An entry in the TFS Travel Journal
We awoke from our trances feeling quite refreshed. We packed up and went to breakfast at the poolside, as it was our last meal and we’d never dined there. As with everything here, the pool is stunning: narrow, about 80 meters long, with dark green tiles, set amongst the light honey-colored large limestone blocks. The tables are set under a curving, columned area with green plants lining the backside and a waterfall providing the sounds. In the distance, the lush green rice fields (with some men actually plowing with a team of two oxen) sloped away into the valley below. We enjoyed our favorites - fruit w/yoghurt, french toast, and sweet rice porridge with coconut milk. As lovely as it all was, it was also damn hot and steamy! We said our goodbyes (to Umbertis, the 6′9″ lanky Austrian) and were driven away.
We made a stop at Prambanam Temple, about 15 minutes from the Yogyakarta airport. It was built in the 9th century and was a Hindu response to the construction of the Buddhist Borobudur Temple, by a breakaway faction. It clearly would have been easier for them to have just tacked some theses to a door, as this was another mammoth decades-long construction project. What has so far been reconstructed is about 6 large towers and one really large one, all of dark gray stone. Again, they all contained remarkably detailed stone carvings on the panels surrounding the outsides. It was sweltering (we think the local languages in this entire region all must have over 100 words for “heat” and “humidity”), so we took it all in quickly.
We also got to see a wedding taking place in the gardens next to the temple complex. The attendees were seated under a tent-like cover and were all desperately fanning themselves. The bride and groom (he was caucasian, she was asian) were dressed in ornate purple and gold outfits. Their wedding party walked right behind, and we saw what must have been the groom’s parents looking not too overjoyed at the whole thing. As we had a flight to catch, we couldn’t stay for the ceremony, but did get some pictures as did several other tourists.
The flight was short and painless, and we spent it chatting with the very nice and personable Caroline from Holland who works for a travel firm there and is here to do some research and to have some holiday time. She’s traveled quite a bit in her life, and even spent 2 months as a lifeguard at a summer camp outside of Atlanta 5 years ago. After landing, we were met by our (last, yea!) guide, Wayan, and were driven the one hour to our hotel, which had just opened in January. Along the way we passed an amazing quantity of shops selling carved stone objects in various local motifs.
This hotel is also a beautiful creation, and is set in a thickly-tropical green valley right above a sacred river. We checked into our duplex suite, unpacked, and Milton went to work out. It didn’t take too long to figure out that the air conditioning in the upstairs living room wasn’t working so well. Not only that, but we were right next to a waterfall from the river which was really loud and, with the window in the bathroom, made it sound like the toilet was perpetually running. So Wendy took matters into her overly-capable hands, and moved us into an allegedly adequately functioning suite, just about completing the task before Milton even got back.
We ordered room service (partly because the one restaurant is covered, but outdoors with no air conditioning; how anyone can eat anything but ice there is a mystery to us) which we enjoyed in our upstairs living room accompanied by “The Best of Sade”, a tape purchased at Pat Pong in Bangkok (though probably not an official release, as the cassette itself has absolutely no printing on it) Dinner was superb — a Caesar salad, vegetable torte, mixed satay, pasta with prawns and scallops, and a devine coconut custard in filo pastry for dessert.
We then had to deal with a non-functioning toilet (which was eventually fixed) and sporadic power outages, but attempted to relax for the rest of the evening.