Yogyakarta Day 3 - Yogyakarta City

Started the great day with a great companion and a refreshing drink. It's coconut juice with tender coconut meat mixed with palm sugar, satisfying for a sweet tooth like me :)

After bidding farewell to my friend, I headed to Prambanan Temple (remember I bought a combined ticket for Borobudur and Prambanan which valid for 2 days only?) with Grab. From my research, Prambanan is best visit during sunset time, but since the weather was always bad around evening, I don't want to take my chance and might waste my ticket as well. 

There are actually few Candi located in the Prambanan's compund. I would say Candi Sewu, which located the furthest from Prambanan, looks the most interesting. It's about a 15mins walk, but I would suggest to take the free tram (FOC if you purchased the foreigner's ticket) which will give you a ride all the way to Candi Sewu, and even gave us 5 mins of photo op when we arrived at Candi Sewu!

The exit of Prambanan was about 15mins walk from the nearest bus station. A sudden downpour caused me to take shelter and wait for the rain to stop. By the time the rain stopped and reached the bus station, I was famished! Time to fulfill my 'dream', which is to try at least one McDonald's in every country! So, I travelled all the way to Malioboro Mall by using Trans-Jogja, just for its McDonald's! Still, after trying out few countries', I still feel that Malaysia's is still the best!

Took another Grab to Taman Sari, also known as the Water Castle. One of the most well preserved areas was the bathing area, where it used to be an area where the concubines bath, while the Sultan observe and choose one!

It was soon time for dinner and a local young chap was nice enough to bring me to some nice food. We went for Mie Ayam, which means mee with chicken, topped with crispy keropok and bakso meatballs! It was a random shop by the roadside but it tasted quite good!

After the satisfying meal, we hopped on to his motorcycle and headed to Alun-alun Kidul. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't know that Alun-alun Kidul is so happening at night! Visitors can rent a car, or more precise, bicycles powered 'car', wrapped with LEDs which glow brightly at night! What a beautiful sight!

Riding in Jogja is a little horrifying, when everyone rode so near to each other!

If you happen to visit Jogja, you must buy Chocolate Monggo, a locally made chocolate brand, as souvenirs! One of the branches is situated in the same location as Lotus Mio in Jalan Tirtodipuran, the street is located just opposite of Jalan Prawirotaman. Its chocolates are good, and you can believe me as I am a fan of chocolate! Visited here on my last day in Jogja.

Since my flight is at 5pm, I made use of my spare time to visit the Keraton again. This time around, I arrived in the morning and made it into the Keraton. It's a big place, with live 'wayang kulit' to entertain the visitors.

I had my lunch in the Warung Bu Ageng in Jalan Tirtodipuran, just opposite of the Chocolate Monggo shop I visited in the morning! Seriously, it was the best meal I had in my whole Yogyakarta trip! I will come back again if I happen to visit Jogja again! 

Yogyakarta Day 2 - Borobudur Temple & Jalan Prawirotaman

Waking up 6 in the morning with a sense of excitement. Partly is because I seldom have the chance to wake up so early to see a grand, 9-century Buddhist temple - the Borobudur Temple. Had a quick brush of teeth, don on a collar shirt and jeans and I was ready to go - till I realised the sky is cloudy. The homestay owner advised me to bring along an umbrella, just in case... 

I'm glad that the homestay is just a 5-mins walk from the gate of Borobudur. Few mins walk later there was a counter for foreigners, where foreigners can buy entrance tickets which are much more expensive than the local. I purchased the combined ticket of Borobudur and Prambanan, which valid for 2 days from the day of purchase. It costed me a whooping IDR416,000!

You can't see the Borobudur Temple from outside of the gate or even from the ticketing counters, as it required another 5 mins walk from the latter to the temple. However, along the way, I was greeted with much greenery, and 6 something in the morning has not many visitors flocking the temple. So it felt very calm and serene there :)

There it was... The vast Borobudur Temple, it doesn't look as mesmerising as it looks from this photo, but maybe you need to be there to feel it yourself! That's something much older than the renowned Angkor Wat and it is still well preserved! 

My homestay owner, who is a local, suggested me to climb all the way to the top first once I reached the base of the temple. Then, slowly descent level by level and explore clockwise. This is actually opposed to what guides in the Internet, where we should walk clockwise and ascend every level from the bottom. 

Once I climbed to the top, I turned myself with my front facing the surrounding of the temple. I was flabbergasted with the magnificent view below. The view of giant, uniquely shaped stupas together with trees and fog surrounded the environment, it was so picturesque but it was best appreciated with our naked eyes. 

Most of the stupas have a Buddha statue in it, but mostly with the head missing.

Keen observers will notice that human has made some efforts to preserve the temple from been destroyed by the nature and human ourselves. Rain guides were installed in specific area so that water doesn't drip and corrode parts of the temple. Wooden stairs were built to protect the original stone made stairs from visitors' shoes etc.

By the time I explored the temple and started my descent, few groups of secondary school students filled the compound to its brim. They were doing their English assignment where they were split into groups to interview visitors or foreigners. I'm just glad that I was there a step earlier!

There is a museum near the exit, where all the stones which are not used to restore the temple are stored. 

It was just in time for breakfast in my homestay, and I met two girls from China who were impressed with Malaysia on our proficiency in few languages. That made me proud that I'm a Malaysian, because I can speak to them in Mandarin, speak Malay and English to my homestay owner, and Cantonese if we happen to bump into any Hong Kongers. 

Since it was early and the sky is clear at that moment, I checked out early and my homestay owner had actually fetched me to the Borobudur bus terminal using his motorcycle! This was when I realised there was an even more affordable mode of transport, much more cheaper than the Damri bus I took!

It was a local bus, albeit the condition of the bus was terrible, the price from Borobudur to Jombor bus station in Yogyakarta city only cost around IDR15,000! It really gave me an experience like a local, boarding an old bus passing through all the kampung areas. Saw an eye opening scene where a group of two youngsters or jobless will board the bus for free at one junction, sing a song for us when riding in the bus, hoping for some contributions in terms of money, and egress at the next junction. 

From Jombor bus station, paid just IDR3,500 for a Trans-Jogja bus ticket and you are free to travel to any bus station in the city, regardless of distance! After changing a bus and travelled for almost an hour, I have arrived at my hotel in Prawirotaman Street.

I made a booking online where it says even an Economy Room has air conditioning, but it turned out to be fan only! Talked to the receptionists but they couldn't do anything to compensate for me. I should've smack on the table and asked for the manager... Not only that, the room was dirty, ants were crawling on the bed, the cupboard has some foul smell, the ceiling has mold etc... 

I told myself that I spend lesser time in the room than exploring the city, and to chill myself, I left the room to a cafe in the same street to have my lunch! Again, the cafe here sold their food at relatively reasonable price! 

After the lunch, it was time to take a walk since the sun is still shining. I took a bus and got down at Jalan Malioboro, a street famous for souvenirs and some street food. Tourists can hop onto a trishaw or a horse-drawn cart to travelling around the city. Personally I am not a fan of this place, as it looks filthy with litters all over the place and the smell of horse dung... 

I walked all the way to the Keraton of Yogyakarta, which is the castle, but apparently it is closed since 2pm! It is weird for a tourist attraction to close so early. No choice, I walked further to Jalan Wijilan, which is the street of Gudeg, a local delicacy. It is made of unripe jackfruit boiled in palm sugar and coconut milk, mixed with rice and have the option of having it with chicken meat and boiled egg. 

Tried mine in Gudeg Yu Djum, one of the more famous stores, but I'm not really a fan of it, maybe because it was too filing and spicy for me. I expected it to be more sweet than spicy. Another thing I find interesting is quite many stores here like to use the portrait of a person on their stores' signage!

Since I have no plan for that night, I met up with a Taiwanese friend who happened to be staying around the same area too. I'm glad to have someone to accompany me for a while in the lonely trip. We had a simple supper together, where I ordered the local food which we called as Pisang Goreng in Malaysia. 

Yogyakarta Day 1 - Borobudur

"When was the last time you did something for the first time?" 

Not many of my friends know that I travelled to Yogyakarta for vacation alone. It was my first solo trip to somewhere I am not familiar with. There I was, after a 2-hour flight, arrived at the international airport of Yogyakarta. 

I got out from Terminal B, but only found out that all the bus terminals are located at Terminal A which is about 300m away. Laden with my backpack, I walked all the way, away from all the taxi drivers who were hailing for passengers, trying to pursue passengers to have a ride with them.

I searched for Damri bus, but it turned out that they do not really have a direct trip to Borobudur like how some of the previous backpackers suggested. Thought of trying my luck by asking them, and my luck turned out to be not bad at all. They asked me to take the bus to Magelang, but in the middle of the route, there was a van waiting for me to bring me to Borobudur with no extra charge. The receipt handed to me has the price written with pen on it, which looks a little fishy... But still, it's cheaper than taking a taxi. 

After a 2 and a half hour journey on the road, I've arrived at Borobudur town. Headed to my homestay which I booked before heading to Yogyakarta, and I'm blessed with a helpful owner of the homestay who really made an effort to ensure my stay is comfortable. 

After settling down and a shower, it was drizzling. But the rain came and left swiftly. Then, I headed out by riding the homestay's owner bicycle. It was a little dangerous to ride a bicycle there to be honest, especially with the large amount of ojek (motorcycle in Indonesia language) on the narrow road. Only a small stretch of road is built with pavement so that people can avoid from walking on the road. 

It was already evening, so I decided to visit the Borobudur Temple first thing in the next morning. Thus, I grabbed some street snack like fritters and satays for my dinner which I had in my room. That's when I felt the loneliness of travelling alone, and the room without TV doesn't help either. 

It was 10pm and out of boredom, I walked out and discovered that the main road was very empty at night! Not far from my homestay was the only cafe which is opening at that moment, the Go Borobudur Cafe. To be frank, I was very surprised with the price of food and drinks, imagine the banana shake and french fries below only cost me about RM6 after converting from Rupiah! Where in Malaysia can we find such pricing in a cafe??!

Had a quick chat with the cafe owner and he revealed that he just opened the cafe for like 3 months. That was the first time in my life to ask the owner to increase the price of his food! Hahaha! 

That night I started to realised the benefit of travelling alone. You tend to be more chatty and open to anything new to you. If I were to travel with a friend, I might not be chatting with the owner and find out some info which only the locals would know...

Taiwan Day 6 - Tamsui & Shilin

Minced meat rice. One of Taiwan's delicacies. I had always wanted to try it before I went to Taiwan. On one fine morning, we passed by a small road side stall selling typical Taiwanese breakfast, and we noticed that minced meat rice is included in the menu. We immediate order, took a can drink, sat down and waited for our food to be served. It was fairly cheap, about TWD30 only, however I think my mom makes a better minced meat rice than the stall... 

After satisfying our stomach, we travelled by MRT and bus to National Palace Museum (故宫博物院). The building and its surrounding were spectacular, but unfortunately I'm not a history geek, thus it was not really a place of my liking... Not to mention the above average entrance fee.

We then meet up with Jessie, a friend of ZC whom he know during college time in the UK. Jessie, who was on a long vacation in Taiwan, brought us around Tamsui. So kind of her!

The street of Tamsui

This fish ball is delicious! Very 'Q' and the stuffing is minced meat. Wanted to buy a packet of uncook fish ball from the stall for my family, but I think it will turn bad before I can reach Malaysia :(

At Tamsui Pier, where we waited for our boat to carry us to another side of Tamsui.

After a roughly 30mins boat ride, we arrived at the Tamsui Fisherman's Wharf. There's nothing much to see here actually, the main attraction is no doubt the Lover's Bridge.

After an hour of walk around the area of the bridge, we visited a cafe nearby to cool ourselves down from the hot weather. I ordered a rather special drink, where the cups and containers seems to be grabbed from a science lab. 

We 'lepak' around Tamsui until 6pm, where we watched the sunset at the seaside. Then we went to grab a 阿给, something like bean curd stuffed with crystal noodle, drowned in sweet + a little salty gravy. I was a little reluctant to try at first when looking at the combination and its gravy, but what's life if I don't try? The result is not bad at all!!! Quite filing too, which made us worry about our next stop is Shilin Night Market!

Shilin Night Market is one of my most anticipated stops in Taiwan. It is because the place is filled with food! It comprises few streets, with plenty stalls selling from drinks, foods to souvenirs. 

To my surprise, there's an underground AIR-CONDITIONED area where all the eateries are! Honestly I was flabbergasted and don't know what to eat due to the myriad choices of food available! I wanted to try all! In the end, we ordered some fried soft shell crabs, oyster omelette and la-la as snack, and I ordered a fresh blended watermelon juice, which quenched my thirst at the perfect timing!

After filing half of our stomach, we continued exploring the streets, long streets indeed! We bought what we wanted to eat as we explore to make sure we didn't miss out any nice food :)

ZC had plan to meet up with a friend of his in Taiwan, so I left and went back to our hostel alone...