Yogyakarta

We ended our Indonesia trip temple hopping in Yogyakarta.

Reminiscent of Mandalay in Myanmar, we were a bit disappointed by Yogyakarta and in hindsight, I would have done more research about where else to go in Indonesia. There weren't any walkable restaurants or stores, there was tons of traffic everywhere, and any tours outside of Yogya would have cost us too much money. However we did like one restaurant which was about 40 min. drive away and of course consisted of Western food. Grab cars (Asia's version of Uber) were readily available and cheap and our hotel stay at the Grand Hyatt was pretty nice (although the food was way overpriced and not great).

That Saturday I had mild food poisoning so we just hung out at a coffee shop for a bit. This was also the point in the trip where we were planning our trip home, started setting "goals" for ourselves, and feeling a bit anxious about our upcoming New Zealand travels..

On Sunday we took a tour to Kraton of Yogyakarta (Palace), and UNESCO's Borobudur and Prambanan Temple. It was hot and humid that day, but we're glad we ventured out. 

Borobudur was where Kiel was flagged down by a bunch of locals who insisted having their picture taken with him. Shortly after, I walked up and they shook my hand and wanted more photos with us. For about 5 minutes of photo taking, we felt like weird mythical creatures or celebrities, I'm still not sure which one. 

The Kraton palace was the main seat of the Sultan of Yogyakarta and his family. It now serves as a cultural center for the Javanese people and contains a museum that displays the sultanate's artifacts.

Prambanan Temple

And a crazy Cassowary bird...