Excellent visit with my family to Yogjakarta, Indonesia, a must see is Borobudur, very ancient Buddhist temple where there’s still lots of unanswered questions.

There’s also Prambanan, very old Hindu temple, Merapi volcano and the Sultan’s Palace.

And off course shopping for batik, finest in Indonesia, handicrafts very cheap and great Indonesian food.

We had a good flight, on time to and fro. Food was pre ordered when I book the tickets, so we got our food first. Only thing we should have bought is the pre boarding, otherwise have to rush with the rest. So if you have young children and elderly, do book the pre boarding it’s worth it. Also pre-purchased the check in bags charges. Everything was smooth sailing.

Many hotels available to cater to various budgets, which I think is great. We decided to stay in small local managed hotel, more like a home actually, with only 11 rooms. We took 1 Family room and 1 Standard room. Pool was nice; landscaping was beautiful, very clean and good breakfast. Hotels is called Rumah Mertua, away from the busy bustling city noise. We liked that. To move around, taxis are aplenty, but we decided to rent an MPV since there were 6 of us. Rental fee was not too bad Rp450k for 10 hours with driver and petrol.

There are 2 shopping malls, the best is Ambarok Mall, newest. The older one is Malioboro Mall, should visit both. Jalan Malioboro is the main shopping street, you can spend the whole day there, Must visit is Mirota Batik, I went crazy there, the batiks are so beautiful and reasonable priced.

Majority of people there are very friendly, especially the sales staff at the shops, always smiling and eager to assist.

With the above experiences, do include Yogja as one of your future destinations for a short break, 3 nights is sufficient.

One of the finest feeling (for me) is to wake up in a foreign country without knowing what's gonna happen and the people I am about to meet for the day. I find that very....liberating :)

Surabaya warms my heart and left a stunning impression after the fortunate event. I wished I'd stayed a little bit longer and get acquainted with the cheerful souls at Hotel Gubeng. But I was too eager to move on to Mount Bromo - my first volcano.

The easiest way (and probably the only way) to get to Mount Bromo from Surabaya is to travel by train to Probolingo and proceed with a bus ride to Cemoro Lawang.

The journey from Surabaya to Probolingo by train took about 2 hours. I was lucky to get hold of the one last remaining executive coach to Probolingo for Rp.110,000. From Probolingo station, it's another 7km ride by becak (Rp.10,000) to the bus station. However, instead of taking me to the bus station, the becak peddler brought me to a travel agent who then arranged a tour to Cemoro Lawang, trekking Mount Bromo and a bus ride to Jogja. All for Rp.300,000.

The 2 hour ride in the tiny 12 seat minivan sandwiched by close to 20 people was utterly unbearable! It's amazing how the minivan was never ever too full to pick up an additional passenger, despite protest from passenger with glaring looks who refuses to make space for the unwanted passenger.

But I guess I wouldn't mind going through the experience if I have to do it all over again, in exchange for what awaits me at Cemoro Lawang. The tea plantations, vegetable gardens, beautiful pine trees and gazillion stars that shines so bright in the sky at night was all so amazingly breathtaking.

With Tugio at Cemara Indah cafe
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