Also known as Jogja, the main attraction that we were aware of here was the very famous and beautiful temples. Turns out they often do loads of cool classes in things like jewellery making and cooking. This ended up being a really cool place to visit and we could definitely have filled another day here. Don't rush it to get to Jakarta, you have been warned x
Accommodation
We stayed at Laura's Backpackers. Lured in by the promise of free dinner and breakfast, this hostel had hot showers, a big communal area and dorm beds with curtains around them. The big free meals made it very easy to meet other travellers, and it was a very sociable hostel in that sense, with a big group going camping and hanging out in the evenings
The owners were really helpful in finding stuff to do and arranging stuff for us, though a couple of times the prices they told us were wrong which was a bit awkward. The hostel was a 15 minute walk to the train station which was very doable despite having to cross a pretty big roundabout.
Things to do
Temples: The main attraction here is the temples but they come with a pretty hefty entry fee. Considering the Taj Mahal is £10 we were shocked and so only opted to go to one of the temples; Borobudur. I definitely think this was the right choice, the price as a student wasn't that bad (£15 I think) and the temple really was beautiful. We did a full scale photoshoot here and also had to pose for about a million photos for other people. From our hostel it was possible to take buses but we ended up taking grabs for the one hour journey each way and they weren't that expensive
Cooking class: Meg and I did a cooking class which I really enjoyed! In the morning we visited the local market to buy our ingredients which was a really cool experience. Everything was SO cheap (like a massive bag of tofu for hardly anything) and then we went back to the kitchen to get started. We made a vegetable curry, a dish which was essentially a tofu omelette with different mushrooms, a caramelised tempeh snack, purple rice, tofu fritters and vegan prawn crackers. We made the food with a lovely lady in a class on our own which ended with us all eating what we'd made. So much fun and so much good food
Jewellery class: I've wanted to do a class like this for ages so was so glad we got a chance! We were able to make one item each (I kind of cheated by making a pair of earrings) and we chose the designs ourselves. It was weird in the sense that we just kind of guessed what we were doing and then the guy would correct us but hey we all made something cool
Spa: The others did such a good spa package which sadly I didn't have time for. Arranged through the hostel they got loads of treatments including a sauna, hair spa, massage, exfoliation etc. for 4 hours for under £10. Slightly gutted not to have done it but I decided to opt for the temple instead
Food
Because our hostel did free breakfast and dinner we mainly ate there. The portions were pretty small and very much lacking in anything other than carbs for the vegans, so one night we found a nearby place which served lots of different tofu and tempeh dishes to fill up on. The staff spoke no English and we walked around with a translator app (funniest thing ever- I tried to say "we don't eat meat" and it auto-translated to "please don't eat me")
General notes
Yogyakarta is a cool city and we split our time pretty evenly between here and Jakarta, but the general consensus is to spend more time here, and I agree with that
Getting to/from
We arrived to Yogyakarta from Malang, taking a pretty long train during the day. We lost a fair bit of time doing this but the train was nice and air conditioned so can't complain.
To get to Jakarta we took a night train which got us there at around 3am, where we got a grab to our hostel. Not the most fun journey ever, but it did the job!
Laura x
Accommodation
We stayed at Laura's Backpackers. Lured in by the promise of free dinner and breakfast, this hostel had hot showers, a big communal area and dorm beds with curtains around them. The big free meals made it very easy to meet other travellers, and it was a very sociable hostel in that sense, with a big group going camping and hanging out in the evenings
The owners were really helpful in finding stuff to do and arranging stuff for us, though a couple of times the prices they told us were wrong which was a bit awkward. The hostel was a 15 minute walk to the train station which was very doable despite having to cross a pretty big roundabout.
Things to do
Temples: The main attraction here is the temples but they come with a pretty hefty entry fee. Considering the Taj Mahal is £10 we were shocked and so only opted to go to one of the temples; Borobudur. I definitely think this was the right choice, the price as a student wasn't that bad (£15 I think) and the temple really was beautiful. We did a full scale photoshoot here and also had to pose for about a million photos for other people. From our hostel it was possible to take buses but we ended up taking grabs for the one hour journey each way and they weren't that expensive
Cooking class: Meg and I did a cooking class which I really enjoyed! In the morning we visited the local market to buy our ingredients which was a really cool experience. Everything was SO cheap (like a massive bag of tofu for hardly anything) and then we went back to the kitchen to get started. We made a vegetable curry, a dish which was essentially a tofu omelette with different mushrooms, a caramelised tempeh snack, purple rice, tofu fritters and vegan prawn crackers. We made the food with a lovely lady in a class on our own which ended with us all eating what we'd made. So much fun and so much good food
Jewellery class: I've wanted to do a class like this for ages so was so glad we got a chance! We were able to make one item each (I kind of cheated by making a pair of earrings) and we chose the designs ourselves. It was weird in the sense that we just kind of guessed what we were doing and then the guy would correct us but hey we all made something cool
Spa: The others did such a good spa package which sadly I didn't have time for. Arranged through the hostel they got loads of treatments including a sauna, hair spa, massage, exfoliation etc. for 4 hours for under £10. Slightly gutted not to have done it but I decided to opt for the temple instead
Food
Because our hostel did free breakfast and dinner we mainly ate there. The portions were pretty small and very much lacking in anything other than carbs for the vegans, so one night we found a nearby place which served lots of different tofu and tempeh dishes to fill up on. The staff spoke no English and we walked around with a translator app (funniest thing ever- I tried to say "we don't eat meat" and it auto-translated to "please don't eat me")
General notes
Yogyakarta is a cool city and we split our time pretty evenly between here and Jakarta, but the general consensus is to spend more time here, and I agree with that
Getting to/from
We arrived to Yogyakarta from Malang, taking a pretty long train during the day. We lost a fair bit of time doing this but the train was nice and air conditioned so can't complain.
To get to Jakarta we took a night train which got us there at around 3am, where we got a grab to our hostel. Not the most fun journey ever, but it did the job!
Laura x
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