Friday, April 21, 2006

Kraton (the Palace of) Jogjakarta

The trishaw ride to 5 tourist destinations around Kraton.

I took my husband and my son for a visit to the Palace of Jogjakarta or Kraton Jogjakarta.
When we visited the kraton, at that time, there is a local celebration called 'Sekaten' which is held in front of the Kraton area.
There are so many people visiting the Sekaten. It's a party for the people there. There are so many food stores and handicrafs on sale and they are bloody cheap.
There is a mini train that will take you for a ride around the sekaten area.
When we arrived in front of the Kraton, we were offered a ride by a trishaw to visit 5 tourist destinations around the Kraton area which cost us 5,000rupiah per trishaw. The trishaw driver will be your tour guide on the way to your 5 destinations. Since we didn't have alot of time, we only managed to visit 3 destinations, they are The house of Prince Joyokusumo (the next in throne since the current King doesn't have a son), the Batik house, and the Kraton itself.
At the house of Prince Joyokusumo, we were guided by man who explains us everything about the family of Prince Joyokusumo. We were also served a very special tea drank by the Prince family which has 9 different ingredients and it's called "teh 9 rasa" which tastes quite sweet.
The entrance fee is 5,000rupiah per person and the permit to take photograph costs 3,500rupiah, and you have to give a tip to the tour guide and the amount if up to you.
At the Batik House, we were shown about how to produce batik cloths whether it is a hand-drawn batik or a printed batik. This batik house has a batik store which sells beautiful collections of batik cloths, blankon (traditional javanese hat), and shirts.
There is no entrance fee for this place but you just need to give a tip to the tour guide.
The Kraton Jogjakarta opens only from 8.30am - 1pm everyday, except on Friday, it will close at 11am. The entrance fee is 2,000rupiah, the permit to take photographs is 1,000rupiah while to take video is 2,000rupiah.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

hey, i like your blog - posts a a bit long, but nice never the less!

coffeeliqueur said...

thanks john. Appreciate it.