Yogyakarta - Surakarta, The Never Ending Story (1)

My favorite kind of trip is cultural trip and the best cultural trip for me would mean visiting these two cities in Central Java. The atmosphere and ambience of these two cities are always enchanted and charming for me. This is a footnote of my last journey to both cities.

Friday, August 1st, 2008

We skipped a farewell party in my office and went to Bandara Soekarno Hatta in hurry to avoid being trapped in - Friday afternoon as usual - traffic jam. The departure was smooth (we took Mandala Airline FN. RI 342) and arrived in Bandara Adi Sucipto, on 20:25. Riding on a Mitsubishi L-300, we drove along the road to an area outside Jogja known as Dusun Code, Bantul to have our dinner at the famous bakmi Mbah Mo.
This was completely new to me that I couldn’t close my eyes (also because all of us were extremely hungry and the imagination of having your dinner in an ex-cow shed that become an icon in Jogja culinary world was tickling my brain).
I ordered a plate of bakmi godog polos (a portion of noodle boiled in chicken broth with duck egg and some sliced cabbage) and teh jahe panas (hot ginger tea served with crystalized sugar).
Being honest, I couldn’t really enjoy my dish since the stinking smell of the duck egg was very strong (I am not that kind of egg eater) but a glass of ginger tea surely refreshed me. It took twice tooth-brushing to wipe off the scent of duck eggs from my throat.


From Bakmi Mbah Mo we back to Jogja to our hotel in Pakualaman area. I wouldn’t recommend this jasmine hotel, the room was awful (though I slept like a baby that night) but the most disturbing thing was that the waterheater didn’t work at all.

Saturday, August 2nd, 2008

We had toast, a portion of butter and jam, and a boiled egg (again... sigh) with hot sweet tea for our breakfast in the morning.
Then we took a local tricycle carriage (a.k.a becak) from our hotel to start our exploration in the legend Malioboro Street.

Tips No. 1 : Always bargain, bargain, and bargain !!! (Excuse me, don’t ask me to do so, I’m the worst bargainer myself).
Tips No. 2 : Don’t start conversation with local people in Javanese if you don’t speak Javanese at all. You may blink confused and speechless.

I found many street food stall selling local traditional food from nasi gudeg to soto ayam as we strolled along our way to Malioboro.
We stopped at the back part of Pasar Beringharjo. I always love the ambience of a traditional market and I couldn’t believe my eyes as I found some mud cake (a.k.a Kue Lumpur) moulds/(pans ?) sold Rp 15.000,- each. And hey, I could do the bargain !!! I paid only Rp 22.000,- for two mud cake moulds…. I was happy and so was the old guy who sell the moulds.


You will find lots of batik apparel sold in this market but do check the fabrics and the sewing quality. Sometimes with the same price offered you’ll find different quality of fabrics and again, do bargain. I bought some square cut grilled glutinous rice (a.k.a ketan bakar) with a very rich young coconut shredded taste, so yummy instead of its incredibly cheap price.

Couldn’t find what I was looking for in Mirota shop, but still grabbed some batik printed kitchen mitts (too pity there was no batik apron in this shop) and some batik printed small bags for souvenir. The scent of javanese traditional aromatherapy brought tears to my eyes and I sneezed over and over again, hatsyiiii …..

From Mirota we took becak to what they called the real Dagadu t-shirt center., not too interesting exactly, then with the same becak we went to Wijilan to have nasi gudeg for our brunch. We decided to try the famous Nasi Gudeg Bu Lies. It tasted nice but the rawit chilli didn’t satisfy a chilli craver like me.


We stopped by for a while in a little shop inside an aisle to buy bakpia pathuk No. 25 (don't know exactly why they use several numbers like that for their brand) which was tasted delicious but the green bean filling was not as tender as the one given by a friend of mine before. It was almost noon when we reach our hotel to check out, and there it was a rented KIA Travello that would take us to Solo this afternoon.

Glossary :

• Nasi gudeg = sweet taste complete dish made from young jackfruit boiled for several hours with lots of palm sugar, coconut milk, and spices include garlic, shallot, candlenut, coriander seed, galangal, and bay leaves served with white rice, opor ayam , hard-boiled egg, tofu and/or tempe bacem, and sambal goreng krecek
• Opor ayam = chicken boiled in thick yellow coconut milk with some grinded spices incl. turmeric, shallot, garlic, coriander seeds, peppercorn, candlenut, lime leaves, and galangal.
• Sambal goreng krecek = a stew crispy beef skins cooked in deep reddish sauce.
• Soto Ayam = a yellow spicy chicken soup served with vermicelli, slices of boiled egg, ripe tomato, fried potato chips, and emping
• Emping = traditional fried crisps made from the nut of melinjo tree