BALI - Jogyakarta ON THE ROAD

The idea of off to Jogjakarta with car was coming out of nowhere. It was just a babble on one extremely hot afternoon when me and my other two girl friends (who also my colleges) planned for a long weekend away.
“I am broke, I don’t want to spend a lot of money this time” I confessed
“me too, let`s just find a cheap one” Putri agreed
“let`s drive to Jogjakarta” Ida winked
“How long will it take?” I am interesting
“well, at least 18 hours”
What? Give me a break, 18 hours driving? and not to mention across the island.
And apparently, the conversation was going on and on at the office. Together, we persuaded our project manager to get along with the plan. And guess what, he immediately said yes considering his wife and daughter are  living in Jogjakarta. So 18 hours driving is nothing for him.
Then a week later, on 5th of April 2012 to be precise, there we were starting the trip at 4 pm hoping that we would be breathing the air of Jogjakarta in the next morning.  I was grateful that I haven’t passed my driving lesson yet that I didn’t have to drive but sit nicely and sweetly at the back seat (oops, I hope ida and Pua won`t read this post, otherwise I ll be dead LOL).
I was enjoying every second of it. Having a long trip with great, fun and good hearted people will be so much appreciated. We made fun of the dangdut music that was played so loud at the second deck of the ferry when we across Bali Strait (they even had a huge stage full of colorful lights). And guess what, I consistently heard this kind of music ever since during the trip which made my heart tickled. It seems that most of the Javanese love this music (not all, otherwise the girls would complain LOL).
As the hours slipped by, it was already dark and the nicest thing to do was sleeping. I hugged my cute sweet green kerokeroppi pillow and I guessed i start to snore. from time to time, I half opened my eyes and started to find out what was going on.  I heard nothing but the busy road outside and low volume of soft music from one of the 200 songs that we burnt out on 5 cds . No one was talking; I recalled Ida was driving instead of Pua, then I fallen asleep over and over again until I couldn’t feel the car moving. It stopped, I mean stopped for quite a while. I tried to ignored but I just couldn`t help to find out what was going on. The busy road seemed vanished, no sounds, no lights. WE WERE TRAPPED on a traffic jam.

Sleepy Face

“Ok, it is just for a few minutes” my heart said cheerfully
“It seems like already forever, where goes all the sounds” my mind started to wonder
I sharpened my eyes, tried to look around. Pua sit hopelessly, Putri was still travelling somewhere else in her dream with her eccentric’s position of sleeping and Ida moved her head through the opened window. She might wonder if there was even a little space to insert the car between those huge 20 wheels of trucks (ok, I might be a bit exaggerating here, but seriously, I felt so small among those giant trucks. To be honest, I felt being intimidated). Or, hmmm, I was suspicious if she had any funny or adventurous fantasy at that time considering she always has one LOL. We tried to find out on what was going on in front. We asked some drivers who were still awake but no one knew the reason (oh, to complicate matters, some of the truck drivers decided to sleep on the line, good, because no one would realize that the road in front of him was clear). Nothing is worst when you are being trapped in a traffic jam but you don’t know why.  A lot of speculations appeared. Some people said it was flooding, some said there was accident, and the soon and soon and soon. This situation was going on and on until 6 am. I just realized that we had been trapped for 6 hours. I didn’t know how we went away from it but I woke up again when the road looked normal again. So, long story short , we spent 26 hours to reach Jogjakarta instead of 18 hours. Great…just great.

Sambhisari Temple

Although I slept a lot in the car, but I really missed my quality sleeping.  We agreed not to do anything that night but to chill and regain the energy from driving (for Ida), from sitting and sleeping (for me and Putri), from all laughing, mocking, shouting, gossiping (well I guess for the three of us). I am not mentioned Pua because for sure he would be staying with his family. We were lucky that Ida is also residing in Jogjakarta that we had free nice beautiful accommodation with 5 sweet cats and good tasty food made by her husband.  Anyways, Nothing I would like to have that night but nice strong massage and deep sleep. 75K IDR massage at Djemari was worth spending. I had a full 90 minutes nice full body massage. The therapists seemed to be very well and professionally trained. I can say, this massage was one of the best massages I have ever had. Very recommended (I should ask for commission since I promote them in this blog $).

Kalasan Temple

The next day, Ida took us to two temples near by her house. The fist one was Sambhisari temple which was found on 1966 by one farmer. I will not tell a long story about this temple as you can easily find it on the internet  (or may be it is one of my ignorance on history). The second one is Kalasan Temple, one of the Budhist temple which surrounded by Hindu temples. The story behind this temple was here
The best part of today was lunch at Warung Lalapan Mangut. Nothing was fancy with this warung but the food was really special. I didn’t remember when was the last time I ate a lot. I mean REALLY a lot here. You will not stop eating until you feel your stomach would blow up. I didn’t stop eating until I hurt myself (which is not wise). That`s because how tasty it was.
Another best part of that day was I meet a really amazing person at Vogel Hostels in …….. Mr. Christian, a 60 year old man who is still guiding tourists to hike Merapi Mountain. He had hiked most of dangerous and scary. From our short conversation, I could tell that he is an amazing, strong, fulfilled human being. He said to me that he is getting along very well with mountains especially Merapi mountain. I saw sparkling in his eyes when he talked about mountains. I wished one day I live my life like he does now. Doing and living on something that I like regardless any other condition especially age.
Sunday, 8th of April 2012.

Warung Mangut (minus Mangut)

So this is SUNMOR (Sunday Morning Maket) where Denis wanted to go since we arrived last two days ago. Oh,  Denis is the only child of Ida. She is a sweet and long haired girl. She is only 11 year old but bigger than me. I always smile seeing her fighting and arguing with her dad but in a nice way. I love to see when her dad teased at her. And she would be soaky. What a beautiful relationship between a father and a daughter. Something that I never had .
Anyways, back to SUNMOR. It is a Sunday market held in one part of Gajah Mada University. We can find, literary,EVERYTHING there with a really cheap price. Thousand kinds of good food (hmmm yummy), shoes, clothes, accessories, bed cover, household stuffs, even, what surprised me was LINGERIE (:D). well I was tempted to have some of those though . We spent hours at SUNMOR and I was enjoying those each hours. We decided to go to the movie after finished lunch with Pua and his family at JEJAMURAN Restaurant (I was amazed seeing those gigantic mushroom. Franz would love to go there as he loves watching and admiring on something giant LOL, I remember when you were happily show me those giant pizza in south Africa Franz). We watched WRATH of the TITAN at AMBARUKMO PLAZA. Well, for me it was something fancy as we don’t have fancy theater in Bali. Something that would surprise everyone considering it is a world visited place.  I sweetly closed the day by having another massage and another tasty bubur gudeg.
Monday, 9th of April 2012
“Do we have to go home?” I was mopping
I slowly packed my things and not to forget all my shopping bags. Oh my Goodness, I just realized that I went home with another 2 bags extra.  But amazingly, I didn’t spend that much money compare if I bought those things in Bali.
Well, the trip back home was way better than we came. Nothing to complain except 4 police who realized that we violated the traffic sign and have to throw away 100KIDR to keep their mouth shut.
It was a tremendous and amazing trip friends. Thank you for sharing your joy with me. let`s plan another crazy and funny things to do. Love you all. L

Coming up : MY FAVORITE BEACHES IN BALI..(Stay tuned)