YY IV: Two Castles and A Volcano
Kraton II Swiped from williamnyk . Breakfast at Duta Garden was nothing special. But still, we were the guests who spent the longest time there. Wakakaka. POD was happily shovelling their bakmi goreng while Nic LOVED their over-sized bananas. No surprises there. Our first stop was at the Kraton Ngayogyakarta Hadiningrat -- the palace of the Jogjakarta royal family. Ten successive kings had lived there. The current ruler is Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwana X who ascended the throne in 1998. Coincidentally, he is also the Governor by default. Having arrived at the palace a bit too early, we were waylaid for a short time to a nearby batik factory. Seems hard to escape the sharks . The artist was a wild-eyed guy who did interesting batik paintings of dancing magic mushrooms and other weird themes. Beautiful stuff, but also very expensive. As usual, we were given the usual expalanations on the production process. Was surprised to hear that the beeswax they use is imported from the Netherland