Mt Merapi

Woke up to a cloudy sky but so so glad that the sky cleared up while driving to Mount Merapi for our jeep tour which cost ~$35.

We didn’t go for the sunrise tour, so we left for the trip later at 9am.

The jeep tour was super bumpy due to the poor conditions of the roads up on the mountain. The guide told us this was due to the last eruption, and the roads hadn’t been resurfaced since.

We went to a ‘museum’ commemorating the eruption (really a ruined house with burned and damaged stuff from the disaster). Really neat.

The weather was great and we were treated to an amazing view of Mt. Merap – made us two very happy people ☺️☺️

After that we drove around abit to see various landmarks around the mountain, including a viewpoint to take pictures from and the emergency bunker (which was kinda flooded from the rain so we didn’t go in).

Malioboro

After the Merapi tour we decided to take it easy for the rest of the day to explore the city centre.

We took a stop for lunch at a small coffee stall we spotted opposite our hotel. Unfortunately the coffee was pretty weak and blegh (doesn’t seem like they do coffee very well in indonesia..)

We then took a walk through the main city area (in Malioboro), but there was nothing much to see in the day. Most of the shops were selling the usual tourist junk which we weren’t really keen on. Perhaps the place would be more bustling and interesting at night? But we didn’t stay long to find out. Also probably off peak season for tourists or all the angmohs are hiding~

We decided to head over to another district in Jogja to check out some cafes, about 2-3km away from our hotel. However, the pavement situation in Jogja is abysmal, and we found ourselves walking on the street alongside traffic for majority of the walk, which was harrowing to say the least. We also walked through the entire motorcycle repair shop streets so the roads were pretty busy and messy to walk through. Do not recommend walking, getting a taxi/rickshaw would have been a much less painless experience.

Finally found the place we walked all the way across for, this nice cafe called Viavia Jogja, & we nuaed there for hours, just like how a chillax day should be. It was an establishment catering to mainly hip/health-conscious angmoh clientele, so they had a nice range of healthy foods available.

After the cafe we went to this warung for dinner, which had amazing reviews on tripadvisor for having affordable and tasty nasi padang. It was nubbad but we felt they ripped us tourists cause we were charged ~$7++ for a plate (which is silly considering hotel food only costs $6).

We decided to try out taking the rickshaws for transport today – previously we avoided them for fear of being ripped off. Thankfully for the two times we did take them we had a very good experience! The prices were affordable (better than taxis) and the drivers were kindly. Pity the guy who had to use a bicycle rickshaw, hope he earns enough to rent a motorcycle one soon! Traffic here in Jogja is more forgiving than in Singapore, as drivers are more mindful of and courteous to motorbikes/rickshaws.