In Reply to: Your talking me into it posted by iguana on Tuesday, 6. March 2007 at 08:37 Bali Time:
Well, first of all depends how much time you would like to spend in each place.... :)
If you want scenery its best to travel by road... for example just this weekend gone, my partner and I drove from Jakarta to Yogjakarta in Central Java which is a 12 hour trip each way. We only stopped once to refuel and have something to eat... :) Again for this trip there's two ways to go ...along the north coast...or down thru the mountains in the south... we used a private car.
You can get a train service, and the excutive class costs about 300 thousand, to Jogja (that takes about 10hours). You can get a bus, but I wouldnt suggest that, because they buses are downright crazy drivers :) On our recent trip I kept thinking, its amazing there arent more accidents that happen!!
Or if you wanted more time to spend in Yogjakarta, I'd just fly from Jakarta to there directly, it takes less than an hour.. :)
In Jogjakarta you have, the sultans palace, his water palace, Malioboro shopping street, Parangritis Beach (black volcanic sand) and several other beaches with white sand, but unsuitable for swimming. The famous Borobudur temple, Prambahan Temple, and several other small temples in the area. Also there's a new "lookout" area where you can get great views of the 3 surrounding volcano's and also up there is a resturant and small muesum that talks about the volcano's... there's lots more to do as well, its just the tip of the iceberg really.
From Yogjakarta to Surabaya (where you would get the ferry to Bali) its about another 6 hours drive. There are some nice areas in East Java as well (havent ventured there myself yet..) such as the mountain resort town of Malang...famous for apples as well :)And the famous Bromo Volcanic craters... Otherwise you can just fly from Yogjakarta to Bali which is probably about 40mins only... :)
If you need any more details just email me :)
Christine