ADVENTURE TO YOGYAKARTA

Sometimes getting out of the jungle is essential.  Apart from encounters with the wild life things are pretty much usually the same day in and day out here.  When hubby announced he must go to Jakarta for work I decided to take Princess Pants on an adventure.  We arrived in Yogyakarta which is often spelled and said in different ways such as Jogjakarta, Yogya, or Jogja for short.  

I would like to say the 45 minute flight from Jakarta was enjoyable but alas it wasn’t.  Somehow as we approached the airport we hit the wake of a training air force jet.  Hitting the wake of another plane creates a rather loud bang and causes a sudden jolt of the plane.  Princess Pants and an elderly woman next to me (along with many others) freaked out. 

As much as I felt panicked I managed to calm both of them down as we did appear to still be flying normally.  The pilot came on and announced the cause (jet wake) and that the air force jets were using the air space and that we needed to go in to a holding pattern.  After an hour of flying in a holding pattern two questions were in my head – “how the hell were we so close to another plane that we crossed its wake and who was in the wrong place – us or the training pilots?  I half expected to see a jet cruise past the wing of our plane.   I had no answers to those questions and when we landed I breathed a sigh of relief.  We had made it safely to Yogyakarta.

Yogyakarta is located in the middle of Java Island, still in Indonesia but a different island to where we call home.  To say I loved it the moment we landed would be a lie, it has the same hot, humid air that feels suffocating when mixed with the dust and fumes of the city.  Walking into the Novotel and feeling the air con was fantastic, sipping a cocktail by the pool was even better.  At the pleading of Princess Pants we left the comforts of the pool and went exploring for the evening.  The sights and sounds of Yogyakarta overwhelmed us as we stepped outside the hotel doors.  We grabbed a taxi and did what I always do when travelling alone, find some interesting little place to eat and watch the world go by. 

As we roamed the city, I had somehow forgotten that I had nine year old Princess Pants with me. Princess Pants grabbed my hand and informed me she didn’t feel so safe wandering the darkened streets.  After a brief conversation she explained that she was worried that if something happened to us, daddy wouldn’t be there to save us.  Hmmmm – I pulled on my super mummy face and promised her I would kick anyone’s arse that gave us trouble.  She laughed, probably like you are but my bravado seemed to do the trick.  This conversation did make me realise that I was no longer a 20 year old back packer able to travel to dodgy cafes and wander dark streets as the desire took me.  I was now a responsible mummy and needed to ensure that Princess Pants felt safe. 

I ditched the dodgy cafe and we headed to a very clean and respectable restaurant, I could see Princess Pants felt a lot happier.  After an amazing sate ayam and Corona (Sprite for Princess Pants) we headed back to the hotel to prepare for our early morning adventure to Borobudur Temple, getting up at 3am was not going to be fun.