At 4:30 on the morning of the 26th we all dragged ourselves out of bed, woken up by Eva singing a silly nursury rhyme that her and Louise sang to the children in the nursury they volunteered at. The reason for getting up so early was to see Borobudur temple by sunrise. The journey from our hostel to Borobudur is about 1 hour, and the sun rises at 5:30. So actually we got up very early, to see the sunrise in our bus and then see Borobudur...

Despite me and the rest of the group (the group mentioned in the previous blog) not understanding why we got up so early, we were very greatful as there was very few other people there, and it seemed we had the giant buddhist temple to ourselves. To get to the temple itself you have to walk through parks, and a path lined by trees. At the end is the temple, which reminds me of a large spikey turtle shell, like one on an alegator snapping turtle. The temple has 9 levels, and it is said that you get good luck if you walk clockwise around each level, or something like that. Not really believing in the whole luck thing, we decided to just walk around, looking at the reliefs sculptures, and then went right to the top to see the bells with buddhas inside, and view the surrounding scenery. I could understand why they chose to build the temple on the Kedu Plain. It is surrounded by two twin volcanoes; Merbatu-Merapati and Sundoro-Sumbung, rivers and forests and more lines of mountains that seem to circle and protect the temple. The scenery was by far the most breathtaking factor of Borobudur.

Once we'd taken it all in, we got back in our bus and went straight onto Prambanan: this a Hindu temple and one of the largest in Southeast Asia. As we entered i was approuched by three young Indonesian girls, who were learning about the temple in Jakarta and asked if we would like a tour for free. There was no catch, aside from the fact we had to fill out forms at the end of the tour to assess how they did. There are 6 temples in the Prambanan complex, the tallest dedicated to Shiva: the destroyer, which is 47 metres high. The two smaller ones either side were for Brahma: the creator, and Vishnu: the maintainer. (I think i'd make the biggest temple for the destroyer; wouldn't want to piss him off!) We couldn't go inside shivas because the building wasn't stable after and earthquake rudicing much in the site to ruble, (nice one shiva).

After the two temples, we got back to the homestay at 11:30 in the morning, and spent the rest of the day waiting for an appropriate time to sleep.

The next day, the 27th, Hannah, Louise, Eva and I got up at 6:30, as we had a drive to the Pindul caves to do a bit of tubing. The first was just tubing down a river, with three guides and many photos taken. I found myself being very unlucky and sometimes stupid, because i was constantly knocking my arse on rocks hiding beneath the water. Along the the way there were some good spots to do some jumping, get pounded by a waterfall, and some easy swimming. The second half was in a cave, with a cheerful guide who was a bit picture happy. Anyway we went through these caves, full of bats, stalagmites (said to be a male symbol that apparently gives you strength if you rub it, so no need to pay for the gym membership now), and stalagtites (which for the sake of it being the opposite is a female symbol, but i can't remember whats happens when you rub that one... something feminine and empowering i'm guessing). At the end of the cave it opened out and there was more places to jump. Then the guide now turned monkey, climbed this tree that sticks out over the pool, bounced on it like a diving board, then did a backflip off of it, 15 metres above the water. I thought i'd give this a try, however i didn't turn into a monkey, and got halfway up the tree and got stuck. I decided that it was easier just to fall in the water than climb back down, so i let go of the tree from just lower than the monkey guide, with considerably less grace, and landed on my side and head and gave myself many, many bruises. That night at dinner we met an American who was living in Bali for $50 a month, whilst waiting for a bike to be built, and is now making his own way round Southeast Asia on it; pretty cool huh?

On the 28th we spent the day in Yogjakarta, finding out about the Palace; and their beloved 9th Sultan and Vice President of Indonesia in the 70's, who gain Indonesia independence from the Dutch, got a tour from a random local we met around the water palaces the making of Batiks and Wayang (creepy indonesian puppets). That evening, as it was mine and Hannahs last day in Yogja, we went out for a meal and did the whole adding on facebook, then said by to the group as we had to get up at 3:30 for a flight from Yogja to Jakarta. Luckily it seems we will meet many of the group in Thailand, and now due to Louise getting ill and having to go home, we are meeting Eva in Bangkok and travelling Thailand with her.

We got a flight at 6:50 on the 29th from Yogjakata to Jakarta that took around 40 minutes. We then waited at the Air Asia terminal in Jakarta for 8 hours to get our flight from Jakarta to Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia is an hour ahead of Indonesia and Thailand, because they are well annoying, so we got into KL close to 7. We then got a bus to KL sentral (the main station I think), then a train from KL sentral to BTS station (attached to the main bus termial), then a two hour bus journey down to Melaka, arriving at our Hostel at 11:30 on the evening of the 29th.

The Malaysia blog update will be in a few days, probably whilst we're in Bangkok for the giant water/paint fight that is Songkran, or Thai New Year. Thanks for reading.