Yogyakarta, real quick.

I met Erin and Andrew at a restaurant outside our hotel in Yogyakarta Thursday night. Friday, Nita's friend Iwan, now a driver in the city, drove us around. Our first stop was the King's palace and compound, followed by the water palace, and a huge batik/souvenir shop where we spent a lot of time picking out gifts for everyone (and possibly thinking of additional people who could get gifts just because everything there was so neat!).



We saw the outside of the old Dutch fortress, but by then were pretty tour-guided out, so we skipped the tour in favor of getting out of the city.

We then headed to Prambanan, a ninth-century Hindu temple located not too far from the city center:


Then, onto Borobodur. Turns out our hotel was full (they had put us down for the wrong night), but they had a sister hotel we could stay at instead. After driving out there, we learned it was a much older sister in much worse shape, and using Lonely Planet, found a hotel made out of bamboo that we ended up staying at. From there, we could walk to Borobodur, where we spent a couple of hours touring the temple, and an additional hour trying to find a nearby temple that turned out to be extremely tiny and cost extra money, so we headed back to our hotel for an early lunch before I had to head out to the airport. Erin and I ordered chicken sandwiches and fries; the sandwiches turned out to be mayonnaise sandwiches with a few bits of chicken thrown in. Neither of us ate them. Erin and Andrew then agonized over whether to spend the day in the countryside without much to do, or head into the city for a show and more touring (which they did). We said our goodbyes and I began my return saga home, which is still ongoing!

Some Borobodur highlights: