Malta - Mediterranean Sunshine

 We tried to take a small break and explored the Mediterranean island of Malta. Not many countries in Europe drive on the left like the UK, but the Maltese do; ex-Britisih-colony etc. However, the sunshine and food is not British. 

We stayed in Sliema and travelled on Valetta on one of the days. 

It was a lovely boat ride across the bay.

One could see the St. John's Cathederal from the boat.  

And the Fort St Elmo too. 

The narrow streets of Valetta reminded me on Souther Italy.

The Cathedral had an entry fees of €15/person

The roof was stunningly beautiful

There were some gory scenes.

And, I'm not sure I was ready to watch a beheading. 

We did manage to click some photos.

...and also walked around the 1st floor. The views from here were even better.

And Queen Victoria was pleasantly relaxed in the Med Sunshine.

We also visited some more churches of Valetta. 

This one had lovely paintings inside.

And the roof was nice too.

We went to Fort St Elmo and the four guards were useless at stopping us. They did charge us €10 though.

A CCTV from 14th Century. 

We also found that the Maltese love their wooden doors and windows.

Green and gold goes very well together.

and a Fish Door knocker seems like a good idea.

and growing bougainvillea over your door is even a better idea...

...while some had a massive knocker on a bright blue door.

The next day we went to Rabat and Mdina in central part of the island.

Mdina is an old fort and around 250 people still live here. 

Sunshine brings out the best of us.

..and big smiles too.

back in Sliema we went to the beach.

The next day we hopped on a boat again, but this time on a longer boat ride to Camino and Gozo Islands.

Citadel in Gozo Island is a nice walk up the hill.

Did I mention Med-Sunshine and big smiles?

Another Church in Victoria.

And this had a spectacular Mozaic Art. 

Back on the boat after lunch and we went to Camino to Blue Lagoon.

The little boat ride was nice....

but as we reached the beach and saw no place to keep your towels, we laughed at ourselves "why did we even come to this beach?" 

Overall a nice break, but avoid the crowded beaches if you can.

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!