Week 88 - Jakarta, Tasikmalaya, Pangandaran, Yogyakarta (Indonesia)

We left our hostel in Kota Kinabalu and walked the short distance to the airport shuttle bus stop. Within no time, and while watching some interesting introduction to Sabah videos, we arrived at the airport. The flight left on time and we landed at KLIA2, the terminal we’d had so much fun trying to find when we flew to Borneo 4 weeks earlier. Luckily, more of the terminal had been opened since our last visit. We had a couple of hours to kill before we were able to check in for our onward flight to Jakarta and propped ourselves up in MacDonalds to make use of the free wifi. 

Once through to the international departure lounge we had a whole new adventure trying to find some seats. They’ve tried to be quirky and put in areas like a ‘Sports Lounge’ and a ‘Film Lounge’ but in practice these corners of comfy seats are just full of people lazing around with their feet up using three chairs each. Again, the flight left on time and we arrived in Jakarta a few minutes before 8pm.

As it was late and Jakarta is notoriously busy and untraveler friendly, we decided to treat ourselves to a coupon taxi. Intending to get out of Jakarta first thing in the morning we’d prebooked a hotel in the south of the city (the airport being in the far north), close to the main bus terminal. At that time of night the traffic wasn’t too bad and we arrived at our hotel feeling pretty worn out from the long day. The Zodiak Hotel was perfect for a stop over, very modern and clean with friendly staff and a very comfortable bed. 

From the hotel we only had to cross the road to jump on a TransJakarta bus 20 minutes south to the main bus terminal. Our aim was to find a bus bound for Pangandaran which the internet had suggested went ‘frequently’. The first problem we encountered was finding the actual bus station and we’re still unsure whether we were at the right place. We got off at the right TransJakarta stop but there was nothing there, just a layby, a dead end and a lane of shacks selling crisps and soft drinks. We asked a couple of people where we could get the bus but our lack of language skills didn’t get us very far. We were told to wait where we were (we think) by one of the shacks where the buys would pass and pick us up. We were offered seats saying it was a long wait. Then we were told the next bus was at 4pm. A little unsure whether we were getting the gist of what was being said we made the decision to get on the first bus that came that would take us in the right direction. We got on a bus to Tasikmalaya. 

We expected the journey to take about 8 hours giving us just enough time to get another 3 hour bus to the coast that evening. The journey took 10 hours and was incredibly frustrating (although an absolute bargain for 45,000IDR, for about £2.30). Rhys worked out we’d gone a grand total of 268km, averaging 17mph. Traffic was horrendous and it was only a Thursday, I dread to think what weekends are like. We’d heard Jakarta was badly congested and thought we would have missed the worst by getting out of the city the night before. 

Despite the traffic, the journey was incredibly picturesque. After exiting the tollway at Bogor we headed up and over the Puncak Pass, a highland area of hills carpeted with tea plantations and views over to the smoking cone of Gunung Gede. Originally we’d thought of spending a night or two there, but after seeing the sheer amount of people were glad we skipped it. Once over the pass we thought the traffic would clear and cheered up as we meandered though the main street of a little town lined with shops selling pot plants. Again, we were wrong. The traffic was relentless pretty much the whole journey and we whiled away the time staring out the window at the rice paddies and rice terraces (rivaling those in the Philippines but lacking the tourist infrastructure), and watching the kids playing with homemade kites. We finally arrived in Tasikmalaya at 8pm and figured it was too late to continue. We found two men with motorbikes at the bus terminal and asked them to take us to a hotel. We ended up at a decent, albeit expensive place with slippers in the room and a swimming pool that we didn’t get a chance to use. 

We woke to the alarm the next morning and waited outside the hotel for a bus to Pangandaran. We didn’t have to hang around too long before one arrived and we rattled off for the final 3 hours of the journey (which took 3.5 hours of course). The bus dropped us at a big roundabout and the conductor pointed in the direction of the pantai (beach). We collected our bags and headed off, in the searing mid day heat for the 1km walk to our guesthouse. Luckily, the place we’d booked into was run by the kindest lady and she let us stay even though we’d arrived a night late. Highly recommend the Mango Guesthouse, the room was spacious and clean and the staff were exceptional. The lady brought us a cup of tea and we thought our luck had changed. 

We spent the afternoon wandering along the beach to get our bearings. The northern end of the beach is really the ‘foreigner’ end. There are a couple of nice beach bars and you don’t feel too out of place in a bikini. We walked to the southern end of the beach and it got increasingly more busy with more and more locals running about, fishing boats being pulled in/or out of the water and people hiring body boards and selling sarongs and hippy trousers. At the far end we came to the fence separating the beach from the national park and were happy to spot a barking deer and a few monkeys. We walked back to the hotel and hadn’t realised how far we’d walked, we were tired and hot and ready for a lay down.

Rhys walking along the beach at Pangandaran.

Barking deer on the beach at Pangandaran.

That night we walked to one of the beach shacks for dinner and drinks. There was a raffle on at one of the bars with live music and you got a ticket every time you bought two Bintang (beer). We ended up with a few raffle tickets and thought we were in with a good chance of winning, sadly, we didn’t take any of the prizes (there was a water cooler, a TV and a DVD player, just what you want when you’re traveling), but Rhys got on stage as the middle man in a 3 person T-shirt (very hard to explain, I think you had to be there), danced and won a shirt.

The next day I woke up feeling rotten. We’d rented a motorbike for the day but I felt so terrible I couldn’t leave the room. Rhys looked after me and pottered around the room watching TV and playing computer games, venturing out for dinner at a beach bar.

After sleeping for 16 hours or so, I woke early feeling a lot better. There was a knock at the door at 8am. The guy we’d booked our train tickets to Yogyakarta with had booked them for a day early and our lift was there to pick us up. We weren’t packed, Rhys was in bed and I wasn’t well enough for the journey. Cross, we then spent a couple of hours waiting around to sort out the confusion and ended up paying an extortionate amount for a business class ticket the following day (I say extortionate but it was only £18, that’s just a lot for Indonesia). We hired a motorbike from our guesthouse and headed out to explore, keen to turn around the luck we’d been having since arriving in Java.

We headed out of Pangandaran and followed the road towards Batu Karas. About halfway, the tarmac ended and we had a bone crunching journey for the last 15km, I don’t know why they don’t repair one patch at a time instead of digging up an endless stretch of road. Just before the turn off to Batu Karas we reached the terminal for boats to the Green Canyon. As this seems to be the most popular day trip from Pangandaran we thought we’d give it ago and rented a boat. The journey took all of 20 minutes, along a lovely stretch of river with emerald green waters and forested slopes, to reach the entrance to the canyon where the boats stopped. For an extra £5 you could swim but we weren’t really interested, you get tired of being looked at sometimes and feel you don’t need to give people any more reason to point. Back at the parking lot we agreed it had been a fun way to pass 50 minutes but certainly wasn’t mindblowing and was expensive for what it was (since we had to pay for a boat for 6 people to ourselves).

The green canyon, near Pangandaran.

We continued along the road until we reached Batu Karas, which, according to Lonely Planet is where we would find hordes of surfers. Instead, we found another cove, admittedly of nice chocolaty brown sand, but again full of people and body boards to hire punctuated with a little hill covered in rubbish with views out across the ocean. There were some nice little guesthouses and cafes around and we stopped for lunch before heading back to Pangandaran. Batu Karas was pretty, especially if you headed away from the headland to your own little secluded spot (where we had to stop as our little scooter didn’t cope well on sandy tracks) but really wasn’t anything to shout about.

The quieter end of the beach at Batu Karas.

Back in Pangandaran we reached the beach road and turned right, away from the crowds. The road turned into a track and then into a sandy path, where we passed a coconut husking plant with mountains of brown, fluffy looking husk, before ending by a lagoon lined with what we could only guess were bamboo fishing platforms. The beach there was wide, flat and empty and a whole world away from the crowds at the southern end. We were feeling pretty sun beaten and shaken from all the unsurfaced roads by this point and decided to take the bike back. A little later we wandered back down to the beach for a swim before a drink in a beach bar with a puppy. For dinner we chose to eat at one of the nicer hotels on the beach road fancying something other than rice and chicken.

Having rebooked our train tickets we were up with the cockerels allowing ourselves plenty of time to pack and get ready for our 8am pick up. At 8:20am, the van hadn’t arrived and we started to think we’d been left behind. Rhys asked out guesthouse lady to check and we found out we wouldn’t be picked up until 9am and that we were booked on a later train. Finally, the van arrived and we jumped in for a hot and sweaty hour long journey to Sidareja. Along with 9 other westerners, we holed up in the air conditioned VIP waiting room before being handed our tickets for the train. Once on board, the train weaved through mile after mile of endless rice paddies before arriving at Yogyakarta.

I liked Yogyakarta as soon as we stepped off the train, the streets were manic with bejaks (tricycles) and scooters and the pavements were lined with shops and stalls selling batik. We headed a couple of blocks south of the station to the backpacker area of Sastrowijaya, just off the main shopping street Malioboro, to a place we’d seen online. There weren’t any available rooms so Rhys left me with the bags and went off to find a room somewhere on one of the the two gangs (alleyways). That evening we had a quick exploration of the area, ate dinner and went to bed.

The next day we decided against our original plan to rent a motorbike to visit the temples at Prambanan, 17km outside of Yogya, since the transport the tour agencies could arrange was so cheap and I was keen to stay at the temple to watch the Ramayana Ballet and we didn’t fancy the ride back after dark. It was the right choice. We had our own driver and he dropped us at the temple where we spent a couple of hours exploring in the stifling heat. Prambanan is a 9th century Hindu temple complex with a 47m high central building dedicated to Shiva. Originally there were 240 temples in the compound but most of the outer buildings have collapsed and you can wander around the rubble before reaching the central temples, adorned with bas reliefs spiraling up into the sky. So far on our trip we haven’t been blown away with Hindu architecture but this was different and we were both impressed with not only the scale of the complex but the detail. 

Me at Prambanan Temple, near Yogyakarta.

Rhys at Prambanan Temple, near Yogyakarta.

After the temple, as we had tickets for the ballet, we had to hang around for quite a while. We sat under a tree by the temples just enjoying the atmosphere before wandering back to the car park to meet our driver. There are a few other temples nearby in the same park but it was so incredibly hot we didn’t want to walk around more. Our driver dropped us at a restaurant for a quick dinner before taking us to the open air theatre for the ballet. As we still had a couple of hours until show time we took a table at the theatre restaurant and enjoyed a couple of drinks while the sun set with views over the temple. When it was time, we made our way into the theatre and settled into our concrete seats. The show started and the dancers came out in full costume to perform an epic Hindu poem with the floodlit temple as the backdrop. It was a great experience although very different to European ballet, here it was all about right angles, elbows, knees and ankles, no pointy toes in sight. After a scene with some fire we had a short interval and it started to drizzle, two thirds of the audience headed off while we waited for the rain to stop. They dried the stage and the show continued and we left happy and tired.

Rhys with the stars of the Ramayana Ballet, Prambanan Temple.

Ramayana Ballet with the floodlit Prambanan Temple in the background.