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We left Malang the next day and headed for Yogyakarta. We decided that since it was about 9 hours on the train, we would go Executive Class, wooo!!! It only cost a couple of pounds extra, and instead of cramped in a non aircon train with 10 people on a seat made for 4, we had designated seats with lots of leg room, aircon, reclining chairs and even a free meal! This made the journey bearable, even if it did get a little boring.
We arrived in Yogyakarta at about 11.00pm and went in search of a room. The one we wanted was full, but we ended up staying in one just down the road which was fine and it had a rooftop terrace where we met some other travellers. The next day we walked around Yogyakarta. It was really hot that day and we were exhausted afterwards. There is loads of shopping there, although i didn't buy anything but we had fun looking around at all the stuff - especially in the air conditioned malls! Jack bought a pair of Converse trainers for 10quid!
We walked down to the Kraton, which is where the king/sultan (i think!!) lives, and it is a small city within the city of Yogyakarta. Within here, there is a bird market, which Jack was desparate to go to! We walked around it (Jack loving it and me feeling a little queasy..) there were not just birds there, but bats, pythons, scorpions, lizards, rabbits, dogs cats, insects - everything you could think of! There were baby eagles and Jack got to hold one. The living conditions for these poor wee animals was somewhat questionable. They would have been hot - i saw a lot of dead ones in cages, it was terrible.
After that we went to the water palace, which is now a ruin. The king/sultan built this palace for his 'girls', but i think it was destroyed in an earthquake and never restored. You get good views of the city from the top.
The next day we booked a trip to go to Borobadur, a buddhist temple. As we were the only 2 people on the trip, it was like getting a taxi there but cheaper! The temple was really impressive (as most buddhist temples seem to be) and we walked around for about 2 hours before heading home.
Having seen all we wanted to see, we decided to take the train (executive again!!!) to Surabaya. This is the 2nd largest city in Indonesia. We got there at about 8pm, spent ages trying to find a hotel and got some crappy overpriced mosquito ridden, cockroack ridden, and i am certain, rat ridden fleapit!! It was one of their 'superior' rooms - i think not! That night we caved in and went to McDonalds... we've been eating rice and noodles for the last 3 weeks so i think we deserved it! With not much to see in Surabaya, just a huge city, we left early the next morning for the ferry back to Bali. Another 8 hour executive train journey later we arrived at the ferry terminal. We got to the other about 6pm to discover there were no buses going anywhere, until they were full of passengers. We hung around for 3 hours hoping that some people would show up! We wanted to go to Denpasar, but ended up going to Lovina and paying a little extra because there was only 6 people who wanted to go.
We were quite glad to do that actually because we stayed in Lovina for 4 nights in the really nice hotel (which was half the price of the one in Surabaya!) and chilled out by the pool during the day, and went out at night. We met a few people here aswell which was nice. My suntan is coming along nicely, but i work hard at it. Then Jack comes out, looks at the sun for 10 seconds, sits in the shade all day and he is still browner than me!! Not fair!!
We are now back in Kuta, and staying at the same place we stayed at last time, which also has a swimming pool. We are going to stay here till 30th September when we fly to Singapore. Then after 2 days in Singapore, we fly to Delhi!! Exciting!!!!!!!!
So we'll really just be hanging around, making the most of the sun, maybe a little surfing.
Hope everyone is well!
Linsey and Jack xxxxxx
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