Yogyakarta is unofficially the center of Javanese culture. Two of the biggest temples close to Yogya are Buddhist, Borobudor, and Hindu Prambanan. I visited both in 1993 and back then it was mostly school groups, with scattered tourists, who visited.
During the earthquake, Prambanan was damaged, and will be off limits to tourists for the foreeable future. Add that to the state of disarray in Yogyakarta itself right now, and you can rightly say that tourism in the area has ground to a standstill. A Guardian article talks about this and about the under development of the tourist industry in Central Java.
The Indonesian government doesn’t actively promote these great places, or create an image around Yogyakarta. Yogya has great food, history, dance, and the 2 huge temples. I’m sure Barrie could write a book on what’s great in Yogya. When I visited the temple at Borobudor, there was a religious festival going on in Yogya. All the guest houses were full and my friend and I ended up staying with 2 sisters from Surabaya, who we met at Borobudor. One was a flight attendant, the other a school teacher. The only fly in the ointment was their 16 year old brother was along for the ride. But anyway, they were nice enough to offer us a place to stay.
Its is possible to fly from Denpasar, to Yogya, check out Borobudor and be back the same day. Price of admission at Borobudor is now 100,000rp, which is steep, back them it was peanuts. Borobudor is 15 miles NW of Yogya, Prambanan 10 miles East.
{ 3 comments }
I was in Yogyakarta for a week in the middle of April and I can really agree that they do not promote tourism there. During my 4 hours at Prambanan, I saw only 6 non-Indo tourists and then maybe 3 school groups. It is such a magnificant site. I am sad that they believe they cannot keep the site open as they work on repairing the damage. I think it would really interest people to see that in progress. When I was there, there were a couple of areas where it appeared active restoration was in progress. Also closing the site, puts the locals out of work and reduces completely the business of the 50 or so souvenier vendors outside the gate.
I really hope Yogya works to promote the area more. I hope to visit there again in Sept. BUt before I travel from Bali to there, I will be checking if my favorite hotel is still open and more of the sites are open.
Thank you for your comments about Yogya. I was searching the web for earthquake in Yogya and I found your blog. This is my hometown and she is mourning now. Prambanan is suffered from big damages. Let’s hope everything is getting better….
Not only causes so many casualties, the earthquake scaling at 5.9 Richter happened in the southern part of Yogyakarta on 27th May 2006 will also influence the economy in this province. Help Yogyakarta to recover its economy after the disaster by tourism.
If you had planned to make your tour to Yogyakarta in 2-3 months ahead and you do not cancel your trip, you have acted to help Yogyakarta.
Comments on this entry are closed.