Yogyakarta zoo and on to Singapore's attractions

We had an uncommitted day in Yogyakarta, so we went to the zoo! We made a zoo visit in Hanoi a few years ago, and the on-line reviews of this Jogja zoo were positive, with admission only about $4 US each. A 20-minute Grab ride from our hotel and we joined lots of kids at the zoo. 

We did find the animals all appeared well cared for. No scrawny animals, every one had shade and water.

We were impressed with how many interactive activities the zoo had. Kids could get carrots and veggies to feed the huge turtles. 

Owls watched the children warily from their perches.

Several bird enclosures allow zoo patrons to get into enclosures with them, using these hanging plastic-coated chains at the doors. 

This handsome blue guy in that bird enclosure followed us around, mistaking us for a zoo attendant with food. The zoo worker did arrive while we were inside, so it was lunchtime!

This is an Indonesian native, a Sumatran tiger. Sumatra is an island northeast of Java, which is the Indonesian island we are on.  Like all cats, they sleep alot.

The zoo had several different kinds of monkeys, including loud howler monkeys who were screaming at people. This guy was not a howler and just looked pensive chewing the grass.

They didn't have monkey enclosures for patrons to enter. We wouldn't have gone in one of those anyway as we had close encounters with thieving monkeys in the Philippines and Cambodia. The zoo did have an enclosure with lemurs. This ring-tailed lemur walked around us and didn't try to steal. Cute guys!

We walked the entire zoo, but crowds had really thinned out by the time we got to the kangaroos and wallabies as just before that area, the free trams had a stop. Groups of kids and adults bailed out at that time and headed back because of the heat and humidity. 

wallaby, not kangaroo

At the very end, to get to the gate we had entered, the zoo had a very welcome "travelator," an uphill moving sidewalk.

We ended our time in Indonesia with a one-hour drive to the Yogyakarta international airport on Wednesday morning, May 6. It was quite a distance but the traffic, slow in town, was nothing like the Jakarta traffic had been when we arrived in Indonesia. An uneventful flight on Scoot Airlines and a Grab ride to our hotel and we were settled in Singapore. 

Yesterday, we visited the UNESCO-recognized Singapore Botanic Garden. Founded in 1859, this is the only tropical botanic garden listed as a World Heritage site. I had wanted to see it when we were here before, but we ran out of time, so it was our first stop in Singapore. We walked for several hours, going thru most, but not all, of the Garden.

Phillip almost stepped on a lizard on the first side trail we took

lots of trees with varieties of bromeliads

look like mangrove trees, but they aren't

swan on Swan Lake

An area of the Garden was called the "Ginger Garden." It had a huge variety of plants in the ginger family, more than just the ginger we eat.

spiral growth pattern

Walk of Giants was the name of an elevated boardwalk in the Botanic Garden. This is a view of it from a lower platform near a pond. This section of the boardwalk was covered with flowering vines.

In addition to lizards, we saw small squirrels throughout the Garden. 

The main area of the Botanic Garden was free to enter, but its Orchid Garden did require an admission fee. We've been to orchid gardens and nurseries in several other countries, so we didn't go in, but I did take a picture at the entrance of some orchids. 

The Botanic Garden had some landscaped, grassy areas, like this one near the bandshell where symphony concerts are held. 

The bandshell pool had lily pads that resembled platters.

We also saw a lizard trying very hard to tear into a fence surrounding new water plant growth. We think the fence was there specifically for him!

On survival shows, we hear about needles on tropical trees, probably like these wicked looking ones.

Robot mowers were used on the grassy areas to keep them trimmed. Each lawn area one had a couple of these rolling around, quietly mowing. 

Today, we rode the MRT (Singapore's wonderful subway) to the Gardens by the Bay. On our last trip to Singapore, we were only able to visit about 2/3 of the area, so we walked to side we hadn't seen yet. First, a reminder of the Garden's Supertrees.

So many plants and walkways...

And pools and lagoons (contributing to the 90% humidity!)

Fun items are in the Gardens as well. Here's a topiary dinosaur...

These birds walk on the lily pads as they search for bugs.

Another pool with the Marina Bay Sands Hotel visible thru the trees.

This is a different view of the hotel than what we saw during our previous trip.

We made our way back thru the Gardens by the Bay and into the Sands Hotel. Passing thru the hotel, we ended up on the top floor of the adjacent mall.

The mall's lowest level had a pool with gondola rides. (You can see it in the high-floor photo.) The gondola ride was very short and for $15 pp, we didn't think it was worth it.

And finally, a picture of Singapore's Merlion, the city's mascot, part lion, part fish. During our last visit, it was covered for reconstruction. Looking at it from across the Bay now, however, it seems that they let it chew tobacco or something. Not sure what the dark stain is. 

We will be in Singapore until Monday, the 11th, when we travel to Malaysia by bus, so we'll have more Singaporean activities to post. 

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.