Jogjakarta

Since I wasn't able to begin teaching music classes this session, we decided to focus on travel this season.  Once music classes begin, we will be in Jakarta every Saturday morning.  So we spent all of our fall break in Bali, and we jumped out of town again over Veterans Day weekend.  This time we just dropped down south on our own island to Jogjakarta, the cultural capital of Java.

It was another weekend of renting a car and getting lost in rural Indonesia, but punctuated by walks on tiny alleyways, amazing meals, a fabulous hotel and spending some quality time with a few batik painters.

 The old city of Jogjakarta is very touristy, but also 

very much inhabited.  And, I thought, very photogenic.

Ice delivery.  We see this in Jakarta, too.

Another Google Maps fail.  

This was the road to Borobudur, but it

 was definitely not the most popular route.

Borobudur,

the largest Hindu temple in the world

There was a lot of talk of Indiana Jones as our

young explorers checked out this ancient temple.

We fell in love with the hand-painted batiks in

a gallery near our guest house, and so they invited

the girls into the workroom to make their own batiks.

Batiks are made by painting or dripping wax onto stretched cotton.

Then the cotton is dyed, and then boiled to remove the wax.

The wax disappears to leave bright white cloth.

This was our pool, outside our guest house. 

This ranks as one of my favorite places to stay ever.

A public bathroom at the guesthouse.

Here, Sophia thought it would best to practice

walking with her eyes closed.

She ended up soaked, and commented with relief 

that their fish don't bite.