Travelistar: A December Surprised Trip, Jogjakarta (part 2 of 3)

The girls chatting in front of Plaosan Temple

Matching The Itenerary

Day 1, we departed from the hotel all together by car we rent from the local. The destination would be Sri Gethuk waterfal. It's a unique waterfal with steps looking terrain, located on a river made by white limestone. It's not the waterfal that we're looking for the most. It's the surrounding nature, when exploring the river with boat, that looks natural and peaceful as shown on the photos and videos we found on internet.

Since nobody knew the road, we used waze app. Though we got lost a little, we managed to arrived at the destination. Yet it was closed. Such a dissapointment situation. There were few men arround, thought to be the local tour guide. This was my second experience coming here and I couldn't get to the waterfal. Exactly the same place, where we can find a huge cave called The Rancang Kencono Cave with big tree in the middle of its entrance.

Rancang Kencono Cave entrance

So we continued our trip, this time we were heading to pine forest of Mangunan. It is not really my thing though. But it's the majority vote. I proposed to the Nglambor Beach as written on my itenerary.

The place was just a pine tree forest with iconic man made decoration for visitors to take photos. Guess what? We were there only to take photos, in many poses. I found out that there are many destinations here with similar scene to offer, pine trees. They got different names, and yes, some of them are instagram hits photo location.

So we continued to the next destination, the Songgolangit forest. Here we found those small houses made of branches, pretty good I'd say. The place is also the shooting location of the recent Indonesian horror movie. I had the opportunity to flying fox here. Eh... not bad. Though not the adventure I expected.

Mangunan Pine Tree Forest

More Poses at the Mangunan Forest

Songgolangit Forest Park

Flying Fox

Destination of Confusion

It was almost the end of the day when we had lunch and heading to newly constructed waterboom the Jogja Bay. Yet the closing time was in another 30 minutes, and we were out of option for where we go next. There were arguing where we should go, I had given my opinions. Seems that no one agreed, especially the sponsor.

So he drove us to Kaliurang direction, and more arguing happened. Until they had nothing to think of. I, for the last time, proposed to spend our sunset time at the Plaosan Temple, an ancient ruins nearby the great Prambanan Temple. Surprisingly, no one opposed the idea.

The Plaosan Kidul Complex

Small Structures at Plaosan Kidul

A Mission Accomplished in Sunset

Almost dark but still okay, the sunset wasn't as expected. We arrived at the Plaosan Temple. It's one of ancient ruins found in Prambanan Plains. The temple itself resembles Budhism, and thought to serve as monastery in the past. There are 2 temples respectedly, one is Plaosan Lor and the other is Plaosan Kidul. Those two are seperated by main road. Plaosan Kidul is bigger and had more visitors. Cause it's on main road.

I was glad that we could visit the place. My Prambanan Plains mission accomplished at last. This iconic temple complex is famous for instagrammers. Some good pictures showing that the temple is shown in shilouete by the sunset with rice field on frame.

What a happy family

Inside the temple complex

The Plaosan Temple consist of two big structures surrounded by rectangular wall, even the two temples is separated by a wall. Outer wall consists of many smaller structures, a typical Sanjayan Dinasty era. This similar to the complex of Prambanan and Sewu temples. Some of the smaller structures are well restored, the rest are looking like the piles of scattered stone, just like what mas Andy said.

The skies turned to dark, yet we were still busy taking pictures. I, on the other hand, was searching the sunset scene with the colorful skies, the dark blue, bright orange and even magenta.