Indo Trip Day 3: Arriving in Jogjakarta, Indonesia
After our stopover in Surabaya, the boys and I made our way to Jogja by taking a five hour train ride to…. Yogyakarta? Jogjakarta? Jogja? My goodness. There are so many variations of their name and I totally didn’t understand the difference at first. I was pretty confused, to be honest. But later on in the trip, I got to know from Bhram (our amazing Airbnb host) that the different variations refer to the exact same location - just that it was formed from different pronunciation of people from different parts of Indonesia. I prefer using JOGJA because it’s really straightforward and makes more sense in the phonetics department of my brain. Hehe.
Related: You can read more about the different versions of their name in this blog article.
Related: Surabaya | Jogjakarta
We didn’t really do anything much on the first day in Jogja but I want to write about it anyway! My Jogja travel series wouldn’t be complete without starting from Day 1, would it? Hehe. Well, the train ride from Surabaya to Lempuyangan was honestly much better than I had expected it to be - I wrote about that in my previous post. We arrived at Lempuyangan Station 5 hours later and by that time, it was already late in the afternoon, so decided to make our way to our accommodation immediately. We were all hungry, sticky and just wanted to put our backpacks down and crash.
Our initial plan was to use either Uber or Grab to book a car that would get us to Cupuwatu - which was only 15 minutes away from the train station. We had it all planned out… or so we thought. Haha. It completely slipped our minds that the whole train would be disembarking at the exact same time, as Lempuyangan was the final stop on the line. We totally did not anticipate the massive crowd that was going to greet at the exit and we ended up spending close to an hour trying to get a car. If you’re coming here, I would highly recommend you to arrange for a driver to pick you up in advanced.
There were a lot of people around and we seemed to be the only foreigners stuck in that hectic crowd. It was a little overwhelming at first; trishaw uncles shouting and calling out for customers, lots of smoke from all the vehicles, the sound of drivers constantly honking at each other due to the traffic jam and the frustration of not being able to get a driver. Stress! Thankfully, I had my camera with me so it made the whole ordeal a little less daunting because I could distract myself instead of focusing on the restlessness. Close to an hour later, we finally got a driver and headed straight for Cupuwatu.
We stayed at the Cupuwatu Wood Hut and had an amazing five days stay. Here are some photos from my GoPro / the old Airbnb listing. The house was located right at the end of a super quiet road so it was usually just us in that one-storey bungalow with a cute little wooden hut right outside, where the boys spent most of their smoke breaks at. The bathrooms were clean and the kitchen was more than complete. we even spent some time cooking our own meals and sitting together at the dining table to discuss our day trips. It really was a cosy space and a comfortable stay for us.
Prior to this, I have never stayed in a house where the host stays together with the guests. But Bhram did, and he was so welcoming. Honestly, he is easily the most amazing Airbnb host that I’ve ever met throughout my five years of using Airbnb. He was more like a brother than a host to us and we are all still friends on Instagram up until today. During our visit, he helped us plan our day trips, booked our driver, took us shopping, bought for us food and even let us play with fireworks on his premises on new year’s eve!
Unfortunately though, I will not be writing a detailed accommodation review this time because the Cupuwatu Wood Hut is no longer listed on Airbnb since Bhram started working full time shortly after our trip and moved out, so I don’t think he’s staying at this bungalow anymore. If I’m not mistaken, we were his first and last guests at this house.
Anyway, writing this definitely brings back a lot of fond memories and I’m really glad to be able to take this trip to Jogja with the boys. Hope you’ve enjoyed this short post! Stay tuned for the next part of my Jogja adventures! ♥︎
