Post-trip photo sharing (XI)! [Taman Sari, Yogyakarta]

According to my mum, you can't say that you have came to Yogyakarta if you haven't visited Taman Sari, a former royal garden of the Sultanate of Yogyakarta. Hmm, she treats this visit more important than the visit to the Borobudur Temple, but okay, maybe she just likes the place more...anyway, so here's the proof that I've been here!

This is the bathing complex in the centre of the building, which is also the only well-preserved place of the building, other places have been more or less occupied by the kampung nearby and have their own residents. I also kinda believe that this is the main attraction for most of the visitors here, because let's see, there's really quite an amount of people here...

...which kinda got me asking why, because weirdly this attraction doesn't grab my attention that well. The underground paths which were made for escaping and hiding purposes were quite interesting for me though, too bad I didn't took photos due to the lighting and also crazy amount of people everywhere, haha. To briefly explain how the underground paths feel like, it's like a big maze without lights and only a few windows high up near the ground. Paths are wide and are like tunnels, there are huge intersections, and at one point we even got lost in it. How did we got out? Follow the crowd...

By the way, did I said that this was the favourite part of the trip? Yes, it indeed is, and it starts when we started our walk outside of the garden.

This is one of the gates to the garden (which is clearly not in use anymore). I think it clearly shows how dated it is!

Other views near this...

I like how these walls show their age and hence their very unique vibe that only historical places can have. It kinda makes you want to sit down and imagine what happened to here a long time ago...

We then took a walk around the kampung (you can call it as a village, that's what kampung literally means). It's like a lovely little residential area in which cars can't even enter!

I really love walking around others' residential areas, and I also really love walking around creativity and art...here, it's both together. You can really feel the creativity vibe overflowing throughout the village as you walk through the trails. When I thought that I've seen enough street art in Penang, this proved me wrong!

Jogja is like a shorter name for Yogyakarta, while Istimewa means awesome.

And here's a creative one! Personally I like this a lot.

There are also colourful art like these on some fences and walls!

In some houses, they also make batik art like these. It's like painting on clothes, stroke by stroke, bit by bit. They also exist in Malaysia, but I never saw a work-in-progress one, especially that close up, and when someone's progressing on this artistic masterpiece. Watching each stroke contributing to the colourful patterns is... therapeutic? Don't know, I can't find a better word as well :P

So yes, I really liked this visit...but it's the part that doesn't need tickets! Seriously, if you happen to visit Taman Sari and love aimless casual enjoyable walks, try this. The area around the place is uniquely beautiful and to make it better, if the ice-cream selling motorcycle passes by, you know what you can do!

Time to wrap this up and see you next time!

--Lilacse

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