How Do You Do!: Wonosari, Yogyakarta Trip

23 September 2012
Today me, my wife, my parents, my aunt and my cousin take a trip to Wonosari, a regency in special region Yogyakarta. Since my cousin took a flight from Jakarta to Yogyakarta, we left Semarang early at 4 o'clock in the morning. We arrived on time at 7 to pick up my cousin, and having breakfast at mbak Diah, after breakfast we're heading straight to kukup beach, Wonosari regency.
Kukup beach is a beautiful beach, with seaweed on the seabed, rocks protected the seaweed, and people can safely explore the soft seaweed. There are some people selling colourful fishes from the reef around there. There's also fried seaweed snack.

Next we're having lunch at Baron beach, the beach is located at a gulf, although the tide is quite high, it didn't prevent some people (mostly boys) to play around, and swim, splashing water. There are some food depots selling seafood dishes, some allowed us to buy fish on nearby fish market, and let them take care of the cooking. After we fill our tummy, we're heading to Ngobaran beach.

Ngobaran beach is approximately one hour trip west of Baron beach, the road is quite rocky in the middle, however when we arrive it's all paid in full with the view, the most beautiful beach we see among the three we visit today. There is a Hindu temple located in this beach, with some statue, taken from javanese wayang characters, such as Arjuna, Semar, Maha Guru, etc, each of this statue present a virtue of javanese culture, such as wisdom, bravery, love, etc. It's quite interesting because before, I've only encountered Balinese influenced Hindu temple in Indonesia before. The temple, and the philosophy behind it made me realised that like other religions in Indonesia, local culture always give certain 'touch', perhaps even simplify local people to grasps its concept.

These beaches are beautiful at daytime, but beware, since I noticed there's little and almost no street illumination, I'm sure it's get nasty in the dark, we left before dark. We already book a night in Wisma Joglo, on Jl. Mayang, near Jl. Sumarwi, Wonosari.

The hotel is clean and quiet. The owner, Pak Bowo is very friendly, and informative, he knows the regency quite well and well connected with other hotel owners, local tour, places to eat, and other tourist's necessities (where to book a car, a motorcycle, etc).

Followed Pak Bowo's advice, we ate at Ayam Goreng Pak Parman, near outskirt of the city. Pak Parman serve mostly fried chicken (ayam goreng) which is noticed as ayam kampung, meaning free farm style chicken (not confined in a cage). It's quite delicious and tasty

Later we went to the alun-alun (in javanese culture this means the city centre, although the meaning is already differ in modern days). Here we saw some decorated bikes, with some colourful LED lamps all over the vehicle. We decide to give it one go, which cost us Rp. 10.000,00 for one bike. three stop lights later, we're back on where we start in the alun-alun.