Days Seven & Eight: Yogyakarta and visiting Borobudur Temple

When Rich and I were planning our holiday this year, we knew we wanted to visit South East Asia - but WHERE? Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos? There were lots of amazing things to visit in ALL these countries, but nothing really sparked our imagination.

That was until a friend posted a "top ten placed to visit in 2014" list on facebook - she tagged Rich and I in the post as Christchurch was number two on the list (this friend is in the USA - so she always thinks of us when anything NZ related pops up). We read through the other places on the list, and one of the places that caught our attention was Yogyakarta, Indonesia - I will admit it, I hadn't really thought of visiting Indonesia on our trip. I guess a lot of Kiwis go to Indonesia to party it up in Bali which isn't my scene. However when we read about Yogyakarta it sounds amazing - temples, palaces, so much history! That was it, we were sold! Yogyakarta was added to our list of places to visit in 2014.

I didn't take many photos on our first day in Yogyakarta because - my camera ran out of batteries. However, I did snap a few pictures before it died, I loved this little guy. There was a bunch of fun street art in the city.

On our second day we got up early for a visit to Borobudur - this is one of the two main reasons we chose to visit Yogyakarta.

Borobudur is an 9th Century Buddhist Temple - that alone completely blows my mind.

As you can see,  it was an EXTREMELY hot day - sensible people wore hats and had parasols. But not me "who needs shade when you hair is BLACK?" - I should have TOTALLY had a hat or parasol!

I've visited quite a few different Asian countries and visited a lot of Buddhist Temples, but Borobudur was unlike anything I've ever seen. The most obvious thing being - you can't go INSIDE Borobudur! It's a large stone structure and you can walk along the different levels, but there is no inside.

Each layer of the temple included a lot of different reliefs that told different stories. Climbing up the levels wasn't difficult at all - but the heat was kind of brutal for folks like us that are from a very mild climate. The higher you climbed, the more amazing the views became.

When  we finally reached the top of the temple it was amazing, there really are no words.  It was one of those moments that reminded me why I save my pennies to travel.

On our way back to the hotel, our driver took us to visit a second temple (the name of this temple escapes me right now). It wasn't as big or impressive as Borobudur - but it was still impressive!

 Also Rich had the chance  to swing on a tree - tree swinging isn't for me, so I was the group photographer!

So how were our first couple of days in Indonesia? Completely, mind blowing and amazing and there are so many more Yogyakarta adventures to come!

Day two: Don't Mess with Melaka

The second day of our trip was more relaxing than the first, but only for one reason - it was mostly spent on a train to Melaka in Malaysia.

I'm always a sucker for a train trip! I love trains and we really don't have that many here in New Zealand. It would have been quicker to get to Melaka from Singapore by bus - but we opted for the train. It was a little disappointing though - you didn't really get to see much, it was all plantations.

The other annoying thing about taking the train is that it doesn't actually go to Melaka! So you have to get a taxi from the train station. When we arrived there was a chap only too willing to take us to our hotel in his circa 1970's BMW - it was a pretty amazing  vintage car, too bad it didn't have air conditioning. It took about 45 minutes to get to our hotel from the train station and cost about 80 riggit (about $NZ30).

We arrived at our hotel and it was pretty awesome - such a great room, staff and also look at that view (It's the Wana Riverside Hotel if you're ever in Melaka).

So if you're staying at Wana Riverside hotel what's the first thing you should do? Well check out the river OBVIOUSLY!

There were a lot of murals and street art along the river which made me so happy - I love vibrant art in public spaces.

One of the main reasons we decided to travel to Melaka on a Saturday was so we could attend the night markets, so we decided to head over to Jonker Street.

These tri shaws are all kinds of amazing - they are decked out in the most overly cutesy designs and when it gets dark they play music (usually horrifying pop music) and have lights too. Oh and there are a TONNE of them - its the thing to do around Jonker Street.

Sadly this place had shut down, well it was sad for me. Rich was relieved I'm sure.

By the time we got to the markets things were getting started, but they weren't really in full swing yet.

So we decided we would walk around and head back to the Jonker Street Night Markets a little later on. 

By the time we got back to the markets it was so busy it was impossible to take photos! But I did at least get a photo of my dinner. 

Making important adult life decisions.