I mentioned in the first post on Jogja that we stayed in the Prawirotaman neighborhood, which is popular for first time visitors and westerners with bars, cafes and some international restaurant choices. Our favorite one was a Turkish place (we love Turkish food) that also had beer, and we returned a couple times. Right next to our hotel was a decent, nothing special, Warung that served good Indonesian food which we visited a couple times as well.
The first day I did some walking around our street, which was really an alley, with a lot of boutique hotels and small restaurants.
Most of the neighborhoods have an archway over the main street to denote which neighborhood one is in; here is Prawirotaman’s.
The next day, Jessica was not feeling well so I explored more of Prawirotaman, seeing the bigger streets and more traffic.
One of our last days Jessica and I wandered a bit outside the neighborhood, down narrow pathways that only motorbikes could go; it is super fun to explore though occasionally we run into dead-ends that are people’s homes, and then we smile, apologize, and say hello.
I mentioned in my Marliboro post that a local musician had told us to visit the Batik Village, where real Batik art is created, so we did. We went to Leksa Ganesha Batik, which has a gallery and even allows visitors to make their own Batik art. We were shown around the gallery and taught about the Batik creation process, and even saw the women creating the art!
We chose to buy a piece instead of trying to make our own; it is the perfect souvenir for our travels as they remove it from the wood frame and fold it up very small so it takes up barely any room in our bag. Note, that if buying authentic Batik art, is that it is see-through, as you can see the light through the one Jessica is holding below.
After we left the gallery we stopped by a local cafe named the Cafe Lotus; they had a peaceful lotus pond in front of a massive banyan tree, and at their hotel, a peaceful garden with a traditional Javanese building.
We were in the Tembi neighborhood, and we walked and got lost, past rice fields, a cemetery, a mosque, and different homes; some really nice, others somewhat odd, but all unique in their own way.
We also saw some beautiful flowers, including orchids.
Another day we visited the more popular Kotagede neighborhood; we had the taxi driver drop us off at the market; but not much was happening there and we were a bit confused.
We did see some vendors selling snacks outside the market, so bought some, and found a coffee shop to get some drinks to enjoy with our snacks.
We continued on, finding ourself on a thin street and in the area of Kampung Pusaka (or the Heritage Village). We saw a lot of street art on the way.
Right around the corner was the “Between Two Gates” in Alun-Alun Village. It is a more popular tourist spot in Jogja, but this day it was just us and a small group of women who were walking down the narrow path in between the historic buildings.
We left Between Two Gates, and explored more of Kotagede. While it was another hot day, it was so cool to wander the streets, saying hello to people as we passed; many kids being excited to see us, waving and saying “hello” in English, and seeing a neighborhood foreign, yet welcoming, to us. We walked passed a park, a mosque, a cemetery, a bus stop, roosters and chickens, bonsai trees, rice fields, and many homes. A group of boys, without smiling, followed us on their bikes, making sure we were on the up and up in their neighborhood, until we passed where their parent would allow them to go. A group of young kids kept waving at us as we took refuge from the sun at an old bus stop, playing a bit of peek-a-boo around corners.
We had the most fun walking around different neighborhoods in Jogja and if given the opportunity, I highly recommend picking any of the ones we saw, and getting lost. It made our visit to Jogja so much better. Next up, our visit to the famous Prambalan Temple!
Phil's WayPastCool 