Indonesia - Java
1. Yogyakarta
We landed after a 2 hour turbulent flight (brace position for me - I did manage to bring my head from my knees to watch as the plane flew passed one of the tallest peaks in Indonesia) in Yogyakarta airport which was the most bizarre airport experiences I think we have ever had. We had to pay for our visa on arrival but neither of us had the cash and the only cash machines were outside the airport. We were allowed to walk through the airport to the outside, bypassing Immigration and Security in order to get some cash from the other side. Once the money had been collected we were then allowed to walk back without being checked. It was only after we had paid for our visa that we were searched by security and went through the decontamination process for Swine Flu!!!
We made our way by bus in to the city - very bizarre bus journeys they cram you in to a little hut in order for you to get on your bus - you then have to wait there in the stiffling heat with your rucksack until your bus arrives. When the bus arrives people exiting the bus have to squeeze through the same hut in order to get out - all very tight. Anyway, we made our way into the city without too many problems and found a comfortable guesthouse to stay for a couple of nights. Yogyakarta is the shopping and art haven for Java the high street is one super large market (I don't think there were enough shops in Singapore!). We spent a day mooching around the stalls trying to find a t shirt that would fit Marky's size. Unfortunately for Marky (not for me) the majority of people in Asia are small and their X X X Large is skin tight. I on the other hand was having a ball filtering my money away on t shirts for small people - this added to Marky's frustration!
The greatest issue we had in the city was the number of people attempting to show you in to art galleries to make a quick sale. The sellers would try desperately hard to get you into conversation asking anything ranging from "where are you from" to "have you visited...... " and then sort of snare you in to going to their gallery. It got quite annoying very quickly. In turn, we learnt very quickly how to be blunt but polite in saying no!
The following day we decided to do what we had come to Indonesia, Java in particlar, to do and that was to surf, our first stop on the surfing route was to be Pangandaran.