Yogyakarta

Five days ago, we got on a huge ship called the Marisa Nugerra for a 36-hour sea journey to Semarang on the island of Java. The last time we took a long boat ride was in Bangladesh and, while it was very relaxing, the 36-hour journey took 2 days longer than expected, the overpriced food options were limited to potato curry and rice and any crew member aboard the boat wanted "bahsheeh" (tip) before we got off in Dhaka. What made this new boat experience so pleasant is that it actually took an hour less than expected, the deliciously vegetarian food was included and we had a decently spacious private room with A/C, even though it occasionally shut down for a few hours. And no requests for baksheeh.
We spent our first day onland in the not particularly note-worthy city of Semarang before catching a bus to Yogyakarta, the cultural capital of the island. from this point on, we have decided that we can no longer take long bus rides so that has restructured our planning for the rest of the trip.
Architecturally, the city of Yogya is very quaint. The low level homes have clay tile roofs and the narrow alleyways have been fun to explore during the day. Yesterday we visited the kraton, a Javanese palace built in the 9th century, along with the water castle.
This afternoon, we headed to Borobudor, a magnificent Buddhist temple built in the 9th century as well. There were lots of school groups there, each group more excited than the next to take their photos with us. They were very sweet. We had a delicious buffet lunch overloooking rice paddies.
Tomorrow we will visit Prambanon, some Hindu temples often compared to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, but we will be the judge of that. We will spend the night climbing up the still active Mount Merapi before catching a flight the next day to Bali.
We have made reservations to stay at a very isolated beach bunglaow in a rural town on the east coast of the island. We hope to be able to use that time to unwind as we get closer to getting back. We are going to take a yet undetermined amount of time to have a real vacation from our very busy, at lightning speed travel over the last 9 months.