Day 37, March 14, 2013, Wednesday, Prambenan-Malioboro, Yogyakarta (Indonesia)
Woke up at 5 am hoping to beat the hordes of tourists and catch the sunrise at Prambenan. We ate our breakfast snacks and walked across the street, through the parking lot to the main entrance. No one there. We waited around a bit, hoping that someone would be willing to take our money and let us in a bit early, the sun rose as we sat in a light rain. I felt a few stomach pangs and decided to got back to the hotel. When I made it back to the entrance, Steve and Andres had just been let in, and it was 6:15! They are supposed to open at 6. The guy inside saw and ignored us from 5:30-on. Andres and I managed so save a hefty amount with our UC Berkeley student id’s. Saving nearly ten dollars.#traveltip Travel with your Student id, we may not be students at Berkeley, but we’re students of the world, right?
Regardless of if we saw the sunrise from inside the Prambenan complex, it was good to be there early morning on a week day. Super quiet, no tourists and no one to mess up photo opportunities.
photo:these temples are soo tall
photo: these stone reliefs run around the side of the walkway around the temple. They depict various hindu stories
A couple hours of walking around the complex had built up our appetite for second breakfast at the hotel. Andres and I considered buying a second serving. When I asked how much, the owner came back with “only two free breakfasts” Ha, no. That’s not how it works. When we ask if breakfast is included and one says yes. …Breakfast is included. Their fliers simply said free breakfast, not just two. So, I kind of shook my head and Andres and I decided against a second breakfast. We packed our things, Steve napped and Andres and I went to look for a cheap, second breakfast(wait, is that third breakfast?) No luck so we returned to the hotel, woke up Steve and hopped on our bikes. No, we didn’t pay for the 3rd breakfast. This was probably the most naughty thing I’ve done thus far on the trip. I don’t think we should have paid, but maybe we should have gone up and explained why we were paying for a third breakfast.
We did a short jaunt to Jogja, to the main backpacking street and asked the man at the tourist information center where he would go for the best lotek(a local version of a vegetable+peanut dish) His recommendation was awesome and cheap. Then we headed to the hostel area and did the back and forth between hostels, finally settling on a losmen.
We headed out for dinner and I got caught in a conversation with a man about Bali and he encouraged us to sit down at his street food cart. We gave in and paid too much for street food. Damn. Sonny met us and took us to a pork sate dinner spot; it was really really good. Curry-like soup and bar-b-que style pork kebabs. We headed elsewhere but Steve forgot his backpack (he carries all his important stuff versus just leaving it at the hotel) We found it, phew.