Solo

Our hotel room has a feature that I have never seen before, but must be common in Muslim Countries. On the ceiling is a marker pointing the direction to Mecca so that the people staying in the room can perform their prayers in the correct direction. The direction to Mecca is called Kiblat.

We drove to Solo which is also called Surakarta. When we got there we visited the palace of Mangkunegaran. The Crown Prince and the other princes still live in the palace. The palace is comprised of different buildings within the courtyard. They are all single story, however some of them are quite large and tall. They are built in the Java style with no walls just a high peaked roof to keep the rain off. The gardens are very green.

It is easy to have a beautiful garden if it is a tropical climate with high humid and very warm temperatures. We viewed the many Royal collections. They collect many things, guns, spears, rings and chastity belts. The chastity belts are for both men and women. Ouch!

We then drove to the market in the center of Solo. Huge covered market. It has poor ventilation. It appeared to have hundreds of stalls, selling mostly clothes. There were very few no Java people in the market and I am sure it is for the locals.

We returned to Yogyakarta, and Cathy and I had wine, then a massage, dinner and packed for our flight back to Bali and on to Ubud. We will be staying in Ubud for several days and checking out the surrounding areas.