It's not me Yogyakarta, it's you.

I leave blissful Bali and head for Yogyakarta, I assumed a city that almost has the word "yoga" in it, would be blissful as well. Oh how naïveté I can be, Yogyakarta is an assault on all 5 senses. It smells of rotting garbage and sewer, there's people bumping into you or in most cases rubbing up against you, the streets are filled with the never ending sounds of traffic, the amount of garbage laying around is a sight that drove me bananas (one of my biggest pet peeves is litter), and finally there is so much pollution that you can actually taste it. There will be no twist at the end where I write how I learned to love Yogyakarta, I appreciate it for what it is and was over the moon with happiness when I left. Those of you in need of a geography refresher, Yogyakarta is on the island Java, which is north-ish of Bali. Indonesia is comprised of approximately 17,000 islands, 135 million people reside in Java making it the worlds most populous island and one of the most densely populated places in the world. My purpose for coming to Yogyakarta, Java was so I could explore Borobudur which is the single largest Buddhist structure in the world and considered to be one of the greatest ancient monuments in the world as well. We booked a tour for Christmas Day foolishly thinking that perhaps it would be quiet, as you can imagine we were very wrong. We wake up at 3:30am and jump in a van with 5 others. Our first stop on the tour is to see the sunrise overlooking Borobudur. Once we climb the hill we are greeted by grey skies, despite it being rainy the past few days we were hoping that the sun would make an appearance. It disappointedly did not, we were however treated to some more rain which made climbing down the now muddy hill in flip flops a real treat. After breakfast we explore the 8th century temple along with the crowds. It was interesting to see the wall reliefs (sculptures) which recount the life story of buddha, his teachings, and his progress to nirvana. While exploring this spectacular site we were shocked at how many people seemed more interested in us. Countless times we were asked to have our picture taken and some took matters into their own hands snapping away when they thought we weren't looking. I asked one girl why she wanted my picture, to which she screamed "because I love you." This was a theme in Java, everywhere I went I was constantly being stared at and asked to have my picture taken. I began to feel very uncomfortable with the situation, I don't like the idea of people putting me up on this pedestal because of my skin color. I'd like the think I'm pretty conscientious when I snap pictures of others, I try to focus on what they are doing rather than them, and I ask permission if possible. This experience will defiantly keep me more mindful in the future. It's not all bad I linked up with a wonderful woman from Argentina whom I was fortunate to spend Christmas with and together we spent 3 days seeing much of Yogyakarta's sights, and eating delicious Pizza Hut.