After a pleasant, but largely uneventful, train journey through the flat, green rice paddies of Northern Java we arrived in the city of Yogyakarta (or just Yogya). Yogya is a University city with some rich cultural history in the surrounding areas, which are the main tourist attractions.

We spent the night in a nice homestay called Lotus Losman and woke up refreshed and ready to go exploring. We set off and were immediatly caught in Yogya's primary tourist trap, Batik. This is a method of dyeing material using wax and can be used to create some very impressive art work, which is then rather aggresively sold in nearly every second store in Yogya. So we set off to do some sight seeing and somehow ended up in a Batik art shop, I am still not entirely sure how though! The art was rather impressive and we all bought some, in fact I think Damon blew his entire travel budget on a painting of some bicycles. Typical!

After purchasing art (a first for me by the way) we decided to see the Sultans Palace and Water Castle. Unfortunatly the Sultans Palace was closed, so we headed off to the Water Castle. These were basically private baths built for the Sultan and his haram to escape the heat. We were shown around the Water Castle by a supposed friendly local who turned out to be a Batik salesman (unsuprisingly) with a store at the end of the route. This is a common trend in Indonesia (we found more examples in Bali) and can be irritating, especially since it detracts from the genuinely friendly people found outside the tourist areas.

After dodging the Batik salesman we decide to have a look at the bird market. To get there was a 3 km walk and we were running out of time so we took a local Rickshaw (Becak). The way there was slightly downhill and we made it there with no fuss. The bird market is like a massive outdoor pet store. I initially thought the animals were being sold for food, but it was clear that most things there were being sold as pets. There was all sorts for sale, a multitide of different birds, fish, turtles, bats, cats, dogs, snakes, monkeys and even legavaans being touted as Komodo Dragons! There was a giant python in a cage in the center of the market which a local told us is fed a dog once a week, which I didn't really like! The Rickshaw ride home was rather slow, with our poor Rickshaw rider nearly dying peddling Damon and I up the hill!

The following day we decided to hire a car and a driver, which turned out cheap since there were four of us, to take us around the local temples. The first stop was Borobudur, a massive Buddhist temple covered with impressive (and interesting) carvings and statues. We enjoyed an hour or so before the local English teaching school dropped off thousands of 'tourist hunters' (children trying to interview tourists to practise their English) and we had to run away.

Next stop was Mount Merapi, one of Indonesia's most active volcanoes which last erupted in 2010. Unfortunatly it was covered in cloud so we didn't get a good view. We did however see some lava action and some of the damage done to the surrounding area.

It was then onto Prambanan, a nearby Hindu temple. It was really very impressive and we managed some good photos before we were all 'templed out' and decided to head home.

The big question was now 'where to next?'. Damon and I are super bad decision makers so it took a few beers, and Hen and Peter's advice, to decide to fly to Bali the next day. We booked our flights and went off to celebrate a good day. This ended in us dancing the night away to live Indonesian reggae, Damon devouring a entire duck, bones and all, and only 2 hours sleep before heading to the airport for the next part of our awesome adventure.

• Good (and bad) Batik art
• Woman at the bird market washing her bats with a hosepipe
• Toyi-toying to Indonesian reggae
• Pocari Sweat (not what you think)
• Damon looking for crab and ending up eating a whole duck, bones and all
• Even more friendly locals