Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Bell-shaped stupa on Borobudur
Our impressions of Yogyakarta
Big, hip city: Yogyakarta is a larger city in Central Java known for being the only independently ruled sultanate within Indonesia and center for Javanese culture. Affectionately known by locals and visitors as Yogya (pronounced “Joe-ja”), Yogyakarta is also known for being at the forefront of progressive art and thought in Indonesia. We felt all of these elements come to life during our time in the city. Of all the places we visited in Indonesia, Yogya felt the most bustling and hip
Spectacular Buddhist and Hindu temple sites on a predominately Muslim Island: The Island of Java where Yogya resides is predominately Muslim (over 85%!). The first calls to prayer booming from loud speakers at mosques across the city at 4:45am, all slightly different and a few seconds off from one another, was a daily reminder of this. Despite this fact, the two most famous religious sites in the area are Buddhist and Hindu temple complexes. Both – Borobudur and Prambanan – are spectacular and were highlights of our time in and around the city. Borobudur and its 70+ iconic bell-shaped stupa structures was one of our favorite religious sites during our travels to date
Tiresome tourist hustle: something we weren’t expecting that we also didn’t enjoy about Yogyakarta was being constantly approached by locals who disguised their commercial ambitions with friendly small-talk and tips on directions. What started with “where are you from?” or “the road is closed there you must go around here” always led to “have you heard of Luwak coffee? You must try my sister’s Luwak coffee over here” or “you must come into my shop and I will show you my crafts here”. We’re usually up for this type of excursion, but we don’t wish to support how Luwak coffee (similar to weasel coffee in Vietnam) is produced and it was incessant to the point of being frustrating during our time in Yogya
What we saw in Yogyakarta
Prawirotaman street: We actually ended up on Prawirotaman street by chance after dropping off our laundry one street over. Historically known as a “backpackers” street, Prawirotaman today is filled with hip cafes, bars, shops and street art. It was the part of the city to us that felt the most hip and artistic. It wasn’t particularly crowded when we visited during the day and at night, but we enjoyed exploring a neat antique shop filled with tin signs sporting old brands and a hip bar up the street for dinner one evening
Kraton: The heart of the city is the ornate 18th century Sultan’s palace complex (still active and inhabited today) known as Kraton. The area of the palace open to the public is peaceful and beautiful. There is also a small but neat museum that highlights Javanese culture through a royal lens. Aside from the palace itself, there are a number of sites and local residents still living on its old, charming, and cramped streets. It is a bit of a “choose your own adventure” type of complex and neighborhood and it was nice to spend a few hours walking the grounds
Taman Sari: Our favorite site in the city of Yogyakarta and the Kraton in particular, Taman Sari is a royal garden and bathing complex that was said to be used by the Sultan for watching his wife and concubines bathe. Interesting history aside, the bath complex itself was very beautiful and unlike anything else we had seen. The ornate building set against the greenish-blue water and blue skies made for a very nice place to pace around
Marlioboro: Marlioboro is a well-known shopping street and neighborhood extending out from Kraton. Outside of the Gudeg restaurant tucked away off one of the side streets, we didn’t much enjoy our time strolling up and down the street. It was mostly filled with malls and souvenir shops and we had an unsuccessful sim card purchase experience facilitated by an entrepreneurial local we would later find out wasn’t even employed by the sim card shop
Temples Tour: The main attractions for most visitors coming to Yogyakarta are two UNESCO World Heritage temple complexes, one Buddhist (Borobudur) and one Hindu (Prambanan) located a good distance outside the city and also from one another. This means seeing both, and on the same day, requires finding a driver or tour to join. We weren’t originally planning on seeing Borobudur since we had read online that they no longer allowed tourists to enter the temple complex as of 2020 (which is really what makes the trip worth it), but saw a few Google reviews trickle in over the last 24 hours that suggested otherwise. We decided to go and try and scrambled to find a last minute driver on Airbnb. We ended up getting paired with Ari, a young photographer and driver from Yogya who ended up being a great driver and friend for the day. He wasn’t a guide, but did the best he could to provide color on the sites we were seeing (even joining us on our last stop to Prambanan to take pictures and explore with us) and make a few impromptu stops along the way like a roadside snakeskin fruit farm and vendor – all while jamming out to Bruno Mars entire discography. The highlights included:
- Borobudur: Borobudur, a 9th century temple known for its iconic bell-shaped hollow stupas dotting the entire top two levels, is the largest Buddhist temple complex in the world. We could not have been more lucky with the timing of our trip to Yogyakarta – just two days prior the local government announced it would begin a trial to take a limited number of people up on the temple complex via guided tour after closing it completely for three years. 50,000 people used to visit and walk the temple complex a day. Now, we would be part of the 800 people a day that visited the temple in small groups during the trial. It was a fantastic experience – they outfitted us with special bamboo sandals fit to our feet and gave us tote bags to carry our shoes and belongings while we explored. Our guide, Latif, lead us up and around each successive level of the temple explaining the reliefs depicting the teachings of buddha. We basically had the temple to ourselves but for one other small trial group we only overlapped with when meandering around the bell-shaped stupas on top. It was one of our favorite temples we’ve seen, the bell-shaped stupas and buddhas are so neat overlooking the valley in all directions, and an absolute treat to get to experience it at all
- Ullen Sentalu Museum: We weren’t given much context for this part of the tour – we were basically dropped off in front of a modern-looking building and told we had 2 hours to explore. We paid for a few tickets and waited in the lobby for what seemed like a guided tour in English to start (but we did not know on what). It ended up being an interesting private museum funded by a wealthy batik producing family that housed two exhibits – a Javanese cultural exhibit exploring different ceremonial dances and a deep dive on the history of Central Java’s royal families (the favorite family members had their own dedicated rooms). The most interesting thing we learned was that the Batik patterns designed for royal weddings became the latest batik fashion adopted by the public. It was a bit odd but also interesting and we’re glad we made the stop
- Prambanan: Our last stop of the tour was Prambanan – a complex housing the remains of some 240+ 9th century Hindu
temples. It was neat to walk the grounds with Ari and see the remains of hundreds of temples scattered throughout. We spent most of our time in the main courtyard housing several large and very well restored temples dedicated to Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma. We felt like some of the only foreign tourists on-site among seas of mostly younger students on a field trip to visit the temple from around Indonesia. It was fun to interact with them and many of the younger women stopped to excitedly ask us (mostly Jessie) for pictures
Where we ate and drank
Sekar Pizza: We were tired from a full day of travel and in search of a late night dinner spot walking distance from our homestay. When the first traditional sit-down restaurants we researched appeared to be closed, we stumbled on a hip looking NY-style pizza joint that looked comfortably crowded and promising. As Doug can attest with his limited but not irrelevant experience with NY-style slices from his time living in NYC, Sekar Pizza’s slice was legit! We had seen and tried many pizza spots on our travels, but none doing it the NY slice way. A delicious and welcome surprise that would make many New Yorkers nod in approval tasting their pizza 10k miles away from home
Mediterranea: Unfortunately for Jessie Sekar Pizza only had meat slices left, so we made one last stop by Mediterranea right up the street. Jessie and her friends had coincidentally dined at Mediterranea 5 years ago during their post-grad trip (confirmed by the fact that Jessie’s wifi auto connected on arrival!). It was a solid and reliable meal of falafel and spinach
Oman Roti Sidomukti: This quaint and cute cafe was the perfect respite from a sweaty and exhausting walk around the Kraton where we were constantly re-routed by “friendly” locals offering directions followed up with pressure to sample their family member’s Luwak coffee. We sat down in two very comfortable chairs, gulped down two large mason jars of iced lemon tea and a local herbal drink, and recharged over a few rounds of cards. The lovely and proud young woman who operated the business appreciated us stopping by and asked us to take a picture on the way out
Gudeg yu djum: Gudeg is one of a few street foods we were particularly excited to try in Indonesia after seeing it featured on Netflix’s “Street Food Asia” episode on Yogya. Gudeg is a slightly sweet braised jackfruit dish served on a banana leaf alongside coconut rice, a coconut curry/chutney, and chicken (though this can be passed on by non-meat eaters like Jessie). We found this local place known for it tucked away off the popular Marlioboro street and it ended up being our favorite savory dish we had in Yogya
Roadside Murtabak: If Gudeg was our favorite savory dish in Yogya, Murtabak was our favorite sweet dish. Ari asked us on our way back into the city from our temples tour if we were interested in trying Murtabak, a dense Johnny cake type dish typically slathered in butter and topped with various sweet fixings before being folded over onto itself. We nodded in excitement and he pulled over next to his go-to roadside Murtabak spot. We watched in shock and awe as the young man behind the fit for purpose Murtabak pan brushed multiple “healthy” scoops of butter across the open-faced pancake followed by sugar, sesame seeds, crushed peanuts, and a half a container full of chocolate sprinkles. It all melded together after he folded the pancake over, cut it into rectangular segments, and plopped it into the to-go container. We shamelessly devoured the whole thing (even though we committed ourselves to only eating one of the 10 or so slices) in the back of Ari’s car – it was sublime and reminded us of Apam Balak on steroids
Till Drop: We weren’t too hungry for dinner after our spur of the moment roadside Murtabak meal, so we resorted to heading back to Prawirotaman street to get some steps in and see the hip backpacker area alive at night. It didn’t end up being as lively as we were expecting, but we did pop into a hip, open-air bar we passed the day before for dinner, Till Drop. The food wasn’t anything to write home about, though Jessie did enjoy her Gado Gado (an Indonesian salad with peanut dressing). The highlight here was listening to the awesome indie music over the sound system and playing a few rounds of cards at the bar table overlooking the street
Where we stayed
Palem Kipas Homestay: we really enjoyed Palem Kipas – it was one of our favorite homestay experiences we’ve had. The homestay was tucked away on a quiet, peaceful residential street that was still walking distance to major sites and Prawirotaman. Our room was nice but nothing special. What was special were the husband and wife owners who reminded us of loving grandparents and the delicious, personalized breakfast they served on the beautiful upstairs open-air dining area every morning. We looked forward to enjoying our breakfast already prepared and sitting wrapped on the table next to our numbered placecard when we left our room each morning we spent in Yogya
