Solo

I caught a bus from Yogya to Solo and other than walking around in the rain looking for something to eat did not do a lot after arriving late in the afternoon. The following morning after talking to a guy that runs a tour I decided to take a tour and see all the things that I wanted to around Solo rather than taking a couple of days trying to do it on my own.

The tour started with a visit to the Puri Mangkunegaran and then the Kraton. The Puri is considered a palace rather than a Kraton because it is for a King rather than a Sultan. The Kraton and the Puri are for different royal families and honestly the Indonesian royality just really confuses me and rather than reading more to understand I have just given up. This is a picture of the Puri.

After going to the royal houses of Solo we headed into the hills and visited a couple of Hindi temples. The first was up some really steep roads that I was glad I did not have to walk to reach Candi Ceto.

The other people in my tour group were from Germany. It was a lady and her adopted daughter. It was interesting because everyone would speak Indonesian to the daughter since she had been adopted when she was a baby in Jakarta. She has just finished school in Germany and this was her first time back to Indonesia since being adopted. She does not speak any Indonesian so sort of funny that everyones talks to her in Indonesian. Here is a picture of an Indonesian man who ask for a picture with us but for reason he did not want the Indonesian Daughter in the picture.

The second temple was Candi Sukuh and the tour guide said it looked like a Mayan temple and after looking I would agreed but I would have never thought about if he didn't say something.

The temple also had some interesting figures around it. This stone carving is supposed to represent a womb.

The temples where interesting but the drive through the countryside to get there and back where the highlight of the tour for me. Here is a picture of some of the tea fields we went though.