Our journey from Bali to Java was of epic proportions. It started at 5.30 in the morning when the owner of our homestay drove us to Gilimanuk, the port at the west end of Bali. We were pointed to a ferry and started the very short crossing to Java. Despite the short distance it took us 50 minutes to get to the other side, with the boat simply stopping in the middle for half an hour. We then made our way to the train station and waited for several hours, as we hadn't realised there was an hour time difference between the islands, meaning it was still six in the morning. It took six hours to get to Surabaya (which was the closest we could get to Malang) for only £10 first class - British rail take note. We then zipped across the city to the local bus station where we were directed to the bus stop for Malang. In surprising efficiency, as soon as the first full bus pulled away another one appeared. We arrived in Malang in the dark and were taken to our hostel in a car which felt like it was about to fall apart and by a driver who did steering wheel acrobatics as he got out, lit, and smoked a cigarette all while driving. We finally arrived, after 14 hours of travel and five different forms of transport, thankful to find that the hostel we wanted to stay at did indeed have space for us.

The next day returning to the hostel from an explore, we awoke the remainder of the dorm with our screams when we saw Ruth (a friend we'd last seen in Wellington) just starting to wake up. We'd known she was in Indonesia somewhere, but were still more than a little shocked to find she'd been in our room the night before. We had a catch up before the two of us headed out to see the sights of Malang. It was here we finally realised that Java would be rather different to Bali. Not only did the entire tourist population consist of the six people in our dorm room, Malang was still (despite our guide book describing it as relaxed and calm) a big city. Suddenly not everything was within a ten minute radius (or if it was it involved crossing massive roads) and as tourists, we were now the exception rather than the rule. After some failed attempts, we finally found the bird market; a long winding street with not only every bird imaginable but also a whole host of other creatures. Rabbits were placed next to desperately groping cats, bats hung upside down and we're fairly convinced that we saw some baby leopards in one of the cages, though they may have just been kittens.

Most people come to Malang to make the long drive to Mount Bromo, and this was why we'd originally come, but on arrival found the price was slightly out of our budget. After two nights we got back on the train for another six hour journey to Solo (Surakarta). We only had a night/day here and so we originally attempted to do as many of the attractions as we could, however as we were quickly discovering, this was easier said than done. We attempted to visit the Karang (the palace) but at every entrance were greeted by large no entry signs. Our next stop was the Batik Museum which we found after a lot of wandering. Though batik is found throughout the country, it's most prevelent in Java. As we were shown around by our guide we were told about the different forms, what the patterns meant and even got to see part of the painstakingly slow process in action.

That afternoon we boarded a local train to Yokyakarta, the tourist centre of Java. We moved hotel during our stay to a more central location where everything we could possibly need was within a five minute walk and we could explore the gangs at ease. One morning we rose at 3:15am to view Yokyakarta, and perhaps Indonesia's, most famous attraction: Borobodur. We'd gone for the sunrise option where you get to see the sun rise over the mountains and the huge temple from a nearby hill. At least that was the idea, in reality we paid 30,000 Rupiah to climb a small hill along with about 100 other people to watch an average sunrise where the temple was invisible, hidden in mist. We made it to the temple and were greeted by a new phenomenon. Unknown to us it was a public holiday and so many domestic tourists had also arrived making the site even busier than normal, with huge school groups, all of whom it turned out wanted a photo with us. Every step our small group took we were accosted by a new set, who would all queue up en mass and individually for their photo opportunity. There are now more photos of us on other people's cameras for this one temple than there are on our own one for the entire trip. What started as a highly amusing novelty, after two hours became a pain. Despite this the temple (which is the largest Buddhist temple in the world) is still an impressive sight. The same afternoon we visited Yokyakarta's own tourist attractions: the palace (seeing many of the same groups of school kids) and then the King's pools. These were not the lovely blue pools we'd been lead to believe by postcards, but were green and sluggish and the gardens resulted in us very nearly getting lost in a multitude of paths. That evening we met up with the people from our tour and later found ourselves driving round a small square (along with seemingly half the Yogya population) in fluorescently lit up peddle cars, all with music blasting. A highly amusing and astonishing sight as we crawled round in our Mickey Mouse vehicle.

The next day we visited the second most popular temple in the area: Prambanan, even if it was after crawling through an hour and a half of traffic. These Hindu temples are to the three principle deities, Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma, and are much more ornate than Borobodur, having been described as looking like hand-carved sand castles. Each deitie has its own part of the temple telling the stories of that God in detailed drawings around the exterior. In terms of decoration, these temples were much more impressive than Borobudur and even reminded us a bit of the dreaming spires at home.

Due to it being a public holiday, we were told that all trains were full for the next week and so the next day waited for a bus instead. The minibus that picked us up had managed to squeeze six rows of seats into a normal size bus (just a sample of Indonesian ingenuity when it comes to space use), making for a rather cosy ride. We made it to Pangandaran, a town on the south coast, for our last beach stop. In the evening we visited the local fish market as recommended by the trusty guide book, however what the guide neglected to include were instructions. We arrived, and chose one of the numerous places at random, then stood awkwardly next to the fish for ten minutes with all staff ignoring us and all punters staring. After watching others order, we felt like we had a slight grip on the process, pointed at two fish, then at the sauce we wanted on the menu (which strangely was in English) and were shown a table. No idea what we'd ordered, after ten more minutes, rice, fish and tea all showed up. It has to be said some of our best meals have just been fried fish, even if you don't know what you're eating.

The next day we'd been asked by someone from where we were staying to come to the beach to talk to some students who were visiting. In his words: "it's time you contributed to the country ". The girls ranged from 15 to 17 and after they'd gotten over the fear of sitting next to us they asked us some questions: How old were we? Did we like One Direction or Taylor Swift? Did we speak Indonesian? Did we have a boyfriend? These were the among the principle enquiries. After lunch with their teacher, we spent the rest of the afternoon lying on the beach.

So that we had a day in Jakarta before our flight, we decided to get our first overnight bus that evening along with another fellow gap yearer from our guesthouse. We arrived earlier than when we'd been told it went, just to be on the safe side and as we waited with no information, we asked others waiting, many of who assured us they were also going to Jakarta. Several buses turned up and our co-waiters got up to leave, as we made to follow suite we were told that this bus just went near Jakarta, that the Jakarta bus would come soon. This went on until we were the only ones of the group left. It eventually did turn up and we started the nine hour journey to the capital. The three of us were woken with a start at 4am to be told we needed to get off as we had arrived. When we finally made it to our hostel we were relieved to find out we were allowed to sleep on the sofas for a few hours. After some rest and breakfast we decided it was time to explore the city. This was hard, as Jakarta is the stereotype sprawling urban city and we found ourselves sprinting across fast moving roads resembling motorways. After a few hours of noise and being unable to find many of the things we were looking for, we gave into our sleep deprivation and returned to the hostel ready for our flight to Kuala Lumpur to renew our visas.