5-13-11 Yogya to Bali!

Today would be our last day in Yogya, as we would take a later flight to Bali. But in the mean time we still had to finish our trip in Yogya, and once again Serina would play our guide as her husband Mas Saleh couldn't join us due to his work. One of the most interesting things about Yogyakarta, is that it is actually an independent kingdom within Indonesia, similar to India's princely states. It has it's own Sultan/King and much of the Palace staff lives within the walls of the Palace, nearly 25000 people.  

We would take a tour of the Sultan's palace, or rather whatever was open to the public, though it wasn't much. We toured the outer-grounds with a tour guide, and he also took us to some shops around the palace where locals wove textiles and continued traditional arts such as forging kriss blades, and making batik fabrics. Our friend Serina would also tell us of a story where the people who live within the Palace walls would only be given a stipend of 100,000 rupiah a month, however that 100,000 would be enough to sustain multi-member families as well as send some members to University (which usually tuition is much more than 100,000) and is still have money to buy groceries and such. We also toured a museum which was dedicated to the horse drawn carriages which the sultans of Yogya have used for either coronations, funerals, or just touring the city, and many of them are still used today. 

After our tour of the palace we would go to a bath house which was often used by the sultans of old. Our tour guide told us a story of how usually the the Sultan and his Harem would bathe separately, but the Sultan had a little room which overlooked the main bathing pool (kinda like like a little creeper peeping on people showering), and if he was feeling in the mood, all he would have to do was drop a flower into the pool, and his Harem would fight to get to the flower and the first to get the flower would go into “congress” with the Sultan. The bath at the time was no longer used as the bath house still had damages from the Earthquake.  

After all the walking about Serina would take us to the largest mall in Yogya, and because my mom was dying for a massage we went to a “reflexology” spa, and my mom got a massage, and eventually badgered me into getting one for myself. So we both got massages, I opted for the shorter one, and was sort of glad for it as the masseur must have thought I was a lot stronger than I was because it hurt so badly at first, but it eventually got better.  

We boarded the late flight from Yogya to Bali, we were flying Lion Air to Bali, and I was a bit apprehensive at first because my father had told my mother earlier that Lion has been reported to have numerous incidents in that pilots would regularly overshoot the run ways, Serina echoed the same thing, but she claimed that it was with the old MD80s that Lion Air would have the most problems, but with their new 737s, the pilots were a bit better. The seats were really tight space-wise, my knees were digging into the seat of the person in front of me, but it was ok. 

 We landed in Denpasar, the main city of Bali, and caught a cab to our Hotel, which was booked by Serina's mom, Rima. It turned out not to be a hotel but more of a resort as we arrived at the “Padma Resort in Legian”, and settled in for the next few days.