Depok: We arrived in Depok and stayed with Julie and her family for 10 days. It was one of the highlights of our time in Indonesia. We spent time chatting about everything and nothing as well as sampling a vast array of Indonesian dishes. The town itself has nothing to recommend it except that everyone just leaves you alone in a good way. We had to get our visa sorted here as well and because we only paid the 250,000 for a first extension of a 60 day visa we would have to wait a long time. We put it in on tuesday and they wanted us to come back on friday to pay and the wednesday after to collect it. They expected us to pay more to speed up the process, but given that we were going to Cipanas and Bandung for 2 days and would be back friday before going to Yogyakarta for 3 days over the weekend and back for wednesday, we actually thought it was perfect timing wise and we agreed much to their surprise and disappointment.
Cipanas: The drive over the fabled Puncak to get to Cipanas took us 5 hours to go about 50km or so. The traffic is abysmal and you have to pay backhanders to random dudes on the street to send you round some back alleys, like some random touring car race, in order to beat the traffic. I still think they create the traffic jams to make sure that people pay for the 'help' but Cannelle thinks I am too cynical. Cipanas itself is a rather nondescript town, but the gardens were really beautiful. They were everything we had been expecting in Bogor and had been disappointed not to find. Lots of beautifully landscaped gardens, a maze (bit too easy) and even mock Balinese and Japanese gardens. It was a very pleasant distraction, but I'd advise visiting it from Bandung side as Puncak is not that amazing and it appears to be just a giant town for prostitution and shitty getaways.
Bandung: We just passed through Bandung and can only say it looks nice enough, though far short of its 'Paris' nickname. It also has a lot of outlet stores where you can buy a lot of cheap clothes if you want some retail therapy. We went to the famous upturned boat volcano, that doesn't look anything like an upturned boat. It is however quite pretty. Its surrounded by touts and I recommended that Andy (Julie's husband) charge for photos and they could make a bule profit lol. These places are both nice and both worth a visit on your way to Yogyakarta if you want to break up your journey.
Yogyakarta: Ah the great divisive city. Half of it is excellent, half of it is shit. Lets start with the shit. The tourist area around the main street is fucking horrible, with so many people vying for your attention and business. Not pleasant people. They also fuck locals as much as they fuck tourists, so don't worry, you're not receiving 'special' treatment. One guy even said 'oh white people, you are always so difficult' in Bahasa when we said no to his extortionate bus tour. Fucker. We wouldn't be difficult if you weren't being lying sacks of shits. Borobodur and Prambanan are also thoroughly underwhelming. If you haven't seen many temples before then Borobodur is nice if hideously overpriced, but Prambanan is so crappy its not worth visiting unless you are a hardcore temple lover and even then you want to think twice considering the price. Prambanan is 171,000 Rp and Borobodur is 190,000 Rp. Locals pay only 30,000 Rp. We asked about the difference and they said we get free tea or coffee. Indeed. Well worth the money. I have to say my two $16 cups of coffee were exquisite and well worth the higher than Norwegian prices for them. Arseholes. Anyway. Borobodur is probably worth the 30,000 Rp but considering its one temple and you get Bagan (for 3 days for $10) and Angkor Wat ($30 for all the temples), its far too expensive. So suffice to say that after the first day we didn't really see what all the fuss was about with Yogya. Yeah its a little funky (but only a little) and it is really cheap (which seems to be the number one thing Indonesians say when you ask them why they like Yogya). Being cheap doesn't cut it alone. Oh well, disappointing. We even went to a Gamelan performance, which seems to be a lot of noise at one time with some random whacking together of two puppets. I am not sure where the skill is needed and I couldn't decide if the all round assault of the senses was something I liked or something I detested. I was only sure that 30 minutes is enough for one lifetime. Why so many foreigners want to stay ages in this place, God alone knows. Then I have thought that of a lot of places in Indonesia. The places all the foreigners hang out in are shitty and everywhere else is really cool. Weird, huh? On day two we went wandering south of the Kraton (the Kraton itself is nice) through areas Julie knew as a student. There are some beautiful lanes down here and they end at the swimming baths, which have a distinctly Roman slant. This part of Yogya is great. We then went to Kota Gede (silver district) and again it had a very European bent to it and was really pleasant to walk around in. These areas of Yogya were almost magical and there were almost no tourists. Where the fuck do the idiot tourists go in Indonesia. Just around the touristy parts. Fuck them. They will miss the beauty of the country. I can see the appeal of these area, but as almost no tourists go there I don't see what the appeal is for the tourists who stay there, unless they like shitty puppet shows and flowery dresses. Java was not appealing to us in the same way as Sumatra, as it was always a hassle, a fight and so many people. I would recommend Sumatra over Java without hesitation every time.
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