Yogyakarta Palace & Jomblang Cave

We also got a chance to visit Yogyakarta, they say it: Jogjakarta or Jogja. 

From the flight we could see Mount Merapi.

A small video showing how massive the mountains are. The only place in Indonesia where there are no mountains or volcanoes is Kalimantan. All other Indonesian islands have mountains and volcanoes, it's difficult to ignore them.

Jogja is also the only kingdom in Indonesia. This city and region still has a Sultan. We stayed very close to the palace and visited it one afternoon. 

Location: Kraton Ngayogyakarta Hadiningrat

It was alright.

Once you have been to the palaces of India, the palaces & royalty in other parts of the globe look average and incomparable with the Indian royals.

The Water Palace! 

There wasn't a palace but a green pond. A-V-G!

But, the main reason we stayed in Jogja was for some adventure. So off we went to Jomblang Cave.

Note: A 40 m deep single-shaft with a diameter of 50 m formed by dissolution and collapse of 15 million years old limestone. This occurred after the limestone was uplifted from the sea floor about 1.8 million years ago. Bottom of collapse-sinkhole connected with a horizontal passage that ends at Grubug Cave. Grubug Cave, a single-shaft of about 90 m, is the deepest vertical caye in Java Island. The phenomenon of Grubug underground river and upward view from the bottom is very amazing.

We were 3rd in the queue and didn't realise how scary this would be. 

We were harnessed and ready.

We then saw the staff praying together and wishing us all good luck.

As soon as it was our turn. I was shitting my pants! This was probably the scariest thing I have ever done, apart from skydiving. My legs were shaking and I was having 2nd thoughts. But then we just go with the flow and the whole thing is pretty safe.

I wasn't thrilled at the start, but then the drop was for 30 seconds.

A small group had already assembled. So here we were in the middle of the cave ready to go through a tunnel into another cave. 

The cave was huge. It was probably the biggest one I have ever been in.

The mouth was huge too.

As we started our walk, the muddy path was extremely difficult to navigate. 

It was hot, sweaty, slippery and unsafe. I kept falling.

But, after about 40 minutes, as we reached the 2nd cave and saw the light, it was a wonderful feeling. This cave is called: Grubug Cave.

We spent about 30 minutes there clicking photos. Loved the noise of the river as we admired the light.

Our guides were brilliant photographers too. 

Another photo to show their skills.

...and another.

She looked like the Amazonian Queen who had just landed in the cave from the light!

We clicked some more photos.

And some more light shown upon us.

We got messy and our shoes got dirty.

Trupti was sweaty max.

And our black shoes became brown.

and then we were pulled back up with the rope! Off we went! 

Wow what a day, what an experience, what fun!

The Other Malaysia - Ipoh & Kota Kinabalu

 We also visited Ipoh and Kota Kinabalu. Once you leave KL, you do find a completely different Malaysia. The pace of life is slow, the streets are less crowded and people speak with you. One of the guys told us: "If you want to retire, come to Ipoh, nothing happens here!". We did find things to do and few happenings. 

Ipoh has lots of street murals. 

Kids from different cultures skipping the rope.

Boys being boys..

2025 - year of snake. Happy Chinese New Year!

Indian lady playing the sitar.

Coffee Shops..

Malaysian Chinese Soup restaurants. 

Grandma and the child.

The high jumpers.

Ipoh also has a Little India. Most of the Indians in Malaysia speak Tamil.

We went to a coffee shop called Dekori. The served us coffee with a "Dekori" print. 

Taufufa desert at Dekori was delicious. We had never tasted this before and found that this was made from Soya Beans. Que Rico! 

We also visited couple of Cave Temples in Ipoh. Perak Cave temple and Dong Hua Cave temple. 

After Ipoh we went to Eastern Malaysia. Borneo was very relaxing and more greener than Western Malaysia. We stayed in Kota Kinabalu, this was on the foothills of Kinabalu National Park. We could see the Kinabalu mountain hidden in the clouds.

They had recent floods and we were discouraged to climb the mountain, however we did plan a organised one day trip to the National Park.

Mountains, greenery & clouds.

On the 20 RM Malaysian note, we can see the Rafflesia flower. When in the national park, we got a chance to visit the green patch where this flower was currently blooming. It's more like a mushroom but blooms like a massive Red Rose.

The diameter of this one was around 40-50 cms. The flower blooms for 9-10 days and then dies. 

We hope to visit Kinabalu Geopark sometime in the future, when it would rain less and we would be able to climb it.

In the Malaysian rainforest, it does rain a lot in the forest. And when it rains, it does come down buckets. We did a nice canopy walk in the forest and later it started raining in the evening.  

View from our resort. Malaysian has maintained their greenery in the Borneo! Well done!