Where you from? Where you go?

Coming from KL and landing in Yogyakarta [Indonesia] was quite an experience, we knew it would be the moment an Indonesian woman tried to climb on our backs waiting to check-in at KL airport! Then when we touched down in the city [one of only two airplanes on the tarmac] we discovered that each visa would cost $25, 20 Euro or a lot of local currency, make that over 500,000 Rupiah... ...not easy to count! Wanting to keep the only 20 euro notes we had, we decided to explain that we didn't have any. Thankfully they took my passport and let me go to an ATM on the other side which meant being stopped rather abruptly by security and trying to work out how many zeros to press on the cash machine! Twenty minutes later Lenaic came looking for me and eventually we got our bags, a taxi and out of the airport! We also discovered a new kind of heat!

Partant de KL nous savions deja que l'Indonesie allait etre une sacree experience! Dans la queue pour enregistrer nos bagages, une indonesienne qui se trouvait derriere nous montait litteralement sur nos sacs a chaque avancee! sympa la proximite et toujours avec un grand sourire! Nous avons atterri a Yogjakarta (Indonesie), petit aeroport (2 avions le notre compris), ou il a fallu payer le visa d'entree. Et la ca a ete un peu complique car nous n'avions ni dollar, ni monnaie locale... expliquant notre histoire a la douane, ils laissent passer Brian en gardant son passeport pour qu'il aille retirer de l'argent au distributeur. Mais nous n'etions pas familiarise avec le ruppiah qui est environ a 13000 pour 1 euro... ca a ete un peu la galere!

Fortunately, the day before we called through and booked ourselves the unknowing certainty of a guesthouse in the southern part of the city, some guesthouse it turned out to be for our first nights in the country! As you can see from the pictures; it had a gorgeous garden with pool, lovely Java Coffee every morning and best of all - the superb staff who worked there and made our stay so great. At a price of 5-7 euros each per day what can you say, Prambanan Guesthouse - it's well recommended by us!

Mais heureusement qu'on avait reserve une superbe guest house au sud de la ville, avec jardins exotiques et piscine (pour 5 a 7 euros par personne par jour) pour nous remettre de nos emotions! Nous avons vraiment apprecie nos premiers jours en Indonesie.

Our time in Yogyakarta was spent walking around the city, relaxing by the pool and visiting Borobudur, a ninth-century Mahayana Buddhist monument. While we were at this famous local monument we were amused by the children and adults who wanted a photo - with us! So we now appear on at least half-a-dozen Indonesian family albums, rather strange but great too! On the way home from Borobudur we stopped off in a beautiful small monastery and took many pictures. We didn't visit Prambanan [another temple] because it was severely damaged in 2006 by an earthquake, in fact much of the city including our guesthouse was reduced to rubble in the same quake - one of the worst to hit Indonesia in recent years.

Nous avons passe notre temps a decouvrir la ville et ses alentours, comme borobudur, un edifice bouddhiste du 9eme siecle duquel on peut voir le mont Merapi (actif)!!! Ce qui a ete deconcertant, c'etait les enfants et les adultes qui tenaient absolument a prendre une photo avec nous... on a jamais compris pourquoi!! on doit bien apparaitre dans une demi douzaine d'albums photos! Nous avons decide de ne pas aller a Prambanan, l'autre fameux temple hindoux des alentours car les 3 principaux temples ont ete endommages par le tremblement de terre de 2006 et sont encore fermes pour restauration. en effet, Jogjakarta a ete devastee par ce tremblement de terre et les photos affichees de notre guest house quasi en ruine font froid dans le dos!

We bought our first souvenirs, enjoyed the quieter streets around the Sultan's Palace and discovered that the becak drivers don't do 'change', even if they say they do! Another thing we had to get used to was the Indonesian welcome as we walked along the streets; "Hello. Where you from? Where you go?" ...all in one go! It was quite interesting to confuse them with "France" and "England" although it often depended how we felt at the time.

They weren't harmful though and everything passed without incident. In fact we found a lot of them to be really helpful and just taking the opportunity to practice their English. There are not so many foreigners in this city and most of them are from the Netherlands or Belgium it seems! A nice 3-day stay to welcome us to Indonesia, open our eyes to the colours and sights while also marking the beginning of our 30 day voyage through the country by land and sea.

Le jour d'apres, nous avons achete nos premiers souvenirs et avons continue de nous ballader dans les petites rues de la ville, surtout dans le quartier du palais du sultan, "Kraton", au marche aux oiseaux puis avons assiste a une demonstration de fabrication de marionnettes faites en peau de buffle. Nous avons aussi vecu notre premiere petite arnaque sur le chemin du retour. Quand on s accorde avec un conducteur de becak (comme un pousse pousse) sur le prix et qu'il nous dit qu'il a la monnaie... et ben faut pas rever!

Sinon les indonesiens sont des gens tres communicatifs, heureux de parler aux etrangers pour pratiquer leur anglais, leur francais ou juste pour aider. nous avons droit toute la journee a : " Hello! where you from? Where you go?" Alors a chaque fois on leur explique, "de France et d'Angleterre" et on raconte notre periple encore et encore! En plus, il n'y a pas beaucoup de touristes pour faire diversion, c'est la saison de la mousson, donc la basse saison! En tout cas, ces premiers jours en indonsie ont ete riches en decouvertes et rencontres et nous donnent le ton pour les 30 jours que ce fameux visa nous procure... affaire a suivre!

Where you from? Where you go?

Yogyakarta, Indonesia