4 Tips for Java – Short route trip Java – Indonesia

Safe and Healthy Travel | 03/21/2015 | Asia, Indonesia | 3 Comments

Standing on the upper plateau of this amazing temple the Borobudur, I looked over Buddha’s shoulder. I saw the green jungle, the beautiful blue sky, what an amazing feeling it gave! I was only on Java for a few days and saw the most beautiful places of this island. Travel with me briefly on this short itinerary with tips for Java

What a great view, what a great temple, what a great feeling!

Jakarta, Java – Indonesia

Ferry to Bali

4 Tips for Java

Short route round trip Java – Indonesia

Jakarta, Java – Indonesia

I came for this short Java round trip from Bali by plane and landed in Jakarta. My plan was to travel back to Bali by land. It was my first time backpacking. Super looking forward to it and I was really looking forward to it.

Java is an island of the Republic of Indonesia. This island is much more densely populated than any other island in Indonesia, I even read that it is the world’s most populous island. Namely, it has 151 million inhabitants (2020) and is 132,000 square metres. But have no fear, there is plenty of nature to be found on this island.

Read on in this blog about what you should definitely see in Java.

In Jakarta, go to the national monument, take a walk across the immense square. Also have some food at Cafe Batavia and visit the Kota Tua district. If you want to know about Dutch history, be sure to visit the Jakarta History Museum opposite Cafe Batavia. And possibly visit the old Batavia harbour.

Would you also like to travel across Java by train? At this station, I bought my train ticket GPS Gambir Station.

Batavia Harbour, Java — Batavia Harbour 2012

Couple of days Java – Tips for Java

After a day in Jakarta, we travel on to Yogjakarta.

Yogjakarta – Java

What you really shouldn’t miss in Java is Yogjakarta (yogja) This is a really nice city. We stayed in a hotel close to the centre and thus also to the famous Malioborostreet. This is a really nice street, especially in the evening when there are hundreds of market stalls trying to sell you all kinds of nice things. If you want to buy a present you can do it right here! There is also a big shopping mall where you can get delicious coffee 🙂

GPS Malioboro Street

The intersection at Malioborostreet

From Yogja, you can take a day tour to go see the Borobudur. Well..can? You have to go and see it. This is a Buddhist temple what was built in 9 century and in doing so is the world’s largest Buddhist temple complex. I loved walking there and being part of it for a while.

Borobudur – Java

Read more about my visit to the Borobudur

Did you know that in every stupa is a Buddha statue?

Near Borobudur sits another temple, this one the Brambanan.

This one is also definitely worth visiting during a short tour of Java! We had a guide and he told us very evocatively about the background and history of both these places. You can easily spend half a day visiting Borobudur and Brambanan.

Not-to-be-missed highlight on your Java round trip is of course Borobudur – GPS Borobudur

Dieng Plateau – Java

The next day, we went to the Dieng Plateau. This is a plateau on a complex of volcanoes. Below the plateau are more than 20 small craters and 2 stratovolcanoes (which are the volcanoes we know, the cone-shaped ones). There is also a temple complex in the area and an amazing lake which takes on different colours according to the weather and other natural resources.

Dieng Plateau – Java in a couple days

Near the entrance of a meditation cave

The weather wasn’t that great…but the colour of the lake was!

Unfortunately it doesn’t show on this picture but check the one below 🙂

Mount Bromo – Java

After this, we had a long bus trip to see the sunrise at Mount Bromo the following day. On your tour of Java, you really should visit Mount Bromo. I found this a very impressive place! The landscape seems out of this world, it reminded me of some kind of lunar landscape!

Unfortunately, the weather that morning was bad and cloudy so we didn’t really see that sunrise. Later in the day, the weather turned lovely and we were able to enjoy the distinct landscape created by volcanic eruptions.

Just a little bit of sun 🙂

What a strange landscape near the vulcano.

Truly a unique place on this earth – Also go do a hike at Mount Bromo (GPS)

And if you click this GPS look at the place wider from above and see how many craters there are. What a unique piece of the world say! I would love to go here again and then spend some more time there so I can see and experience the area at my leisure.

This trip is of course far too short to really do justice to the island of Java, but suppose you spend some time on Bali, as we did then…. Even so, you can then see and experience a lot of Java in a week.

Ferry to Bali

The next day it was already time to return to Bali. The short tour of Java had flown by. We had seen some really great places. Taking the ferry from Ketapang is a 45-minute trip, meanwhile you can enjoy the view and the sun! While we were waiting for the ferry to leave, men were doling out money thrown at them by tourists. This sinks a lot of course into the sea but they are skilled at it and retrieve almost all of it.

After our short itinerary tour of Java, we were able to relax on the beach in Sanur for a few more days! I also think Bali is really great with all the altars and sacrifices that are there. We didn’t see much in Bali because we didn’t really go on a tour. So I still have Bali high on my list.

Kuta, Bali

Sanur, Bali

Trip Facts Java

Totall length of my stay in Java was just 7 days. I do think I saw the greatest highlights of Java. There are some other great cities/places that would be great to visit ofcourse if you have more days to spend! (still have a reason to go back:))

Java is a muslim island, just as almost the whole of Indonesia. So you need to consider this while dressing for the day.

If you’ld take some extra days you can do some more sightseeing/cycling tours (which I like) around Yogja or Jakarta. That would be great. I do think I didn’t saw enough of the city of Jakarta.

This was a travel done before I started to blog about it…I can see that on my way of travel and the pictures I took 🙂