Day 9:  17 May – Day 1: Bye Singapore – Hello Java

(RC) We jumped out of bed at the crack of, well it was a bit past the crack of dawn.  The ride to the airport was easy, Sunday morning traffic combined with the terrific Singapore taxi system and we were there easy peasy.  Changi Airport is terrific, it’s very large, very well laid out, and today very uncrowded. We wandered about with our spare time in desperate search for a Starbucks (hey it has been quite some time for me!). Beanie found a place (not a Starbucks) with a nice, iced mocha and that was fine with her.  

Today is travel day to Java, our first stop in Indonesia.  For Indonesia there is paperwork for entry including obtaining a Visa upon arrival and verification of Covid “vaccination” documentation.  We are flying on Batik Airlines, one of the regional airlines for Indonesia.  It’s an older plane, built in 1995, a Boeing 737, but in good shape.  We boarded with little fanfare, on-time take-off, and voila, a couple hours later we arrived in Indonesia.

In Java we cleared customs and pass the Covid vaccination screening.  The driver from the resort was waiting for us at the airport with a nice, late model Toyota. The ride from the airport was nice, a bit slow, 2 1/2 hours as the roads are mostly two lanes, pretty good condition, but slow speeds are the norm.  

Our trip was also delayed by our request to stop along the way for beer and wine.  Normally one wouldn’t think that is much of an issue, but Java is mostly Muslim so we had to add 30 minutes to our drive, detour thru some back alleys, and know the secret password to gain access to the speak easy that provided “the goods”.  And it was quite the deal - $4 for 8 bottles of beer. All added to the fun of the ride and we arrived without issue at the hotel, bounty in hand.  

The place for "the fix"

It says Pegasus The Garage, but it's really Pegasus the Bar!!

Same Place - Unexpected little island of delight

The Plantaran Borobudur Resort and Spa, link to Plantaran Borobudur Luxury Villa is a  large complex with multiple villas. We are at one of the pool villas with a view of Mt. Merapi and the Borobudur Temple. Next door is a sister property, also very nice, kind of an older colonial looking hotel, with regular hotel rooms.  The owner of all the Plantaran hotels throughout Java is an avid car collector so each property has classic or otherwise notable cars on display.  The shots of the 57 Chevy are dedicated to my brother Doug. Yeah! I know it's a 4 door but a no-post, rag top, coupe is hard to find 12,000 miles away!!

Cherry, quite a bit of after market mods - looks like a small Corvette LT series motor

It hasn't moved in a while - there are jack stands keeping the weight off the tires.

I think this is an old Ford - maybe mid 30s?  Surely somebody will tell me!!

Couldn't figure out what this was - but it's an old Peugeot

This is a classic 1951 Beanie - still in great shape!!

We settled into our villa and it really is pretty nice.  I’ll let Beanie tell you more about the hotel and villa.

(KC)  First of all, I wanted to mention a couple of things about the airport that we flew to in Java.  The new Yogyakarta International Airport is beautiful and super efficient.  We collected our luggage and cleared customs in less than 30 minutes.  It was built 4 years ago but because of covid has had little traffic.  Currently it only has 5 gates, 2 international and 3 domestic, but they have clearly planned it for expansion.  Below are a couple of photos and a video taken mostly when we were at this airport again on the way from Java to Bali.  Yes, it was here that we finally got our Starbucks fix.  They also had a nice lounge. 

What a beautiful sight!

Unexpected pleasure to find a lounge where we had privileges

(KC) Roni, our hotel driver while we stayed at the Plantaran Borobudur Resort, was at the airport to meet us with cold towels, cold drinks and snacks.  He is a very nice young man and we enjoyed talking to him about life in Java and his family during the next few days. He apologized about his English skills but we thought he did a fine job and we were able to communicate very well. We talked about a lot of things including the military on Java.  We passed a couple of military installations and they looked very nice.  He said the military is a very good profession on Java and consequently it is very competitive to get in.  He took the exam but didn't do well and his family doesn't have connections so he didn't make the cut, though several of his friends did. It was very interesting chatting with Roni about his family.  Sometimes we think our families have the dysfunctional market cornered, but that same stuff transcends miles, cultures, and countries.  Once we got to the hotel, we met Meria, our lovely butler – yes, we had a butler!  We are spoiled forever now.  She was very helpful in arranging a golf day for us and also getting our Borobudur Temple tickets ahead of time so we didn’t need to stand in line.  

Me, Meria, and the Bean

Me, Beanie, and Roni

(KC) The hotel is very special. The grounds are lush and beautiful and our villa was lovely. The service was over the top and spoiled us for the rest of the trip – not that it was bad anywhere we stayed!  The villa was large, beautiful and very comfortable with incredible views of both Mt. Merapi (an active volcano) and the Borobudur Temple.  The hotel is built on steep hills as you’ll see in some of the photos which provided us with a good work out every day and great views from anywhere on the property.  We spent the balance of the the first day getting settled into the villa and exploring the hotel grounds.  They have a little zoo with deer, peacocks, rabbits and a few other animals.  We also came by a small house called the mushroom house - yep, filled with bagged up mushrooms!  Below are some photos ( well, okay, a lot of photos) as we walked around the grounds and also of the hotel and villa:

Looking out from the lobby to the Buddha overlooking the front drive way

Our favorite Yoga Pavilion - we walked by it religiously everyday!!

One of the roads in the compound - you can't see the hidden villas 

Dweeb wandering aimlessly - everything is covered with plant life

Resident deer herd -grew from 5 to 22. There are no deer on Java, these are from Bali

Ah the mushroom house - in the words of George Carlin, "yeah, I see it too!"

Pretty good stock of mushrooms. Hope they don't go bad and get fungus on them!!

Here's a few more pics of the grounds and hotel.  Really hard to capture just how lush everything is and how well it's all maintained.

Primary hotel pool.  Some villas also have private pools

Another view of the pool. Pool side entrance to the restaurant is on left

Pool side entrance to the restaurant.  The breakfast buffet was set up here the first morning.

One of several small sitting areas.  This one is upstairs from the lobby

Beanie loved these Indonesian dolls.  Luckily they wouldn't fit in the suitcase!

 

Here's an inept effort of a pictorial walk thru of our villa.  You're lucky I kept Beanie from unleashing the hounds here.   

Front entry way.

View of the Villa from the pool

Living Room

Living Room

And yes, the living room

You can see Beanie milked the 3 year old 45th Anniversary . . . . again!

Different view - huge bed!

Internet cafe location in the villa

Twin sinks & tub, behind is the toilet to the left - shower to the right

View from the bedroom

Pool area

Another view over the forest and valley.  Temple is out there if you zoom in a bit on the left

I have no idea where my beer went! 

Ahh!  Found it!!

Beanie got up at sunrise to get a pic of the top of Mt Merapi before the clouds come in. The volcano is releasing steam and smoke

The way out! Yikes, more steps.

(KC) We ate all our meals at our hotel or the sister hotel, Plantaran Heritage, next door.  The food was excellent and we loved dining at the outside/patio seating areas with a view of the temple and Mt. Merapi for our meals. 

Breakfast buffet set up on deck.  Also order off the menu if desired, but they'll make anything you like

Eggs benedict for the Bean.  Not the best prestation but they were excellent.

Some really, really well prepared salmon for dinner

(KC) Bunnies! On the first morning while we were having breakfast on the restaurant patio, I noticed a small grassy area with a fountain.  There was a basket sitting next to the fountain. While we were eating, two bunnies gradually poked their noses out of the basket, hopped out and started jumping around.  So cute.  Well, the next morning - no bunnies.  Randy ask the waiter where they were and he said there weren't any children at the hotel right now so they didn't bring them out.  Randy said my wife really likes them and ten minutes later here comes the bunny basket!  Now that's good service!  And the bunnies were out there every morning after that!

Yep, bunnies - not for human consumption!

The bunny basket hutch

(KC) Before I forget I have to comment on the call to prayer.  We’ve experienced the call to prayer on loudspeakers when we were in India but nothing like it is here!  Probably because we were on the side of a large hill above the town, we could hear all of the loud speakers from all the mosques in town and it was like a contest to see who could drown out who.  And there were calls to prayer that lasted as long as 30 minutes at 4:30 AM, 7 AM, 11 AM, 5:30 PM and 6:30 PM, though it seemed the times were somewhat flexible.  The hotel does provide earplugs!  Actually we got pretty used to it by the end of our stay though the first evening having dinner on the patio the singing seemed quite intrusive. That may have had to do with that particular singer not being very good.  Here's a short video (be sure to have your sound on).  It was taken from our patio near sunset and doesn't do justice to just how loud it is. 

Day 10:  18 May – Day 2:  Ahh, Golf in Java

(RC) Today we get to experience golf in Java.  We tried to make golf happen in Singapore, but it was just too hard. The golf courses are so busy that they really don’t have too have much customer appreciation for walk-on golfers.  Tee times are booked up days, if not weeks, in advance.  Beanie tried emailing a couple of courses before we left home but no responses.  We called and emailed a couple of courses while we were there but didn’t get much feedback.  If we ever come back to Singapore (perhaps on a layover flight), we’ll probably make it a point to stay at a golf resort and make it a bit easier.

Anyway, back to Java. We’re playing the Borobudur International Golf & Country Club,  http://www.borobudur-golf.com/.  I know, that’s quite a title!!  It’s about a 30 minute drive thru some parts of the town we haven’t seen.  The course is right next to a large Indonesian Military Post.  From the signage around the course it looks like it may have been a course for the military at one time. We got off to a little bit of a shaky start.  First we wanted to play on Thursday to dodge the weekend rate, but we were advised when we got there that Thursday, the 18^th of May, is a Christian holiday.  Well, how are we supposed to know that in a country that is 96% Muslim that “The Ascension Day of Jesus Christ” was a national holiday! No problem, just another 1.2 million rupiah.

Next we asked for rental clubs, AKA “rental sticks” here.  First they sent us to the “Pro Shop” where a very charming young lady tried to sell me a wedge.  Nope, small communications breakdown.  We wandered outside, chatted with another young lady who seemed to understand a little English. I went back inside and when I returned there was a buggy, yet another young lady and the young lady’s boss who was another young lady. There was a set of Taylor Made irons, an R7 driver and 7 wood and a putter that was about 30” long.  I would have liked to have known about the putter before we took off.  But we were on a schedule, it was a beautiful day, and on a golf course – life is good!

The caddie wasn’t very good, though I must admit her English is better than my Indonesian, but all the caddies are cute.  I don’t say that as a sexist pig, its just that it appears they have appearance standards in their hiring.  If you clicked on the link for the course, you’ll notice there’s quite a few pics dedicated to the caddy staff.

Playing the course was kind of interesting.  As I mentioned earlier, the course is next to a large military complex.  I got a little concerned when the OB right on the 3^rd hole had the Live Fire Red Flag flying!  On this particular day it sounded like they were firing a couple of the big boys.  The course itself is what I would call muni grade quality – something like Kenny Mac.

There was a fivesome ahead of us, but their pace of play was excellent.  We were a little slow because we had the caddy drive the cart with the rental sticks and we just walked and enjoyed the round.  The fivesome was also a bit of a party group.  A guy made a putt and started dancing around, then grabbed one of the caddies and start spinning around with her.  It was pretty funny.  When we caught up with them the golfers wanted to take pictures with us and their caddies. Fun group, quick play.  Perfect weather and three hours later we’re done, a good time had by all - sometimes it all works out. 

Just in case you didn't know where you were golfing that day!

Every hole had a distinctive marker.

One of the hallmark holes of the course IMHO

A member of the party group in front of us. He's the one that twirled the caddie around. 

Two caddies from the party group - work isn't work when you love your job!! Guess which caddy got twirled around by the golfer. 

You'd never know you were in the middle of town when you're on this course

There's like five ecosystems on this one tree.

I really have to work on my golf posture.  Maybe it was the 30" long golf clubs!

In a celebrity sighting, Steve Stricker happened to be on site!

(RC)  We got back to the hotel and chilled for a while before dinner.  The resort has a sister property next door. It’s an old style colonial hotel with 75 rooms – very nice.  They have several restaurants, but we opted for the rooftop dinning.  It was a perfect evening.  I should note that the beers of Indonesia are, how shall I say, lacking.  I thought a Manhattan should be the order of the day being it had been an ENTIRE WEEK since that sweet nectar of the gods crossed my lips.  At first it appeared this was not to be – no sweet vermouth, no bitters & no cherries.  I managed to combine all my innovation skills with my incredibly limited language skills - what could possibly go wrong. We ended up with Jack Daniels Black and a spot of cherry liquor. To be perfectly honest, it wasn’t the best or the worst Manhattan I’ve ever choked down, but it came very close to hitting the spot. 

(KC) After a bit of a rocky start (the whole Christian holiday upcharge thing - when we were skeptical about it being a holiday, the manager produced a calendar that had it marked as a holiday, later that night Randy and I decided he probably had a different calendar for every religion in the world ready to use if needed - and that probably covered most days of the week - lol!) we had an enjoyable day of golf.  We found the "secret" pathway to the sister hotel for dinner that evening, which I had read about in a review about the hotel before we left home.  In a later report you'll see how this saved us from a long walk and possibly getting lost in the dark never to be seen again.  For some reason the hotel doesn't like to tell people about the path.   

Day 11:  19 May – Day 3 in Java, Borobudur Temple and Chicken Church

(RC) Today our travels are to the largest Buddhist temple in the world, Borobudur. After that we’re on to the Chicken Church. The Borobudur Buddhist temple is the one we can see from our patio.  It was built around 800 AD and has been damaged by natural causes, volcanic eruption and neglect many times over the past 1400 years.  Rather than stumble through its history, here’s a link that provides lots of info and pictures, link to Borobudur. 

After climbing the temple we headed to what is commonly referred to as “The Chicken Church”  The church was built in 1992.  The basic premise behind it's construction was the builder, a man named Daniel Alamsjah.  He claims he was inspired to build a church in the form of a Dove, but most people think it more closely resembles a chicken.  You be the judge.  More can be found here,  The Chicken Church.

On the way back to the villa, we were thirsty and a little bit hungry so we stopped at a small convenience store.  These little stores are everywhere and are really small cubby holes, maybe 100-200 sq ft.  We got four snacks and a Coke for 6000 rupiah – about 30 cents US.  It’s crazy how low the cost of living is away from resorts and larger cities. We headed back to the villa, popped a couple of cold beers and enjoyed a leisurely late afternoon on the patio.  We came dangerously close to actually getting into the pool, but it was too cold – yep, a couple of wimps.  Another great meal topped off the day.

(KC) Even though Java is predominantly Muslim, the temples that this area is known for are Buddhist and very old.  We will visit three of them but only one today. Borobudur is the largest Buddhist temple in the world and it was our main draw to visit Java  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borobudur .  Well, okay, it was MY main draw as I'm pretty sure Randy had never heard of it.  Thank you Hon for allowing me to follow my dreams!  I was a little nervous that I might not be able to climb up all the steps of the temple because of my knees but with a few pushes and pulls from Randy where the steps were steeper I did fine.  Its a requirement to remove your shoes to climb the temple.  They provide you with new sandals (or, as I call them, how to slip and kill yourself slippers) but I was able to plead my case and got a waiver from the monk in charge that day and was allowed to wear my sturdy tennis shoes.  Thank goodness because I wouldn't have attempted it with the suicide slippers!  

Nope, I did not get soup with these sandles!!

(KC) The temple is amazing.  It was crowded but not overly so.  We deliberately planned on doing it during the week to avoid the weekend crowds.  But, hey, we also planned golfing for during the week to avoid the weekend price and we saw how that turned out.  They have a very efficient system in place now for visiting the temple.  Everyone has to go with a guide in a small group of 8 or less.  This is fairly new and was put in place to keep people moving along and to ensure no damage is done to the temple.  Our group consisted of us and four English speaking people from India.  Our guide spoke pretty good English and was very nice. We had enough time at each level of the temple to look at the beautiful, intricate carvings on the walls  and to take a break from the climb.  The temple is 113 ft tall and made from lava rock.  Almost half of the 504 Buddha statues don't have heads.  The necks are the weakest point on the sculpture and can break easily and Java has a lot of earthquakes because of all the active volcanoes. The heads were also a prime target of thieves stealing them for resale.  You can no longer access the top level of the temple; only monks can go up there during religious ceremonies. This temple is a place of pilgrimage and the Buddhist monks undergoing the Thudong pilgrimage from Thailand arrived at their final destination point in Borobudur on May 31; they left Thailand on March 23. So we just missed seeing the monks. Here's a good link if you want to read about that  Buddhist Pilgrimage .  After the climb down, you're on your own to explore the temple from the ground level. We took our time and walked around the temple.........twice!  Not on purpose, but because at this point we didn't clearly understand that in Java when they indicate Entrance and Exit, they mean it!  We wanted to go out the way we came in (which, of course, was an Entrance) but were politely but firmly told we couldn't exit there, which meant walking around the temple again to reach the Exit (did we mention this is the largest Buddhist temple in the world? - lol)  We had a good laugh about it.  But did we learn anything - no!  This whole entrance/exit thing would come up again in the near future when we are in Yogyakarta. 

Okay, here are the pictures.  You didn't think you were going to get away that easily did you?  

It's a beautiful park area with nicely laid out walkways.  Good spot for my Capt Morgan pose!!

This pic is an effort to show the size of this temple.

We're going in!!

Each of the levels had walk ways all around.

Our guide trying his best to make us smarter!

One of the thousands of carving on every stone all around the temple

More carvings, each of which tells a story. Incredible effort to "reassemble" correctly.

Of the 500+ Buddhas, about half are headless

More carvings.  Many depict battle scenes, monsters, and significant events

The temple has 72 stupas on the top three levels representing Buddha's cycle of life

Couple of really cool and handsome tourists! The is the highest level we have access to.

Good view of the top stupa and Buddha with a head and you know who

This gives you some perspective on the size of this temple.  This is the way everyone approaches the temple and as you can see no more people are being let in for the day

Saying our farewells to our guide before we explored the base of the temple

Hard to get a shot of the whole place 

The kid's moms ask us if they could get a picture of us with their kids - of course we had to have one too! 

(KC) We headed back to the hotel for a quick clean up and then onto the Chicken Church.  I had read about this in a couple of trip reports and it looked interesting and fun.  It was!  What I didn't know is that to reach it you have to climb a set of steep stairs and then there was a tight spiral staircase in the church to climb to the top.  My knees held up fine; I suspect the good knee days are numbered though. The church no longer has church services but it still has rooms set aside for prayers and some were being used while we were there.  Hey, it may not be Borobudur Temple caliber but you have to admit this is an interesting place to say the least.  

Now we know why they call it the Chicken Church.

The interior great room originally used for church services. We head to the front to reach the stairs to the top.

View from the "mouth" of the chicken. Bottom of beak shown.

(KC) Here's a story you may enjoy:  I think Randy has mentioned how throughout the trip we have been astounded how Asian girls (and some guys too, but mostly young women) are totally absorbed with posing and staging for photos.  It's like watching a photo shoot for a magazine.  They may spend a second or two looking at whatever it is they came to see and then a half hour making sure they get just the right photo in front of or beside it.  The church wanted to give us a guide so we and two young Asian girls went into the church together with a young man as a guide.  When the tour was over, the four of us climbed up the spiral staircase to the head of the chicken which is open to see the view.  We were all taking pictures of the views from up there.  Randy ask the girls if they wanted him to take a picture of them together.  They understood and said yes.  We then got to talking and found out they were from Singapore, which explains why they spoke English, as everyone speaks English there.  They ask if we wanted them to take a picture of us together.  Yes.  And they then spent 5 minutes getting us posed exactly right.  They probably took 15 to 20 pictures with our cell phone, not happy until it was as good as it could get with the two subjects they had to work with.  We thanked them and said we had noticed how proficient they were at taking pictures and they said "Of course, we're Asians!"  We all laughed!

Really need to work on my posing!  Even with professional Asian girl counseling!

This is better!  Great views from the top.

Looking from the top of the head back towards the tail.  It really is a huge building.  We didn't find it, but somewhere inside is a small cafe!

Day 12:  20 May – Day 4 in Java

(RC)  Today is a down day.  You really need to recover and rejuvenate when you’re running this level of a hectic, high-pressure way of life.  How better to do so than a walkabout.  The roads aren't really designed for walking but the traffic around the hotel is pretty light so we went for it. I mentioned earlier the owner of the Plantaran hotels is a bit of a car enthusiast so we started by looking at his fleet in support of our hotel.  It's, how do you say, diverse? 

Not sure how that Daihatsu van on the left snuck into the harem. 

Part of the villa owner's truck fleet - one large Mercedes next to me!

Mercedes Big Boy

Really an old Jeep Comanche dressed up like a Gladiator

There were more attractions on the grounds to include a stable with 3 stalls.  Currently they have a beautiful mare and her 4 y/o colt.  She seemed to be torn between wanting pets/attention and being skittish.  We later saw the handler riding her.

Momma Horse - beautiful, she looked pretty regal when she was being exercised.

Yep, winged the colt!!

We ventured off the property with the intent of taking the longer route to the sister property next door.  The route went through what we think are regular to middle class Indonesian homes.  You know, you'd think a couple adults with advanced college degrees could navigate a 3/4 mile walk about, but nooooo!  We walked about a 1/2 mile the way we thought we should go, decided we were wrong, turned around, went back to the fork in the road, walked another 20 minutes, and wound up in the same place!  The good news, it was a little different angle and we could see the hotel on the hillside - target was acquired!!  But, just to add insult to injury, if we had walked another 100 yards from our first effort, we'd have been home free!

All this being said, the walk was terrific.  It was interesting to see the neighborhoods and the people up close.  The locals are very friendly and interested in old, tall Anglos that walk by their doorstep. We also got a bit of a kitty fix.  Along the road we heard some little tiny meows and stumbled upon a section of a 55-gallon drum that had four really new kittens, maybe a couple weeks old, eyes barely open. We took a break to let Beanie hold and talk to the kittens.  Another perk of taking the road less traveled - or as we call it, the correct road.  

We heard the little mews and this was what we found! Safe from any stray animals with mom gone.

I wish she'd look at me that way!  Well, if I was cute and cuddly, maybe she would!

Talk about very young, cute, & noisy!  No! No! I mean the kitten!

It appears that somewhere on Java someone has started up a VW Thing manufacturing plant.  They are all over the island.  Most of the time they're painted  with some bright island colors. They are rented for tours, parties, and just about any fun occasion.  We captured a snippet on our walk.  Enlarge and make sure you have the volume up!!

We finished off the day with sundowners on the patio, another very nice meal at the hotel restaurant, and saying goodbye to Meria and the staff.  If you really, really, want to have a pampered getaway, this is definitely the place to go.  World class service.

(KC) Another nice day.  I love walkabouts and just observing life in ordinary areas in other countries.  This area is comprised of farms and small towns.  There is some international tourism here because of the Borobudur Temple but the vast number of tourists are Indonesian, due not only to the temples, but also the outdoor activities associated with the volcano, the rivers and cooler weather.  Hence the VW Things exploring the mountains and countryside. So many brigades of these passed us on the street and they would always wave and honk their horns at us.  Fun to see.  We saw lots of people working in the farms and rice fields.  And yay, I got my kitty fix.  They were so cute and so tiny.  I ask the lady sitting in the front of the house next door if they were hers.  She didn't really understand me but said "kuching?"  Can you believe it Tom and Glenda, we forgot that the Indonesian word for cat is kuching!  I told her yes, kuching! 

Presumed owner of the kittens. Obviously very interested in us!   Yawn!!!

(KC) Below are some pictures of the countryside and villages on our walk.  The video was actually taken as we were headed to the Borobudur temple I think and is a typical small town here; the building surrounded by the ornate fence is probably a government compound of some kind. We've found that the Indonesian government puts a lot of money into it's gov't buildings and military bases. Many of the family homes looked quite nice, the small farms were very well taken care of and both the countryside and the villages were clean, very little trash anywhere and everyone was very friendly.  Terry and Allan, we didn't see any ranches but did see some cows in a barn, thought you might be able to identify the breed.   

Rice is grown virtually everywhere, in or out of town.

Young man working the fields.  He gave us a wave and hello. I think it was a wave? hmmm

These folks yelled and waved. The field is on the access road to our sister property.

These are chili peppers. The locals do like lots of spice in their cooking!

Typical farm house we passed on our walk about.

Many homes have various livestock and/or chickens.  Can you identify the breed Allan and Terry?

One of the roads less traveled on which we traveled.

Small, local one table restaurant/convenience store.

Another typical house with a guard chicken standing on the clothes line.

Little more upscale place

Can't have too many house pics.

One of many small mosques. Note the loud speaker on top

Spotted this very large, ornate home off a major road.  Beanie recognized it as the one we could see in the distance from our patio 

This is the old entry way to Plantaran Borobudur Resort - we think

A small graveyard in the nearby neighborhood.

Entry to the next province

(KC) We then explored the sister hotel to ours, the Plantaran Heritage.  It has a very colonial feel to it and is quite nice.  We had dinner there a couple of nights ago but didn't explore the hotel then.  Today they were having some kind of fancy luncheon with big wigs going on - lots of security and very expensive black cars lined up.  We were stopped and questioned, nicely, and could tell they were watching us.  I wanted to take some photos of some of the fancier cars with their flags and military looking gold insignia but decided it would be prudent not to do that.  We walked back to our hotel via the "secret" path, uphill but a much shorter route than the walkabout today.  Here are a few pictures of the Plantaran Heritage.

Driveway to the property next door. Note rice fields and gardens on the hotel grounds

Statues and fountains are a primary feature everywhere in Indonesia.

Front of hotel - some big wig government function going on - nice cars!!

A separate hall, quite nice, on site.

Reception area of the hotel. You can see its colonial roots in the décor. Who said that??

More of the lobby area.

The top of the building that looks like a chicken coop is an open air restaurant where we ate after golf.

(KC)  Tomorrow we go to Yogyakarta.  We've really enjoyed our stay here.  I suspect we'll stay at a few more Plantaran hotels in the future.  There's one on the remote west side of Bali next to the national park that I've got my eye on.  Maybe our next Asia trip?

We've included a bonus video of maybe what not to do while traveling.

(RC)  I thought it was BRILLIANT!!!