As planned, we will be checking out Ibis Malioboro and checking in Rumah Mertua, somewhat 20 minutes drive away. Before checking out that morning, we walked along Malioboro Street searching for local dishes for breakfast. Since the Mall was scheduled to only open at 9:30am, we had to look for food hopefully from decent stalls along the road. There were many stalls along the road selling Bakso, Bakmi, Lumpia and Es Buah. I really wanted to try the Es Buah and sat at a table on an okay looking stall. We bought two pieces of Lumpia stuffed with quail eggs (Popiah here in Malaysia but eaten with green chili and onions here) to be consumed at the hotel room. We gambled and walked to Malioboro Mall’s food court for a real breakfast but couldn’t find anything decent but a plate of yong-tau-foo like dish.
Malioboro Street in the Morning
Malioboro Mall in the Morning
We took a cab to Rumah Mertua, a secluded yet stylish boutique hotel located 20 minutes from Malioboro Street. We found out about this place from Shah Rambling’s and fell in love with the place right away. True enough, the place was a beauty. The room was spacious, clean and quiet. The people there were friendly too. We were pleased with the staff even when we were booking a room via the Internet.
The Spacious Room at Rumah Mertua
We’ve been looking forward to try their Rijstaffel, a menu set comprising of more than 10 types of dishes served at a very reasonable price. It was like eating a buffet. Thanks again to Shah’s Ramblings for recommending.
After a real heavy lunch, we rested for a while and planned to visit Prambanan. However, since time was not on our side, we changed the plan to visit Kraton. Unfortunately, upon reaching there, we didn't quite have the chance to go in since it was almost closed. We snapped some photos around the Kraton and decided to visit the Beringharjo Market. You could get cheap batik, souvenirs and others things from this market built by the Dutch. We were warned by the cab driver (the same driver who drove us from Rumah Mertua to the Kraton) to be careful of pick pockets in the market. Upon hearing that, without thinking much, we cancelled the idea and then were taken to a batik shop called Bu Karti on Srewedani. It was raining real heavily by then (January and Februaru are rainy season in Jogja). After the Batik shopping at Bu Karti we returned to Rumah Mertua to be served with an excellent tasty Nasi Goreng Jogja dinner at the open air dining area while the rain pours real heavily. Lucky for us Jogja wasn’t affected with flood like Jakarta did at that time
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Around Rumah Mertua
Later that night we decided to go on the Hotel's tour service to Prambanan, Borobudur and Mount Merapi. So, we have to wake up early for breakfast and off we go - it'll be the peak of our visit here to Jogja!
We had a really scary experience on our first night at Rumah Mertua. the place being in the middle of nowhere (the surrounding area outside Rumah Mertua could be real eerie - many trees, very few buildings except for few small houses). I have had experienced similar 'encounters' at home home in Bukit Antarabangsa and at my dad's home in Taman Melawati where I dreamt of seeing a Pontianak/Kuntilanak standing, staring fiercely at us at the foot of the bed. The 'creature' wasn't doing anything to hurt us but was just standing there and staring with her bright saga red eyes. In all occasions I would be really loudly in my sleep, reciting verses from the Quran. Even KN who is a heavy sleeper would be startled and would be waking me up from my sleep. This time I didn;t have to tell KN what happened and we only talked about it during breakfast the next morning.
Jogja Day 4 Entry Tomorrow...
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