When you live in Yogyakarta the main form of transportation is naik motor (riding a motorcycle). So, when you're trying to get anywhere for hiking or the beach it averages to 1 to 2 hours away by car or maybe a little faster by motorcycle. What's really amazing is that you can rent a driver for almost the entire day for about 600.000-700.000 IDR ($44-$52). I'm just guesstimating, but it is very affordable especially with a big group like ours for USINDO. For our first field trip, there were about 25 of us so we took two vans and our first stop was Makam Raja-Raja Imogiri, Yogyakarta (Royal Cemetery Complex). This cemetery is sacred because kings and the royal family of the Sultanate of Mataram (Kingdom of Islam in Java) are buried here.
When we arrived we had to go up about a little over 400 steps. It was pretty hard especially because of the humidity, but we all managed. By the time we got to the main entrance I was sweating so much. Everyone said it looked like I just took a shower. It's probably going to take me a while to acclimate to this weather. Anyways, before you enter the main area of the cemetery you must wear traditional Javanese clothing. We (the women) went into a small room to change into our batik where these other women would put on the clothing for us. The batik felt so light and comfortable and walking barefoot into the main area was great. Besides the heat it was an amazing cultural experience.
After about an hour we headed to eat at Rumah Makan Gudeg Yu Djum Wonosari, a traditional Javanese cuisine restaurant. It was really good, especially the chicken. Two hours later we arrived at Pantai Nglambor (Nglambor beach), a relatively new beach in the area with nice rocks to climb and lots of space to stand in the water. I suggest you bring some water shoes though because that coral cut me up pretty bad. The tide comes in pretty early so we had to leave after a couple of hours. I honestly could not stop looking at the sky and I just wanted to lay in the water forever. Two hours later we arrived to a beautiful family style meal at Rumah Makan Handayani (Handayani Restaurant). It was a beautiful day and weekend and I'm so grateful for USINDO for planning this trip for us. Here are some pictures of our adventure.
