely not the chicken.
A
Gamelan(pronounced Ga – Ma – Lan, not game-lan) at the main Kraton complex.
We managed to catch a traditional dance performance when we were there. I think this was called a Beksan putr, but with hindu story and influences. I have to do more research to confirm.
CLASSIC. You’d find beauties like these all over SEA…except Singapore. They are always well-maintained and in excellent condition. Unfortunately in Singapore, because of the COE system, people are forced to buy new cars every few years instead of properly maintaining old ones.
A whole street dedicated to the Yogya speciality ‘
Gudeg’, which is a curry of jackfruit, chicken and egg served with rice. It definitely does not look very appetizing, but I can’t vouch for the taste as I didn’t get a chance to try it.
My rule about food sitting out had to take effect. The Gudeg is pre-cooked and left out. When you order, the servers will pack it into these woven boxes with rice, and all the other ingredients, then you take it home to eat it. The entire street was dedicated to Gudeg… at least a dozen stalls. I had no idea which one was good (and there wasn’t any queue of locals), so I didn’t want to risk it. Also, as much as I like streetfood, I prefer to see it cooked in front of me. Something sitting out, especially in the warm equatorial air is just asking for bacterial growth and trouble.
We were pretty hungry (and hot and tired) once we were done at the palace. First stop, find food. This is the Yogya equivalent of KFC. Fried Chicken in any culture is still fried chicken. There are bad fried chickens, and good fried chickens. This was good. Especially with the chilli sauce that came with it.
Dessert was donuts at JCo. I know there are 2 JCo branches in Singapore. Sadly, I’ve never been to them. If the ones in Singapore are anything like the ones in Yogya, I will definitely give them a shot.
Just our luck, there was some parade going on in the Malioboro main street while we were there. The street was entirely closed to traffic and even after the parade ended, the traffic was at a standstill (see next photo)
TRAFFIC JAM!!!
I really liked these murals. Found them outside a school near Jalan Parangtritis. Basically, the murals are telling the kids to study hard and denounce the Capitalist American Imperialism.
Even the horse-carts have to obey traffic. That’s awesome.
Ministry of Coffee has a fantastic breakfast service. You can arrange for your breakfast the night before, and they will prepack the food for takeaway. This is wonderful for those setting off early for day-trips. Even then, it’s definitely worthwhile to stay in for breakfast at least once. The breakfast menu is different for dining in and packing away. They designed their pack-away breakfasts to be portable, and convenient to eat in a car. Their dine-in selections on the other hand, are classic Indonesian dishes. We both had the nasi goreng with keropok, a fried egg (they ask you how you want your egg, I like mine well cooked, BH had hers runny) and sausage. The fried rice was delicious.
A motorcycle, a couple of trolleys, bright-paint and presto, you have a kid-friendly tramride. We found this at the circular road around the center of the Kraton Complex area. There was an entire carnival going on in a wide open field. I do like that all the attractions we went to seemed to be catered for local tourists rather than foreigners. The local tourists are the ones who will sustain the industry and unlike some country I know, locals are more important than foreigners. Everyone knows the foreigners come and go, sometimes never to come back, whereas the local is there to stay. Shouldn’t locals be treated better than foreigners?
Of course we got lost, so we ended up at the Taman Sari (water castle) before the main palace. Supposedly, this place was built by the sultan to view his concubines.
From that tower, one could look into the pools (especially if they were filled with nubile bathing beauties) and select the choicest concubine for a quick afternoon romp. The tower had a bedroom as well. How wonderfully decadent. I can almost imagine it. Sitting up in the tower, enjoying the ‘view’, then calling out to the chosen beauty to have one’s itch scratched.
The humorous byline would be ‘This is how they supported their buildings back in the 10th century’. In actual fact, the structure suffered substantial damage during the 2006 earthquake, and it was actually only recently re-opened to the public after restoration works.
Egg or grass, which came first? Definitely not the chicken.
We managed to catch a traditional dance performance when we were there. I think this was called a Beksan putr, but with hindu story and influences. I have to do more research to confirm.
CLASSIC. You’d find beauties like these all over SEA…except Singapore. They are always well-maintained and in excellent condition. Unfortunately in Singapore, because of the COE system, people are forced to buy new cars every few years instead of properly maintaining old ones.
A whole street dedicated to the Yogya speciality ‘Gudeg’, which is a curry of jackfruit, chicken and egg served with rice. It definitely does not look very appetizing, but I can’t vouch for the taste as I didn’t get a chance to try it.
My rule about food sitting out had to take effect. The Gudeg is pre-cooked and left out. When you order, the servers will pack it into these woven boxes with rice, and all the other ingredients, then you take it home to eat it. The entire street was dedicated to Gudeg… at least a dozen stalls. I had no idea which one was good (and there wasn’t any queue of locals), so I didn’t want to risk it. Also, as much as I like streetfood, I prefer to see it cooked in front of me. Something sitting out, especially in the warm equatorial air is just asking for bacterial growth and trouble.
We were pretty hungry (and hot and tired) once we were done at the palace. First stop, find food. This is the Yogya equivalent of KFC. Fried Chicken in any culture is still fried chicken. There are bad fried chickens, and good fried chickens. This was good. Especially with the chilli sauce that came with it.
Dessert was donuts at JCo. I know there are 2 JCo branches in Singapore. Sadly, I’ve never been to them. If the ones in Singapore are anything like the ones in Yogya, I will definitely give them a shot.
Just our luck, there was some parade going on in the Malioboro main street while we were there. The street was entirely closed to traffic and even after the parade ended, the traffic was at a standstill (see next photo)
TRAFFIC JAM!!!
I really liked these murals. Found them outside a school near Jalan Parangtritis. Basically, the murals are telling the kids to study hard and denounce the Capitalist American Imperialism.
Even the horse-carts have to obey traffic. That’s awesome. 
No comments:
Post a Comment