Yogyakarta 2: cooking class, market, and Jeep ride to a volcano

Cooking class! Phillip and I love to take cooking classes as we travel and bringing our destinations home with us. We took one here called Yogyakarta Cooking Class. No fancy name and the food was regular Indonesian food except that the rice was a celebration rice. A driver picked us up at our hotel and took us to a home where our instructor, Arma, was set up in the kitchen with spices and herbs. 

Arma showed us which combinations are used in his cooking to make common spice blends. Shallots, garlic, and candle nuts (same as the Hawaiian kukui nut) mashed together are the white blend. Add red chilis and it becomes the red seasoning. Add turmeric instead and it is the yellow seasoning. With chilis and turmeric, you have orange seasoning. In the next picture, Phillip is grating galangal (similar to ginger). In the left lower corner of the photo, the black item is the Indonesian version of the mortar and pestle, a flatter bowl and differently shaped pestle. Arma showed me how to use it to mash together the herbs for a seasoning blend. 

We did a lot of chopping and slicing in our class, making six dishes. 

The seasoning blend didn’t go in this dish, it is our dessert, putu ayu. These are filled molds, in the steamer pan. 

Once steamed, the molds, tiny bundt pans, were turned over and emptied of their contents. The coconut and palm sugar that Phillip put in the bottom of the molds before I spooned in the batter became the top of the little castle-looking desserts. 

Plain rice is common in Indonesia, but Arma showed us how to make celebration rice, colored with turmeric. Fresh turmeric is used, not the dry, powdered turmeric we get at home. I grated the turmeric for this rice, and my fingertips are still yellow. 

After boiling and steaming the turmeric/rice mixture with lemon grass and lime leaf for more flavor, the rice is pressed in a cone shape for serving. 

We also fried tofu fritters with quail eggs (our appetizer), and made galangal fried chicken (braised in seasoned liquid then fried), steamed vegetables (carrots and long beans – just like the ones I grew on the fence at the ranch garden), and oseng tempeh (fried tempeh, a soybean product, that had a sweetened tamarind glaze). The chicken, vegetables and tempeh were arranged around the cone of yellow rice for serving. All delicious! And, I have the recipes. 

During the following day, we took a Grab to return to the JL Malioboro area. We visited the Beringharjo Traditional Market. This clothing and textiles market has been operating since 1758, although the permanent structure wasn’t erected until 1926. Three floors of clothing with a small food court area selling extremely inexpensive food (less than $1 US for rice and chicken).

A lot of the clothes were batik, probably commercial batik, not hand-painted batik. The quality, however, was amazing. Notice how perfectly the pattern matches on the two sides of these shirts. 

After the market, we walked a bit more thru the alleys off of Malioboro and stopped in the modern mall for air conditioning, a restroom, and iced coffee. Then, a Grab back to the hotel as it was getting hot! The Grabs we’ve taken cost us 18,000-23,000 IDR. I leave a tip of 20,000 IDR and we are still only spending $2.50 US for our rides!

Monday, this morning, we had the Mount Merapi jeep tour. Mount Merapi, about an hour’s drive north of our hotel, is an active volcano. After our drive to the Merapi area, we transferred from a car to our Jeep.

This was not a new Jeep, and we had to stop once for Ayoob, our guide/driver, to adjust something under the hood. He also had to jiggle the key just right to get it started each time we stopped. It did make it all the way, never stranding us. 

Throughout the drive, we saw large clusters of big bamboo. Ayoob said that the bamboo really took off after the 2010 eruption as bamboo grows extremely well in the volcanic ash.

We went to the Bunker, the underground shelter that was supposed to keep people safe during eruptions. Mount Merapi occasionally spews ash and even lava all the time; however, 2010 saw the largest volcano here since 1872. This Bunker even had lava flow into it. Fortunately, scientists had been telling people to evacuate, so most, not all, people had left the area. An entire school, it seemed like, of students and teachers were at the Bunker when we were there. Several kids and teachers did hand slaps with Phillip as we left the bunker and they were entering it. 

Of course, the plan was to see the top of the mountain, maybe even some lava flow. Unfortunately, Merapi is currently at a Stage 4 alert so no one can go within 1.5 km of the top. And… it was cloudy so we couldn’t even see the peak. Oh well, weather can’t be controlled by the tour company. 

From the hilltop where we tried to see Merapi, Ayoob showed us one of the empty riverbeds that had been formed by the 2010 lava flow. 

Our next stop was the museum which had been a doctor’s house before the eruption. It was not damaged by lava, but by the pyroclastic flow, fast-moving currents of air over 800 degrees C that went out 10 km from the eruption. About 350,000 people had been evacuated out of danger in 2010, but 368 did perish in the eruption, most from the pyroclastic flow, not from the lava. This was a melted washing machine from the doctor's house.

The museum had a display of volcano ash, ash that fell up to 30 km away and went over 6 km into the air during the peak eruption of November 4-5, 2010.

Our third stop of the day, and the real reason for the Jeep, was the water play. 

We told Ayoob that a little wet was OK, and he took us thru the river, splashing the water but avoiding soaking us. 

And the final picture, showing we were not soaked.

We have one more day in Yogyakarta before we fly to Singapore. I'm glad we visited this city and saw more of Indonesia. 

Yogyakarta: UNESCO site, ballet show and movie star sighting

After Cirebon, we rode the train again for four hours to Yogyakarta. The train took us southeast across Java (the island we are on), going thru a mountainous area where the rice fields were terraced.

It began raining while we were on the train, a daily occurrence in Yogyakarta.

The Y in Yogyakarta is pronounced like a J, and sometimes the city name is shortened to Jogja. Jogja proper has about 375,000 people, but the metro area has a population of 4 million, still well below the crowds of Jakarta. We took a Grab from the train station to our hotel. The Grab app is not as easy to use as Uber, but I am getting used to requesting rides on it. During our first evening here, we just enjoyed the air conditioning of our hotel room.

On Thursday, we toured the Prambanan temple complex, a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is the second largest Hindu shrine in the world, eclipsed only by Cambodia’s Angor Wat. 

This shrine was built in the 8th century AD, 200 years before Angor Wat. Also, the stone used here is harder than that of Ango Wat, so the details of the carvings are more visible. 

We walked around the main temples and went inside one to see the chambers and their statues. Around the temple, carvings told the epic story that would be presented through the Ramayana Ballet. 

Prambanan is not fully intact. Earthquakes have turned many of the shrines into rubble. Archeologists had separated stones into piles of ruins for the shrines that had fallen over the years.  In the entire complex, 508 shrines have been identified. 

Our tour guide took us to the other side of this main area for another view of the main Shiva temple and the other intact temples next to it.

Our tour included dinner before the ballet, a buffet of Indonesian food. From our outside dining area, under a pavilion, we had a great view of the temple complex when it was lit after dark.

At 7:30 pm, the Ramayana Ballet performance began, lasting until 9:15 with an intermission. Musicians played, five singers sang, and dancers danced. Two screens showed brief plot descriptions occasionally in Indonesian and in English. The story, an epic love story with heroes, villains, and misunderstandings, was secondary to the costumed dancers. My favorite character was the Golden Deer.

Phillip liked watching the monkeys because a small boy, probably about 4 years old, was part of the dancing group. It was cute watching him keep up with the moves of the bigger dancers and avoid being stepped on.

Yesterday, we took a Grab to the Taman Sari, which translates to the Sultan's Playground. Near the palace, this was a collection of bathing pools, ancient walls and even an underground tunnel with a mosque that was used centuries ago by the Sultan and his family. 

The site had three pools. The two above were for his 12 wives and his 24 children and the one below was the sultan's private pool. 

All entrances had low clearance so that anyone entering had to bow. "Watch your head" was the most frequent saying from our guide!

entrance to the tunnel that led to the palace

As a side venture while near the Taman Sari, our guide took us to a coffee house that served civet coffee. I tried it in Vietnam, where it is called weasel coffee. The civets (look like cats with a ferret head but are not in the feline family) eat the ripe coffee beans. They poop the coffee beans out after their stomach enzymes have affected the flavor of the beans. 

civet coffee bean poop (dried)

And the beans are cleaned and roasted to make civet coffee!

It was in this coffee shop that we saw South Korean movie star Ma Dong-seok. The coffee shop owner had customers write in his book, which I did (closing with "live long and prosper"). He approached a man at another table who was initially hesitant. Then thru questioning by the owner, the man explained who he was. I looked him up later and yep, the man was indeed a Korean action movie star, known for his tough guy roles! South Korea's version of Jason Stratham. I did not get a picture because the Mr. Dong-seok was trying to be low-key about his identity. 

We planned to walk to the palace from the Taman Sari, but there was no sidewalk and the motorcycle taxis and tourist vans filled the street from side to side, so for 20,000 IDR (about $1.15 US), we hired one of the motorcycle taxis ourselves for the trip. Unfortunately, long pants were required to enter the Kraton (palace). I, wearing a long skirt, could go in but Phillip declined to rent long pants to enter. So, he sat in the shade and drank a bottle of water while I went in without him. I didn't tour it extensively but did find pavilions full of traditional musical instruments used for a traditional music performance called a gamelan. 

bonangs (pot-looking instruments on left), huge gongs,
drums, and metallophones

After the palace, we walked back to the hotel, traversing the entire JL Malioboro (a famous tourist walk with many, many shops). As it was May 1, May Day, we came across (and avoided) two political gatherings. May Day is workers' day, like our Labor Day, but more political as workers use the day to demand more rights and better working conditions. 

Police, wearing lime green vests, monitored traffic
amid the small crowd at this May Day rally.

This afternoon, we have our first cooking class, which includes visiting a market and preparing an Indonesian meal.  

Train to "Prawn City," Cirebon, Indonesia

We took a 2-1/2-hour, 185-mile train ride from Jakarta to Cirebon. Only two nights here as I planned the stop just to break up our travel from Jakarta to Yogyakarta. We love train travel, more than air or bus travel. Yesterday's train ride did not disappoint. Our seats were roomy and comfortable enough. No security screening, the station signage was clear, and the train left exactly on time. The only difference between yesterday's train and European and US trains is that Indonesia uses narrow gauge tracks.  Instead of 4' 8" apart, the tracks here are 3' 6" apart. Narrow gauges allow tighter curves, smaller tunnels, and lighter rails, making them cheaper to build and operate. The downside is that the ride is less stable, with more swaying and jerky train movements. It wasn't too bad, just a different experience. What wasn't different as we were leaving Jakarta, was the mass of vehicles waiting at the crossings for the train to pass.

Jakarta had a haze across the city. We at first thought it was just from all the cars, but from the train, we saw that locals burn their trash, so part of the haze was actual smoke.

Once out of the city, rice fields were numerous. These fields were nearing harvest, so flags were placed in the field to keep birds away.

Because this is a tropical area, we passed rice fields in all different stages, including the newly planted flooded stage.

We couldn't assume that all flooded fields were rice, because we also passed fish farms. We knew what these are because we were up close to them on a motorcycle ride in Vietnam a few years ago.

Most of the rice fields that were being harvested were done by hand by groups of workers.

We did see a few fields that had mechanical rice harvests. 

Our hotel in Cirebon was just a few blocks from the train station, so we walked to it. In most cities, the neighborhood immediately next to a train station is not the most picturesque. So, Phillip was concerned about my judgment as we walked, but once we turned on the main road, he was relieved to find a really nice hotel. A 3-floor hotel, it had been remodeled in 2025, so it was extremely clean and well-equipped. The lobby and main hallways have koi ponds!

This morning, we walked south on Cirebon's main street for about 3 km to the historic palace area. A portion of the road had the sidewalks elevated by over a foot, with business driveway entrances at street level. We were constantly walking up and down for this portion of the stroll. 

Between our hotel and downtown, we saw a building that had shrimp decorating its fence and walls. This building is the office of the Mayor. Cirebon is a coastal city and that means fishing is a big industry. An official nickname for Cirebon is "Prawn City."

When we entered the downtown area, the sidewalk became quite a bit more crowded.

Before the palace area, we came across the city's Chinatown area.

Cirebon's Chinatown was much cleaner and more pleasant than the one in Jakarta had been. 

We kept walking and made it to the palace area. However.... If you were thinking Buckingham Palace or even Kensington Palace, you would be way off. Four palaces (called kratons or keratons) were built here in the 1700-1800s when the royal leadership split into four royal houses. The Dutch were in control for a while during the city's history as the area was a Dutch protectorate. These four palaces, which were never grand by European standards are today in various states of decay. 

A goat wandering around the palace

According to Google maps, this is one of the palaces.

Each palace had a palace square, which showed on Google maps as a park. This palace square was a concrete slab inside an ornate wall.

Being a bit underwhelmed by what we found so far, I didn't try to find more palaces. Perhaps we just didn't walk to the right entrance or the right palace, but we were hot and sweaty so we headed back toward our hotel. We took a slightly different route and came across different vendors. Used tools, anyone?

Farther down the sidewalk, we noticed a few blocks of jewelry stores. In the same blocks, but not directly in front of the jewelry stores were individual glass cases, about 3 feet tall with a person sitting next to each of them. Visible in the case was just a calculator and a scale. Over a dozen of them along the sidewalk. I used Google and "beli enas" translates to "buy gold." This is where the jewelry stores got their stock, from locals selling their valuables. 

Tomorrow, back on the train for four hours, traveling to Yogyakarta where, among other activities, we have a cooking class!