I have had the chance to dedicate two and half intensive days in this city of central Java to check quite some Buddhist and Hindu temples as well as exploring some breathtaking landscapes inside the land and by the seaside.
As I approached Yogyakarta commonly known as ‘Jogja’, my first concern was to rent a motorbike instead booking rides by GO-JEK over and over again, however I state that it is not such an easy challenge to juggle by scooter then especially when stumbling into several traffic jams in the city of Yogyakarta, it is pretty tiring instead and my impression so far about Indonesian cities is that they might be ones of the most polluted in the entire globe, as a result not a few riders wear a mask for the mouth, most probably you would not see anywhere else outside the SE Asia such a huge number of bikers which are more than cars.
Having said that, keep calm and carefully plan your itinerary: when it comes to the temples just avoid over-planning because the more you plan the fewer will be the chances for you to achieve your target. I personally dedicate one day for visiting the temples and the last day top explore the landscapes on the way to the sea and of course by the seaside too 🙂 If you plan to go for a similar challenge by riding your motorbike, be aware of the fact that the roads in Indonesia (like everywhere in SE Asia) are very convoluted and often seem like labyrinths.
So, if for example you plan to explore four beaches, often there will not be any straightforward connecting road along the sea but instead you will have to ride through hills inside the land to reach the next beach.
Here below a small photographic overview of some landscapes by the sea:
Here a summary of beaches I have explored:
- Pantai parangtritis
- Pantai baron
- Pantai kukup
- Pantai krakal
Naturally, the list of the beaches is much longer, however not all of them are worthy to be checked on the purpose of a great photo-shooting.
What I feel to recommend as first is to start riding between am 8and 9am from Jogja so that you will ensure yourselves that you will have enough buffer of time to explore four beaches at least and then be back by the sunset time which is around 5:30pm, during that day I count that I had ridden for about 150km through altogether and on the way back to Jogja I took a different route since I first rode to the closest beach which is pantai parangtritis and from that point I kept riding much further so that it made sense to return over a different road.
Second thing, if you are not knowledgeable of the routes and you don’t want to fully rely on mapping application then hire a local guy, for 100k Rupiah he will be very willing to drive you without any map navigation which could mislead you from time to time, besides that he will show you what are the key-spots 😉
Last but not the least, be mentally relaxed with the fact that for every parking at the beaches you will always be asked for the parking fee which is between 2.000 and rupiahs (not a big deal), be aware that if you park your motorbike out of the dedicated areas it might be removed: a local guy warned me that to have it back then you may end up paying a huge fine like 15 millions of rupiahs.
Having said that, now its up to you what and how you want to plan it, meanwhile I am keeping to exploring further the Java region, new posts will follow soon, just stay tuned!
Everybody is welcomed to comment!
Giuseppe
PathsUnbeaten@Blog - Travel challenges off the beaten path 