Text 19556, 81 rader
Skriven 2014-11-17 19:40:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: Asia 308
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Breakfast was the usual American stuff, but no pork. There
were some Asian specialties, which I went for, including a
beef soup that was considerably better than what the resto
had offered the previous day. Also an assortment of gluey
delicious pastries filled with coconut or ground beans, and
also something I'd not seen before - broken rice baked with
dried shrimp and brown sugar, interesting.

We had hired a driver to take us to see the sights and then
to our next hotel. Turns out that if we'd hired through the
hotel, we'd have spent more, but there was a points special,
and we could have had our trip at half the cost (given the
customary value of Starwood points). We didn't waste much
time over this but stuck with our plan, which probably gave
us a bit more flexibility anyhow.

I was hugely impressed by Prambanan, largest Hindu temple in
Indonesia and one of the largest anywhere, but Lilli was
rather put off by the carnival atmosphere and the sizable
crowds. And the heat. This might have been the first
attraction I've seen where they address the issue of
crumbling infrastructure by issuing hard hats to visitors.

I could have spent all day here, but our allotted 90 min
was a good compromise. We rejoined our driver and then
went and visited the small, pretty Banyunibo temple, after
which we wanted to see the later but supposedly exquisite
Candi Ijo up the way, but the road was closed - first by
piles of brush, which our driver expertly skirted, and then
by an actual barrier about a mile from the site itself. As
it was really hot and sticky, we decided not to chance it
and proceeded to Barong, small dual temples to Vishnu and
Dewi Sri, a little out of the way but very worthwhile.

Next, a semi-excavated palace from about the same period
(9th-10th century) called Kraton Ratu Boko, an extensive
site and at $13 the most expensive attraction in the area.
The reconstructions are sponsored by our Sheraton, which
numerous signs attest to. This is an extensive site and
required a bit of hiking around. As it's a palace and thus
built on a hill, the views are very nice. The excavations,
being in progress, raise more questions than they answer.

At length it was time to go on toward Borobudur, an hour
and change westward; we were getting a little peckish, so
we asked our driver for recommendations for a place to eat.
He pulled us into Sedhar Kedhaton, a bit of a tourist trap
(I'd expected this) and an offshoot of a famous restaurant
in Yogyakarta.

It's a lovely open-air building with smiling attendants in
fashionable native dress. The food is decent.

I had a grilled duck in grandmother's special sauce, a
quarter of a skinny free-range bird, rather tough but tasty,
in a sweetish citrusy-soy glaze; a nice punchy sambal helped
things out a lot and made it go well with rice. There were
also raw vegetables, which I actually ate some of, trusting
that the levels of hygiene were up to standard. They were.
Probably I should have gotten a mutton curry or something, 
in retrospect, but this was fine.

Lilli's club sandwich was pretty standard.

Big Bintang beers were 50000, 4 bucks.

A leisurely, almost interminable though not unpleasant meal,
after which we were two hours overtime and hustled out of
there and to our next accommodation, the Rumah Boedi Private
Residence Borobudur, which though not far off the beaten
path is hard to get to, but not nearly so hard as the driver
who was more or less fine on his home turf but out here was
hopeless, made it out to be. It was sharp-eyed Lilli who
found the correct turn. When we got there and paid off the
guy, he charged us three hours overtime. Fair enough, our
detours had taken us past even more abandoned temples and
other interesting places we'd not otherwise have seen.

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