Waiting for a bus

A nice lie in meant that my sleeping pattern was a lot better and I welcomed the breakfast of pancake with condensed milk (strange) and fruit and toast. We sorted out the details for our tour to Mount Bromo (a live volcano) that we would be setting off for at 4pm and checked out of the hostel, leaving our bags there until our pick up. 

As we hadn't done much touristy stuff in Yogyakarta we decided to visit the sultan palace. There wasn't really a palace at all. Through the walls you passed little courtyards and then into a central square where a band were playing music under a covered area. Unfortunately, we'd just missed the daily dancing but the band was quite sweet, mainly being elderly people. I was disappointed I didn't get to see a grand palace. Maybe there is one but it's closed off to the public. Otherwise I really don't think it should be called the sultan's palace. 

Next, we tried to go to a museum but it was closed. We didn't have anything else to see so chose to walk back to the restaurant area and go to Via Via (the place with the queue from last night) for lunch. This was ambitious as the walk took us a good hour but we had some time to kill and it's good to see other parts of the city (although they weren't very exciting). I was disappointed with the choice of food on the menu and actually ended up choosing a Mediterranean salad as I was craving greenery. It turned out to be mainly lettuce (cheating me out of proper food) with a few thin strips of aubergine, some sundried tomatoes and feta cheese finished off with a garlic yoghurt. It was all nice but lacked proper substance. I was expecting roast peppers and courgettes maybe. Again, we got cake from a bakery for dessert. I had a yoghurt cheesecake that was actually very tasty. Something to add to my list of things I want to make when I get home. 

We bought a few snacks on our walk back to the hostel ready for the hellish two journeys we had ahead of us. The transport we'd booked will take us to Bromo, arriving at 3am ready for sunrise. We will then walk up Bromo before catching another bus at around 10am to take us to Denpasar (Bali), arriving at about 10pm. A good 24 hours of buses. The bus was a tad early but luckily we were ready for it. It was a minibus and attempted to fill the bus with people and bags (they failed and had to get an extra bus). This meant we had three seats between two of us so we could spread out slightly and attempt to sleep so we were ready for sunrise.