After the chaos of the capital, we set-off in what was to hopefully be a far less stressful journey to our next destination. In stead of using the roads and hence a car or bus and putting our lives in-danger, we opted for the train. Now the trains are not like turning up at Leeds station andpicking a train with your detsination and heading off. No. We had booked and paid for our tickets and reserved our seats. Fine. But each train has a name and that name has a set class. But only certain trains go to certain destinations. So if we had wanted to go 3rd class and dealt with no air-con for a 7 hour train journey in 30 plus degree heat, we wouldn't have been able to due to the name and type of train...shame!! Our only real option was an early train in Executive class. The highest class you can get. Now you may be thinking, wow, swish, champagne, caviar, freebies. No. Don't be silly! This is Indonesia. And every one were in Executive class. Like it or not. So it was a large chair with loads of leg room, particularly behind you so you felt like you could lean back without annoying the person behind you. Which in fairness, only Sam and myself consider. No-one else bothers as long as number 1 is OK. Anyway, I digress! The train had no freebies and so we made the most of our 7 hours relaxing with music or Breaking Bad on the tablet (thank you Luke).

On arrival to Jogjah, I was initially releaved it wasn't like Jakarta and we were both looking forward to getting out and about. So we headed straight to check-in at the hotel Graha Kinasihi. A newish hotel with friendly staff, quiet location and descent room. Now as with everywhere we have stayed in Asia, there were ants in the room but we bought some spray and had no problems after that. The walk to the main street, Marliboro Street, took some route and getting used to so our initial adventure out was some mission. When we knew the route it took 15-20 minutes. That day was much longer (1 day, 1 week, 1 month???). We ate locally and cheaply but what was beginning to dawn on us was the serious lack of street food. Now after Thailand where we lived off cheap, high standard food, Indonesia was really beginning to dissappoint in this area. I was also beginning to stress on the fact that everywhere seemed dirty. The locals and residents seemed to have no pride in looking after their local area which had been the same everywhere in Indonesia. Rubbish scattered on the floor and rivers was not what I was expecting.

However, blinkers on which happens so much in most places, we set-off to explore Jogjah properly. We had read and researched about some great things about it that it was worth the blinkers. The first night was the introduction to Marliboro Street. Or the street with the deja vu effect. Down both sides of the road there were shops or market stalls which went in this fashion: T-Shirt stall, Bhatik stall, accessories (Tat), clothes, bhatik, tat, bhatik, tat, clothes etc etc etc.....! Ok at first but by the end of the trip, we were both going insane.

We didnt end up buying anything but we did get a trishaw home. Now the idea is you sit on a normal asian person 2 person seat on the front of a bicycle and you get cycled to your destination. Now I blame my arse and my incredibly muscular legs for the uncontrollable urge Sam had to sit right next to me, cuddled up to thepoint where we would struggle to get out. We then gave our hotel name. But ahh. Newish hotel. And our hotelwas up hill from the street. Poor bloke! Cycled for near enough 30 minutes for around 2 pound. Sweating profusely. Not bad for 50 plus years! Butit was cheaper than a taxi and 5 days quicker than us attempting it back with a crap map.

The next day we planned out our Jogjah time. We decided to stay longer than we thought, 5 nights in total. This was to balance out the spending whilst here on the big attractions. We, Sam, had seen an interesting tour booking place in a restaurant so we thought we would go and get some ideas. Mistake number 1) not realising the distance. Mistake 2) should of checked prices first...too expensive. Number 3) because you have walked so far and cant be arsed with the mamoth task of getting back in mid-day sun, do not do the one thing you promised you wouldn't do again. Get a trishaw!!! The day after nearly killing someone we tried again. The populations too big anyways and he really wanted us to go with him. At least he wasn't 50 this time. We got him to take us to Marliboro as we reckon he probably would have passed out if he had gone all the way. We still haggled for a cheaper price...heartless.

The rest of the day we spent eating and organising the following day. We booked a tour with the legitimate tourist nformation to go the to the ballet the following evening at the hindu temple not far out of the city. The Ramanyana ballet was famous in the area and in Java and was on our wish list. The ballet included looking at the temple before at sunset, taken for food then the ballet. All with transfers and seemed a good deal which it was. We got chatting to some Belgian girls on our ride there and so shared an English speaking guide with them who wasn't really that good at English and lost us so many times on his stories of Rama and the hetchings in the stone. Money wasted then for the Belgians!

The temple was impressive but far more impressive at night, all lit up behind the open air theatre for the ballet. It really was a spectacular scene. Now as we sat down for the ballet, I made the massive school boy error of not reading the plot behind the story line whereas Sam had. The first half which was actually more like the first 3/4's, were hard work. Characters in gold with bow and arrows, women wearing colours, other men who seemed like bad guys but wasn't sure, and monkey's. Lots of monkeys. I imagined it was how people on crack saw eastenders. Lots of arguing and gay fighting! Now I am not homophobic but there was far far too much of choreographed attempted Jet Li martial arts fighting in ballet which passed itself off as gay dance fighting. A gay slap was followed by a limp block which in turn gave a flaccid kick which sent the opponent doing a 'roly poly' ( I will use that term here for effect) and lay there dead!!!! I know if Billy Connolly had watched this it would end up on one of his sketches and become a masterpiece.

We did enjoy the ballet and temple but we had to fit in a no spending day (or low spend) day in after so we did just that. Window shopped and fond cheap food. In fact the best meal for me and maybe Sam at the time, in Java, was the lunch we had that day. For 1 pound 50, we had to share: a steak which you cooked on a little hob yourself, potatoes, veg, rice with 3 types of fish, fish tempre cakes and the largest bowl of rice, noodle, chicken, bean (not baked), veg, tofu, laksa sauce and dried chilli and onion. It was immense and big! Very happy Sam and Dave!!

It was, howver on this day we found out some very exciting news. Sophie and her cousin Bex were on there way to meet us the day after!! After what initially was going to be a Bali thing, quickly turned into a now thing! As you can imagine, Sam was giddy! Christmas Eve giddy. Sam arranged with Sophie to meet on the main street and we would check out Borobudoir together the next day. For the first time ever, Sophie was late! Howver, so were we (standard Sam). But we were stillearly so went to pay for our next part of our journey to Bromo and cught up with Redders and Bex for a morning Coffee. We both really happy to see both fellow Yorkshire folk and enjoy some catching up.

We took the public bus to Borobudoir, which incidently is the largest buddhist temple in the world, and ate lunch before heading in. Agsin, for a temple, this was pretty expensive and unfortunately was not as grand as I believed it to be. I was genuinely gutted but the company was good fun so it did't show! We spent a few hours getting our moneys worth until we headed back.

Once back we ate and headed to a leather shadow puppet show. RUBBISH. Seriously Sam. Rubbish. Sam was keen to go and it costjust over a pound!! Now Soph and Bex had already been to one and didnt show a massive willingness for it but went along with coming along. More for the funnies of how s*&t it was than anything else! Some bits were clever but when a member of the music ensemble falls asleep whilst the show is on, you know your in trouble!

Afterwards we had to part company with Soph and Bex unfortunately but only, hopefully, for a short time only. We spent the rest of our time in Jogjah preparing for Bromo ad what that had in-store for us!