Fans in Yogyakarta

We arrived at Yogyakarta (pronounced 'Jogjakarta') at 4am after a 9 hour long haul by train from Jakarta. The train was cleaner than an Indian train, but the amount of touts and beggars and coffee sellers that constantly patrolled the carriages was ridiculous. Neither of us managed to squeeze in a sneaky nap. So you can guess what the first thing we did was, after finding some digs. We planned to have a dedicated rest day (it's been well earned) and catch up with the blog/photo's etc.




Yogyakarta's main tourist attraction is another world heritage site called Borobudur. It is a truly colossal structure and a poignant epitaph to Java's Buddhist history, ranking with Angkor Wat as one of the great Southeast Asian monuments.......according to Lonely Planet. It really isn't that spectacular to be honest, but it was worth the visit, especially because we managed to get student entrance fee (Sheffield shuffles still going strong I'm proud to report Uncle Daz). The temple is located 42km away from Yogyakarta and was constructed in early 9th century AD. With Islam taking over Indonesia as the dominant religion, Borobudur was abandoned and not re-discovered until 1814 when Stamford Raffles was governor of Java (Yes, the same dude who founded Singapore, and yes he was an Englishman, top lad).




The stupa has survived the times really well with the carvings and decorations very clear and easily identifiable. It wasn't the 1500 narrative panels of Buddhist teachings nor the 432 Buddha images that kept us entertained on this day though, it was the number of people who were fascinated by OUR presence! I kid you not, we were like friggin celebrities. We must have had over 100 photographs taken with complete strangers. It was so much fun though. There was a class of kids on a school trip and their teacher asked if the children could practice their English language skills with us. The teacher hogged nearly all the questions though. Afterwards we got a brilliant picture with the kids at Borobudur doing the famed 'conquered pose'.

Next we had a little walk around the park and found an elephant stable. We arrived just in time to help the keepers feed the elephants their lunch, which was a bunch of mini bananas. Maj thought it would be funny to stick a banana in each nostril of the elephants trunk.




Making our way to the exit we were beeped by a large black Toyota. Down rolled the windows and it was one of our fans from the photo shoot with his 2 sons. He offered to drop us off at the exit since it was a fair distance (not in English by the way, he kind of insisted with his hands that we get in and then pointed ahead, why not, he was only a little fella, couldn't see him taking both of us hostage).

The rest of the day we had a little nap and awaited England's 2nd group stage game against Algeria. Just having my second coffee as I type this up. COME ON ENGLAND you bunch of scum bags!

Yogyakarta Photo Link:
http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=5871307011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/