Oh, I'm going Solo-Yogya at the end of the month. Last year Merapi erupt. Then now the Tengger crater. Donno which other volcano is going to erupt.

How much for a double?

OK.

My Lonely Planet says prices start from 285,000 rupiah. This is just under RM100 I suppose. But it's the 2007 edition, so you probably got similar prices when you went. I wonder if there's been any significant increase. But you'd recommend the Manohara would you?

Has anyone been to the Dieng Plateau? I'm flying in to Solo, then will go straight to Yogya from there. Will use Yogya as a base to explore Prambanan and Borobudur (likely spend one night at Manohara). But I'll be there for six nights, so quite likely will try and fit in the Dieng Plateau thingy as well. The only trouble is getting there from Yogya seems to be a nightmare. Or are there any other places within easy reach of Yogya that are worth going to?

the lonely planet says if you take day trip to dieng plateau, most of the time you will be on the bus wan, long way away. I plan to either spend the night there or go to Gunung Lawu.

Wah, I am also thinking of going to the Dieng Plateau and Semarang. At firstht thought want to climb Gunung Lawu, but my travelling mate not keen on too much exertion. Stimix, I think you are mad to do Borobudur and the Dieng Plateau both in one day. Departure 26 Feb. Notchet book anything except my ticket! Hmm, must think about hiring a car, if it is cheap. But if the roads are like North Sumatra hor, pengsan.

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Added on February 18, 2011, 6:33 pmStimix so you confirm liao our Malaysian licence valid in Indon? And you are confident of driving around in Java Tengah???? I might just get a car and drive to Borobudur and the Dieng Plateau. Then Prambanan rent bike, yippeeee.




This post has been edited by PangurBan: Feb 18 2011, 06:33 PM

Er, I've seen all the erotic sculpture in Nepal, jelat liao. I just want to bag another volcano that's all. Quite high this Gunugn Lawu. I'm flying in to Solo, and probably going straight to Yogya from there. Solo will be my last stop before catching the flight back. I still think you're mad to do Borobodur and the Dieng Plateau all in one day. I think doing a day trip from Yogya to the Dieng Plateau is already mad.

oh laidet sound a bit more reasonable liao. Semarang sounds interesting lah - interesting architecture, waterfront, then nearby got a place called Jepara which is something like the centre for teak furniture in that part of the world. I think most of my teak furniture come from there liao!

I might do a circuit - Solo - Yogya (+Borobudur & Prambanan) - Dieng - Semarang - Solo, and if still got time, go Gunung Lawu.

I come back, I will tell you.

ya ya ya just installed the indonesia map on my gps. but a bit hard to navigate on my handheld - too big liao!!

I come back I tell you lor.

I come back I tell you lah.

Aiya mix mix, so jialat. Both of us choose wrong time to go Yogya liao. Rainy season leh, every day rain. And the famous ramayana outdoor dance thing at Prambanan not on - they only got indoor performance. But I can say the roads here are good, and traffic is A LOT more civilized than in north sumatra. I will have no hesitation about driving. Can't tell you anything about the road to Dieng because I'm still in Yogya, but I rode a bike to Borobodur then Kaliurang to try and get a view of Merapi, then Prambanan. Even some ulu-ulu places along the way, the roads were uniformly good; better in some respects than Malaysia liao. If you're heading north from Yogya towards Borobudur or Magelang, you might want to stop at this place just south of Muntilan. Some houses there got half-buried in a mud-flow during the eruption last year and you can still see the half-buried houses and mud and sand everywhere, and lots of people stopping to gawk. Hawkers, people peddling VCDs of the eruption people collecting donations, singing Quranic verses, like funfair nia.

And the entrance fee to Borobudur USD15 and Prambanan USD13 pengsan lah. Prambanan definitely more worth it than Borobudur in terms of sheer impact. And a travel tip. If you're flying in to Yogya, there's a railway station just across the road from the terminal with quite a number of trains every day going to Yogya. The Tugu station in Yogya is just north of the Sosrowijaya area where all the cheapo hotels are. The hotel you book is in this really nice lane about 10 min walk from the railway station and it was fully booked when we walked past yesterday. Looks quite nice.

Mix mix, you better cancel your plans to go to semarang liao. Waste time. The Cinatown there got lots of nice curvy roofs like Malacca, but all the front hor, ugly boxy, functional concrete, like they bom all the front of the shops and then rebuilt ugly way. Got one temple there Tay Kak Sie, not as old as the Ching Hoon Ting in Malacca, but same kind of concept, also recently renovated, so look nice nice. Then got one lumpia stall, suppose to be famous, but most expensive I have ever eaten. Rp 10,000!!! The Old City with all the Dutch buildings is falling into ruins, nobody take care, then I think the biggest colonial building there, the Lawang Sewu, is also collapsing. Then the road going into Semarang is chockablock wif traffic for many many kilometres - you will pengsan driving there. Don't waste time. The worst bit of my experience of Semarang was going all the way to the Sam Poo Kong temple, paying the Rp10,000 entrance, only to find that the entrance to the temple halls in the compund there are all barricaded and you have pay an additional Rp30,000 to get in! Even locals have to pay Rp20,000. Too much liao these people. Some more all the temple buildings look spanking new! There's supposed to be some cave in there wif a statue of Zheng He. One chinaman, probably from Taiwan, sneaked in trhough the barricade, came back out and told us nothing to see, all fake wan.

I will recommend instead from Dieng, you drive straight to Solo and spend more time there and visit the Candi Sukuh with the erotic stuff. Might do that tomorrow liao on a bike. Or you can stop halfway for the night at Ambarawa. Pass there on the bus, looks like quite a nice town in the hills, with a Chinese temple some more. You might consider spending the night at Bandungan nearby. The views from the hills there are supposed to be stunning and got some old ruined temples also.

As for Dieng ah, highly recommended. The gradient is OK until you get to about 10 - 12 km from Dieng. Then it becomes steeper - more like Genting Highlands, but without the sharp switchbacks. And the road surface is quite ok, just a few bumpy bits here and there, NOTHING at all like Sumatera Utara. The only thing you want to worry about is the traffic. Dieng is cold in the evening, so come prepared. Cant' give you any temperatures, boh thermometer, but I had two blankets over me, socks, a t-shirt and a cotton jumper, and a cotton drawstring thingy - OK lah. Make sure the place you stay in got hot water. We stayed in Bu Jono, reocmmended by Lonely Planet. The people there are friendly and helpful, but try not to eat there. Very kwailou taste the food, ugh. But there is really nothing much to eat there anyway. You might try looking around at some of the newer and smarter looking places along the main road, there are a few. The highlight of the trip to Dieng would definitely be going to Sembungan and then walking about 2 km to the top of this hill, Sukunir. If you go there early enough before the clouds and mist come, you will get a spectacular view of a couple of volcanoes, a sea of clouds below, and views of the terraced slopes of Dieng. It's like Cameron Highlands on a vast scale and much higher, with the terraces going in some places all the way to the mountain tops. They plant mostly kentang and kobis there. The disadvantage of this intense agriculture is you get the awful smell of fertilizer there all over the place.

The other place you might want to go to is the Telaga Warna. It's like a watered-down slice of Jiuzhaigou - a greenish pond. There's a trail round the lake, but here's a travel tip - if you don't want to pay the Rp9,000 admission fee to get into the lake, try getting in through the Dieng Plateau theatre - there's somebody there collecting money for some multimedia thing inside I think but nobody at the counter when I got there, and from there, got steps going down tot he telaga warna thingy. It's higher ground than the lake, so you can see the whole thing and appreciate the colour much better than from the lakeshore. The rest of the plateau got some kawah this and kawah that - craters with bubbling mud ponds and poison gas coming out.+

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Added on March 2, 2011, 11:53 pmOh ya. Borobudur ah, the top three levels with the stupas and the buddha statues inside closed for cleaning of the volcanic ash when I was there on Sunday, so didn't reach nirvana liao. Maybe if you're lucky, by the time you get there, they will have reopened the area already. It already looked quite clean when I looked up on Sunday, but maybe there are other conservation works they are still doing.

This post has been edited by PangurBan: Mar 2 2011, 11:53 PM

We took the bus to Dieng. Change four or five times! Didn't rent any cars - took motorbike or bus or taxi or becak all the way, so I can't give you any information about car rental.

I think a 1300 cc car will be ok going up to Dieng, as long as you don't get carried away and buy too many of those buddha statues, pagodas and other stone stuff made of volcanic rock when you drive through Muntilan. Lots of motorbikes on that road, and the road surfaces are all ok. If your car can go up Genting, it can get you to Dieng.

Went to Candi Sukuh today. Highly recommended, in some ways better than Borobudur and Prambanan. It's got a glorious setting high up on the side of the volcano and you drive through some really beautiful scenery to get there - tidy little villages, vegetable plots, groves of trees, and tea plantations, much, much nicer than those at Cameron Highlands. On a clear sunny day like today, the experience can be quite stunning. Candi Sukuh looks really weird in Indonesia - it looks just like an Inca or Aztec pyramid. even the bas reliefs look Inca-Aztec-Mayan. And there are three huge turtles there much like the ones you find in Chinese temples, those holding up stone tablets.

But wait, there is better yet to come. Go further up the mountain to Candi Seto. This one is even better in my opinion than Candi Sukuh and fewer people got here because it's more isolated. The setting is really spectacular and the temple itself is really something. Steep roads, and some bumpy bits.

Don't miss these two, I would say they and their surroundings were the highlight of my entire trip.

This post has been edited by PangurBan: Mar 3 2011, 08:44 PM

Got. If you take the more expensive room at the back, I think got ensuite shower with heater. If you take the cheaper rooms, Rp70,000, you get hot water from a tap into a bucket in the common bathroom, and mix it with some cold water.

Aiyo, pengsan, so ambitious you all. You will pengsan squeeze so much into so few days. Drive here drive there very tiring because no motorway wan and although the road surfaces are generally good, the traffic is a bit gila. And many stretches will be mountain roads, bengkang-bengkok wan.

Oh ya, travel tip Nr 1: Airport tax in Solo is Rp100,000. No idea how much in Yogya. Looks like it varies from airport to airport.

OK travel tip Nr 2: Departure times for trains from Solo to Yogya, calling at the stop in front of Yogya Airport: 06:50, 08:20, 10:25, 11:35, 12:25, 15:05, 16:05, 17:40, 18:35. Travel time between Solo and Yogya is a little over an hour, so I suppose you can expect the train to stop at Yogya airporabout 40-50 min after departure from Solo. The taxi fare from Solo Airport to the city centre is Rp50-Rp60. I suppose you can use that as a guide to the fare for Yogya airport because the distance is about the same. Trains are very cheap though, and like I said in an earlier post, the train stops at the Tugu station, just a short walk from Sosrowijaya where all the backpacker hotels are.

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Added on March 4, 2011, 7:35 pmLosmen Bu Jono: 0286-642-046, Jalan Raya, km 27, Dieng. Good idea to call ahead and book. The place filled up by the end of the day.

Itinerary: Siau.

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Added on March 4, 2011, 7:45 pmDoing Dieng and Borobudur in one day hmmm, very tiring and you're not doing Dieng enough justice. I suggest driving straight to Dieng after getting your car on the first day, and then spend the night at Dieng. This will get you into Dieng latest by 5 before it gets dark. There is nothing to do in Dieng at night though. Just enjoy the cool air and the smell of fertilizer and the azan calls. You will then be fresh and relaxed for an early morning start on Day 2 to go to Sembungan. You might even consider getting there to watch the sunrise; this is apparently de rigeur. Then you have the rest of the morning to visit the Telaga Warna, the Candi Arjuna and a couple of kawah. If you drive back down to Wonosobo for lunch and leave for Borobodur by 1, you should be able to manage a couple of hours visiting time there before it gets dark. Day 3 go to Prambanan, surrounding temples, and Parangtritis. Day 4 go to Solo and the candi sukuh and Cehto. Very packed and tiring I think. I would just save Solo and the temples there for another trip.

This post has been edited by PangurBan: Mar 4 2011, 08:59 PM

Don't forget woh, they close the temple around 5 or 6. At Prambanan, they close at 5, and by six, all remaining visitors they shoo out liao. Anyway, if you are confident you can speak Malay wif a very convincing Indon accent, you can try and get local priced tickets. Damn cheap compared to the USD15 for foreigners.

Oh, another tip, Yogya and Solo brimming wif CIMB branches and ATM. I think if you got a CIMB account, you can withdraw money for free.

Not sure OK, because we went there in the morning; but I think shouldn't be any different from Prambanan. Maybe you can check the opening times from some webpage somewhere. Another thing, the Java map I downloaded from malfreemaps very funny, or maybe my Garmin not behaving well, but EVERYTHING above 900 m in elevation got blotted out by the elevation shading. Everything's fine on my Mapsource.

No woh, I mean after 900 m, the hatching and shading showing the elevation range blot out all the roads and POIs. Cannot see anything liao.