Jogjakarta - Part II (The English Version)

The first night of our first adventure together
(Malioboro, October 5, 2016)

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

My alarm went off at about 5 am. It was a really cold morning and, though my eyes still felt pretty heavy, my brain told me to wake up and get up. I sat down on my bed for a while before starting to get ready. Two train tickets that had been bought and a plan that had been discussed for months were the main reasons why I had to get up. Besides, I’m rather a perfectionist. It always takes me a long time to prepare whenever I travel. I have to check my list over and over again to make sure that everything that I think will be needed has been packed.

I arrived at the Bandung train station at 6:50. My husband took me there and dropped me off at the gate. After saying good bye, I ran inside. My sister, whom I traveled with, had been waiting for me. She was a little confused when she saw me coming with a big backpack and a big purse. She was somewhat concerned and thought that she may have forgotten some stuff, and I was just smiling at her. But, of course she knew me really well and when she realised that she was traveling with me, she became more relaxed. She didn’t forget anything. It was just me who tended to overpack. Then, before we got on the train, I stopped by one of the fast food restaurants in the station to get some breakfast to take away, and finally the train left our home town on time, at 7:20.

Working on students' writing
on the train that was taking us to Jogja

My sister and I were traveling to Jogjakarta, a city and a province on the island of Java. Actually, this wasn’t my first time taking the train to Jogja. In 2012, I went with my husband, but at that time, we took the night train, so this time I had the opportunity to enjoy the view of the eastern part of Java as the train was moving. Generally, we were pretty happy with the train. Although we only traveled in a business-class compartment, it fulfilled our standard of comfort as the compartment was clean, wide and air conditioned.

We arrived at Stasiun Tugu, Jogjakarta, at around 3:30 pm. The clear sky and hot weather welcomed us; therefore, we decided to walk to Prawirotaman, an area where a lot of cheap hotels are available. Based on the information that we got from the internet, it would take us about an hour to walk there from the train station. So there we were, walking through the famous Malioboro Street to go to Prawirotaman. However, it was so hot and my stuff was so heavy that we didn’t last long. It was I who gave up and when we approached a bus stop in Malioboro, we changed our minds. We bought two bus tickets for 25 cents each and waited for about 15 minutes for the TransJogja 2A that would take us to Kolonel Sugiyono Street where we would get off. The traffic was really nice and the bus trip only lasted 15 minutes. After getting off the bus, we still had to walk for about 15 minutes to Jalan Raya Parangtritis, the street where Prawirotaman is located. Not far from our destination, we stopped to get some snacks from a food stall on the side of the street. The boy who sold the snacks was very friendly, if not talkative, and he didn’t stop talking while cooking our order. He was also really funny. This was a pretty rare occasion for us since people in Bandung are not as friendly, especially towards domestic tourists. From then on, we became friends. We would walk past his stall every time we went out and he would greet us and say hi whenever he saw us.

Metro Guest House
Prawirotaman II Street No. 7

After paying about 40 cents for our snacks, we continued walking to find a hotel. We actually already knew where we wanted to stay. When I went with my husband five years ago, we stayed at Metro Guest House. I was amazed with the whole concept and the ambience of this place. It is not a starred hotel but it is mostly focused on making its guests feel at home. Inside, there is also a garden which is surrounded by medium-sized hotel rooms. I really liked this hotel, so my sister promised to check it out, and I was really glad when she was okay with it and agreed to stay there. We paid around US$15 for a night and for us, that was a good price—within our budget.

It was already 4:45 pm when we entered the hotel room and as soon as we put down our bags, we started making plans. Initially, we wanted to go to Monjali Park, also known as Rainbow Park. However, to get to this place is time consuming since it is pretty far from the hotel and the TransJogja only operates until 9 pm. We didn’t want to get there too late but only stayed for a short time, so we changed the plan. We decided to just stick around the hotel and go back to Malioboro, not for shopping but for enjoying the nightlife there. I had also been in contact with one of my friends who lived in Jogja, so we agreed to meet up that night. He said he would take us to a cafe which offered live music. It also happened to be the night when one of his friends was celebrating his birthday. The party didn’t start until 9 pm but my friend came early—at 6:30 pm—and because we were already hungry, we went out to find angkringan (nasi kucing), a special traditional dish from Jogja that we had craved for a long time. 

The Metro Guest House Dining Room

Angkringan - Nasi kucing is
the favorite dish

As we were walking down the street not far from the hotel, we noticed a nice smell of bakmi Jogja, a noodle dish that I also liked. For a few seconds, I was considering having bakmi instead of angkringan, but I chose to go for the angkringan first. 

After walking for five minutes, we found an angkringan place on the side of the street, not far from where we got our afternoon snacks. I had a small portion of rice with anchovies, two pieces of gorengan, deep-fried vegetables in a batter of flour and water, and a sweet ginger drink. One portion of angkringan cost about 20 cents, and it came with different choices of food, such as anchovies, tempeh or tuna.

My friend became our tour guide that night. We continued to walk for about half an hour to Alun-alun Selatan (South Alun-alun), and on the way there we saw our favorite restaurant called Warung Super Sambal, which used to exist in Bandung but suddenly disappeared, and we didn’t know where it had moved to. For a second time, I was hesitant and thought about having a second dinner there. Luckily, I was able to put that idea away and save it for the next day. 

As soon as we arrived in the alun-alun, I was astonished by what I witnessed. A huge crowd was gathered in the alun-alun. It was pretty dark there due to the absence of street lights, but colorful lights that decorated dozens of pedalled cars made the area bright enough. The pedalled cars were rentable for the price of $1.50, and we could ride around the alun-alun on them. Since we needed to pedal the cars, riding these actually was a form of exercise. Another famous attraction in Alun-alun Selatan is a giant Banyan tree—probably the biggest in Jogja—planted in the center of the alun-alun. This is a popular spot for taking pictures. Banyan trees in Indonesia are also considered magical. This particular one is said to have the power to fulfill wishes. All a person has to do is walk with a blindfold on in a straight line towards the tree. Besides that, it is also believed that every Banyan tree has an invisible guardian. This may sound weird, but that was reason enough for me to not take any pictures around the giant tree.

Odong-odong (Pedalled Cars) can be rented
as an altervative to walking around South Alun-alun

Having spent some time in Alun-alun Selatan, we began walking again to our final destination, Malioboro, which was only 15 minutes away. Malioboro was already really crowded. Visitors and artists wearing different interesting costumes flocked to this area. We didn’t make it to the night market, but stopped to sit on a bench around Taman Pintar. By 9:15 pm my sister and I were exhausted, so we canceled our plan to join the birthday party and just went back to the hotel. We took a different route and after a 30-minute walk, we arrived at the hotel; then we took a shower directly and went to sleep.

Malioboro

Some interesting yet scary incidents happened when we were on our way back to the hotel, however. We were walking along the main street and it wasn’t that late yet, but the road was already quiet. All of a sudden, we heard a scream and, from across the street, we saw a figure fall to the ground in front of one of the clothing stores that was still open. We were shocked and thought it was a person who fainted. We had to cross the street anyway to go back to the hotel, and we then discovered that it was just a mannequin, not a real person. Phew. But, just  a few seconds after that, when we hadn’t even recovered from the initial shock, we heard a horse whinnying from the corner of the street, but we didn’t see the horse! We were stunned and unable to move until we finally saw what had caused that sound. A traditional transportation mode, called andong which is a cart drawn by a horse, appeared in front of us. Once again, we felt relieved and we just laughed nervously, walking quickly away. The surprises didn’t stop there though. Not far from the clothing stores, we walked by a few stores selling coffins and of course we got goose bumps all over our bodies. We started to walk faster. I even almost ran. In the end, just when we turned into the street where our hotel was, we saw a white flag—a sign that somebody just died—so we also had to walk past the house where the dead person used to live. Then finally, we returned from the challenging walk, and were glad that we made it through the night.

Not all who wander are lost

---Edited by Jim Holmboe---

    Pictures by Ica Meinanda and Okto N.S