Indonesia V: Expedition 2011 - Transfer By Train To The City Of Yogyakarta

In the morning we checked out of the hotel and Idong took us to the main station where we get a train via the former capital of Java - to Yogyakarta. We farewell friendly with Idong for who his work for us finished by this moment.  Another guide should wait for us in Yogyakarta.

Quiet life next to the railroad

The station wasn’t built any subways - the problem of transition between the platforms is easily solved. Wagons are passable. On the one side you can go into the wagon and on the other get out without any problems and you're on another platform. Tacitly assumed that the car with you and tack won´t take you somewhere, where you really did not want to go. That did not happen to us, so we settled in comfortably in air-conditioned car and went a long way along Java to its centre, to the former capital. Alternately, we slept and watched the scenery outside the window. It was a completely different view than from the van. Around the railway line, people do not build homes, shops, hotels such as along the road. The railway does not bring any money. No one won´t get off the train to by something. And so the village can be observed "backwards", the beautiful terraced rice fields, landscapes. Compared with the view from the road, this is certainly picturesque. Picturesque were also passengers who gradually approached. Most of them were families with children, two seats are comfortably settled and sophisticated also four of them, and happily traveled for hours across the landscape. In the evening we reached the finish line. Quite tired and staggering we got off on the station in Yogyakarta.

                       
On the way you need to refresh

With a schedule there was already waiting for us our new guide – Wuda with his minibus, which did not inspire much confidence. After a while, but he managed to start it, so we drove to the hotel in Ibiza, where we had secured accommodation. The hotel was connected with a shopping centre, where was the cash machine, and we have gained so millions more. According to information on our floor was swimming pool, so we found him, but it was more like a little pond. For the basic refreshment of the body but it was enough. And still it was good, because to refresh our soul we had a Calvados. From the swimming pool you could see as the seat of the local gods – three thousand meters high volcano of Murapi. Not always friendly gods, a few months ago spewed ash and lava, which killed as many local residents.

On the street as in the hive

In the evening I went out on the street outside the hotel for a while. After ten minutes I came back in a panic. Rickshaws, scooters, cars, number of people on the sidewalk and everyone wanted me to sell something. It needed a nervous system in a different condition, than I had that day.  

Text/photo: Stanislav Lupták