there's just not a whole lot to tell, this time around. we're in jogyakarta, which is supposed to be cooler than it is, but isn't. it's not bad, especially when compared to solo, but there were unusual circumstances in solo, which i'll get to in a minute.
the main activity, i guess, in jogya (as travel hipsters call it) is to visit the sultan's palace, and god bless him for trying, but it didn't do it for us. we lasted about ten minutes before we left. then there are batik markets everywhere, batik being the art of dyeing textiles into intricate blah blah blah i feel like i'm on a 4th grade field trip get me out of this batik market.
the water palace is nice. the water palace was built about 300 years ago by the sultan of the day as a decadent pleasure dome for him and his harem. underground tunnels connect steamrooms, pools, baths and so on, all destroyed many times over by java's frequent earthquakes, but rebuilt for tourists. sarcasm aside, a small city within the city exists around the water palace of narrow alleys, and labyrinthian passages that is actually beautiful. if this section were all of jogya, i would love jogya, but it is not. the rest of the city is a loud, hectic swarm of people, most of whom are trying to get you to go to the batik market.
to escape the madness we took off yesterday for solo, described by lonely planet as a place you might want to go. this turned out to be untrue, at least in our experience. we met a guy on the train who offered to show us to the area where our hotel was. five hours later, despite as many polite hints as we could imagine, he was still latched on to us. it was a complete social hijacking. eventually i had to tell him we were going to sleep just to get him to leave, even though it was only 4 in the afternoon. by the time he left we were so fed up with our time in solo that we checked out and came back here.
and now, we're about to hop on an overnight train to jakarta, where we'll spend a day before flying to borneo. we are both very excited for borneo, because we think it sounds burly to tell people you've been to borneo. i hope you'll agree.