65 Day: Monday 26th: Yogyakarta

Breakfast was very poor with cold scrambled eggs, white toast and a kind of puried fruit, tea or coffee with no milk. Fruit jiuce was extra like the air con and when it came it was watered down cordial.

After breakfast set off to visited an indoor market, the Sultan's Palace and silver factory in the morning. The market was quite interesting for its shear size. On one occasion Anne got left behind with Mas and for a few moments I was worried for them. What was good was the comradeship of the store holders, porters, etc market workers very much like the markets in Sheffield when I was young. Every isle had a character keeping the place human with their wise cracks.

The Royal Palace was not to my liking and mainly about wealth, privilege and status. The silver factory was quite amazing and dangerous. All the goods were designed and made by the locals and sold at knocked down prices which Anne and John could resist. John more so than Anne, eventually walking away with a considerable bill for jewelry.

We were heading back to the hotel for lunch (not in the hotel) before heading to see a temple. Only a handful of us set off to see the temple. When we arrived we found out that it was Borobodou one of the must see tourist sites on Java. It is a 9th Century Budhist Temple.

From a distance it reminded me of an Inca temple like a very large stone cake three tier high. The walls on each level consisted of stone statues and carvings depicting various aspects of Budha. Our guide was brilliant, being very knowledgable and funny. His name was Budha and he was hoping for enlightenment at some future point. in the after and fish restaurant at night. the site had been seriously damaged by an earthquake and access was limited but sufficient to stand in awe at the massive ediface stood in the middle of a field. The builders had covered it in earth to stop Muslim invaders taking it and it was only discovered 300 years ago. The task of covering it with soil to hide it was remarkable enough but possible understandable.

When we arrived back at the hotel and those who stayed behind found out the temple was Borobodou another argument broke out. The guide didn't think it was important enough to tell us its nameand leighton was not aware. Things improved later when Leighton sourced our evening meal at famous restaurant serving traditional Indonesian food. The food of fish and meats was served on Palm leaves and all agreed it was excellent. This place also had a good live trio playing mainly Beatles and Bob Marley classics. They seemed generally surprised to have customers singing along with them and they thanked us before we left.