Day 72 & 73 (Yogyakarta)

Happy Birthday April!

Another nice hotel for our stay in Yogyakarta complete with pool and free wifi, my kinda hotel :) As it was April's birthday on arrival we all headed out to dinner with the added bonus of it being an OzBUS sponsored one. It was at a lovely restaurant not that far from the hotel where they had a huge selection of local cuisine available buffet style so we could pick and chose as much or as little as we wanted. I was pleasantly surprised by some of the tofu dishes – after having it in Pad Thai in Bangkok too I may be a convert, it's quite tasty after all! When everyone was finished their dinner we brought out the cake, a feat of engineering expertise if I may say so myself (we'd been unable to find a nice cake in the supermarket or bakery places around the hotel so instead we got 2 dozen donuts and I constructed a structurally sound pyramid style pile complete with candles and sparklers). Delicious donuts..Mmmmm.

The next morning we had a group activity to go visit Borobodur Temple which was very impressive. Our guide for the tour was really great, lots of energy, explained stuff well and kept the pace going so we weren't standing still in the sun for too long (it's sooo hot!). We all got a chance to make a wish with the girls having to touch the feet of the Buddha and the guys getting to touch anywhere they wanted. Trying to climb up onto the side of the bell shaped structure around the Buddha and getting a hand in to touch a foot was harder than it sounds. It was like we were back in India when we entered and tried to leave the complex – street sellers everywhere, absolutely everywhere!

Later in the afternoon some of the group went to the other famous temple in the area but as I had a flight to catch to go to Bali a few days earlier I thought it unwise to head out with them. The pictures look like it was pretty cool, so would have been nice to see it.