After the backwater that was Cemero Lawang, we were so excited to arrive in Yogyakarta (pronounced Jogjakarta, normally just Jogja), a real city at last!

We spent the four days we had there going for very long walks around the city, apparently confounding the becak (Indonesian tuktuk) drivers, who kept asking us where we were going and whether they could take us there. Batik was the word of the day in Jogja, with everyone trying to sell us some of the stuff - Google image search it, and you come across some really nice examples of batik. Well that's definitely not what was on sale in Jogja - I'd gone there ready to spend lots of money in markets, and ended up spending it all on food instead. (Surprise surprise.)

But to make up for the lack of good shopping, Jogja was excellent for culture. We took a trip to the Buddhist temple Borobudur, the largest monument in the southern hemisphere, according to Rough Guides, and Hindu Prambanan. Borobudur at sunrise (we seem to be getting up before dawn ridiculously frequently for a holiday!) was really beautiful, as was Prambanan, even if we did have to stop off at what was presumably the driver's friend's silver workshop on the way. We also returned to Prambanan the following night for a performance of the Ramayana ballet set against the lit-up temples. A power cut and a few drops of rain didn't stop the show, and nor did the odd dropped or broken prop, and a detailed synopsis of the Ramayana story ensured that we could follow the ballet the whole way through.

This was in quite stark contradiction to the previous night, when we'd gone to a Wayang Kulit (shadow puppet) performance, also of the Ramayana. The shadow puppets were really intricate, and the skill involved in manipulating them was clearly great, but the story was told in Indonesian and after about an hour our attention had begun to seriously wane. Just as we were about to sneak out the back the puppet maker came and sat down next to us and began explaining the story, interrupting himself frequently to tell us about himself. Apparently (we haven't quite managed to confirm this on the internet) he was commissioned by the British Museum to make puppets for an exhibition there, and has also exhibited at a museum in Amsterdam. His three daughters are all medics, living in Japan, Holland and Indonesia, but he seemed a little disappointed at not having had any boys - only they can carry on the family tradition of puppet-making, which he's been doing since he was seven, and has been in the family since his great-grandfather. Also interesting was the fact that he is a devout Muslim, yet has dedicated his life to making puppets for the Hindu epic. All in all, his coming over to talk to us when he did was excellent timing, and the show got much more interesting after that!

Our last stop in Indonesia, Jogja was an excellent place to end, but I'll definitely be returning one day to some of the thousands of islands we didn't quite reach this time round...