School Trip to Yogyakarta(Yogya)

Every year a lot of schools here go on something called a Study Tour.  This is basically where some students and teachers go to a different city or area and see some of the important sites and popular places there.

Unfortunately, not all the students are able to go as each student must pay for their own way.  Our school went to Yogyakarta this year.  This is a big city in Central Java, well known for the temples and remains of a big old kingdom that used to rule large parts of the island of Java.  Each student had to pay over 1 million rupiah (which is around $100) which is very expensive for people in small villages to afford.  For reference, an entire meal could be no more than 30,000 rupiah.  This ends up meaning that many students and teachers can’t go.  Which is really unfortunate because there is just no way to get the additional money to go.  The school does not have the money to pay and many of these kids already work for money for their families so there is really no way to make any additional money.

The following was the agenda - which I translated into English- for the 3 day trip:

Day 1, Friday (May 17, 2024)

4 pm	Depart to Yogya via bus
6:30-7:30 pm	Rest Area SR Rajapolah Tasikmalaya (Eat, Rest, Pray)
7:30 pm -12 am	Continue journey to Kebumen
12-1 am	Second Rest Area in Candisari
1-4:30 am	Continue journey to Yogya

Day 2, Saturday (May 18, 2024)

4:30-6 am	Arriving in Yogya, (Rest, Pray, Eat)
7-8 am	Journey to Prambanan Temple
8-11 am	Explore Prambanan Temple
11 am-12 pm	Go to restaurant
12-1 pm	Rest, Prayer, Lunch
1-1:30	Continue to Breccia cliff
1:30-2:30 pm	Explore Breccia cliff
2:30-3:30 pm	Head to hotel
4-4:30 pm	Stop at Bakpia for specialty snack from Yogya
5-5:30 pm	Check into hotel
6:30-8 pm	Dinner at hotel and event for school
8-10 pm	Walk in Malioboro Road
10-10:30 pm	Back to hotel and rest

Day 3, Sunday (May 19, 2024)

7-8 am	Breakfast at hotel
9-10 am	Check out of hotel
10-11:30 am	Go to Mt. Merapi
11:30 am-12 pm	Stop at shop for t-shirts and batik
12-2:30 pm	Jeep explore of Mt. Merapi
2:30-4 pm	Lunch, Rest, Pray
4-6:30 pm	Out of Yogya
6:30-7:30 pm	Dinner in Kebumen
7:30pm - 12am	Journey to Bandung
1-2 am	Rest Area SR Rajapolah
4:30-5 am	Back in Cicalengka and tour is over

That was the schedule and honestly the travel there and back was brutal.  It was about 13 hours one way and the bus was very uncomfortable.  If you thought airplane seats had no leg room, think again.  In this bus I couldn’t even sit straight because my knees and legs were too long.  The seat in front of me was only a few inches from me.  And I was one of the lucky ones.  The person who was supposed to be in the seat next to me had to cancel so I ended up getting 2 seats.  Even then, I am not good at sleeping on the busses so all together I probably got 2-3 hours of sleep going there.  But this sleep was in sets of 10-15 minutes.  Most people in Indonesia can sleep pretty much anywhere and also sleep with any sort of noice.  I do not have that skill set.

Day 2 was definitely a long day, running on only about 2-3 hours of sleep.  The first place we went to was Prambanan Temple.

This is a huge area where there are about 6-7 big temples surrounded by hundreds of smaller temples. It is actually the largest Hindu temple in all of Indonesia. It was absolutely beautiful. Probably one of the most amazing sites I've been to currently. If anyone is interested in additional information on the temple, this is the link to a website about the temple.

https://borobudurpark.com/temple/prambanan/

The next place was Beccia Cliff.  Although it was very beautiful, by this time in the day I was exhausted.  The heat in Yogya is no joke. It was high 90s to almost 100 and the sun was just so intense.  I was just ready to collapse. All the teachers were asking me why I kept buying cold drinks, even though it was so hot!

The Mt. Merapi tour was probably the coolest part after the temple tour.  We couldn’t actually go onto the mountain because at the time it was semi-active and had a restriction on how close you could get to the mountain.  However, our tour was around the foot of the mountain.  There they have a lot of jeeps that take you on tours around the area.  During our tour we went to a mini-museum for an eruption that happened in 2010 and we went to a great look out point where you could see the mountain really amazingly. We then went to an area where there was some water that the jeeps zoomed through and we all got a bit wet but dried off super quickly because of how hot it was in Yogya.