5-12-11 Yogya Adventure!

Like everyday, we started the day early, and we got breakfast at the lobby where the had a breakfast buffet of a mix of European and Indonesian breakfast foods, and was also the place where I had one of the best croissants I've ever had outside of Europe. We met up with my mom's friend's daughter, Serina and her husband Saleh, (who I'd refer to as “Mas Saleh”). 

We intended on going to Borobudur again, however due to the recent eruption of Mount Merapi, some “cool” magma was near the roads and Borobudur itself, thus making passage to the largest Buddhist temple in the world slightly difficult, so we decided instead to go the largest Hindu temple in Indonesia, known as Prambanan. Which is actually a complex of numerous temples. We got there and was surprised by the price differential of admission between Indonesians and Tourists. The price for my enterance into Prambanan was about 13USD, which translates to about... 109,000 Rupiah, for my mom, Serina, and Saleh was about 3,000 Rupiah a piece. But the price of admission was well worth it, though I was a bit surprised at the damage that Prambanan had, but I remembered/was reminded that a major earthquake had struck Yogya in 2006, so many of the monuments in the area had been affected and were still under renovations/repairs.  

But the temples were amazing, and though we could see where the new stones had replaced ones that had fallen out of the temple, it was still beautiful, as we saw carvings on the outside of the temples, and even the interiors after a bit of a climb. After a bit of a wait we chartered a little train on wheels to take us around the grounds, where we saw another temple, the second largest Buddhist temple in Indonesia behind Borobudur, but was saddened to see most of the Buddha statues had been decapitated earlier, whether by earthquake or others I couldn't be sure. 

We later went a store where we got to see how Silver jewelry is made as Yogya is famous for it's Silver jewelry. There were so many intricate pieces, who's value went from 5 dollars all the way to the thousands of dollars, such as sailboats woven from silver wire, and the majority of the silver from this facility was over 90% pure, which is pretty good these days. I later got my first taste of Padang food as we ate a pretty famous Restaurant in Yogya, though in the coming days I think it would upset my stomach. 

We finished up the day going to a store which sold Batik and numerous souvenirs from Indonesia, I tried to pick up a lot of things for the people back home, but I don't think I picked up enough, hopefully I'll find more things in the days to come. After an exhausting day I packed it in for another day of exploring and excitement.