My first trip to Solo was just over two years ago. This return visit involved the old and the new.

Getting there was new. Fuelled by some of Bu Nanni's portable snacks, and sent on our way with lots of jokes about walking to Solo (round here they think we're hilarious with our walking), we tramped the lanes to Giwangan bus station. Mountains of kerupuk were being loaded onto bicycles and transported away from a small village production centre as we passed through.

We picked up a bus just before 7 am, but covering the 60 km to Solo was a slow, slow, hot, hot affair. Our entertainment consisted mostly of music videos featuring sparsely clad young women with exceptionally mobile hips, their performances making a strange contrast with the mostly conservative bus service clientele. In addition, at regular intervals, we shipped pengamen. These are a feature of Indonesian roadside life. They sing, play an instrument, and ask for money. Some of our ride-along bus performers were pretty good, and I was happy to cough up a few coins as reward. But some were downright dreadful. If we had been working a system of performance-related pay, they'd have been paying us... Anyway, two and a half hours and many, many, many pengamen later, we were finally in Solo, being pedalled in a becak to our hotel.

Did really well in the Solo food department over the course of the weekend. Tried srabi (delicious little pancakes with a dollop of coconut stuff in the middle and optional banana). Yum. Sunday breakfast was roadside nasi liwet, another Solo classic. And we patronized Adem Ayem a couple of times, a big, traditional eatery I'd tried and liked last time. Their ayam goreng is a must have, but we also enjoyed their gudeg Solo (totally different from the Yogya one) and their timlo (a thick beef soup). And I was indeed made very happy by their soda gembira ("happy soda" -- rose syrup, condensed milk, soda water, and ice -- heaven in a glass on a hot day).

On the culture trail, we visited the Radya Pustaka Museum -- Indonesia's oldest. Better lighting and information would have been welcome, but even so this is a great collection of different wayang figures, jewel-hilted kris, stone Buddhas, and Javanese instruments. The building is lovely, and the garden (where various pieces of stonework quietly gather moss) is very atmospheric, if mosquito-ridden.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Danar Hadi Batik Museum last time, and it's worth revisiting occasionally because they regularly rotate the exhibits, drawing on the owner's enormous collection. This time we were able to see various stages of the batik-making process, which is fascinating.

We really weren't up for shopping, but we had to check out the glitzy Paragon Mall, which certainly makes the Grand Mall look a little old and tired now. I know there are lots of debates about building massive malls in cities like Yogya and Solo, but both our subjects were doing a good trade. There's no getting round it -- people like malls...

I was really happy to see that a great Solo tradition I'd enjoyed last time is still going great guns. On Sunday morning, from 5 am to 9 am, Jalan Slamet Riyadi is closed to motor vehicles. And vast crowds show their appreciation of this by turning up to walk, scoot, roller-blade, and bicycle (on normal bikes and in those car-like contraptions with multiple sets of pedals). There's a steam train that plies the still existing rails (this also does an evening shift, as we'd seen the night before). And in amongst all the itinerants, there are health-check posts, music and dance performances, aerobics sessions, and -- of course -- heaps of eating opportunities.

There were also a couple of demonstrations happening. I think this is a bit of a pity, personally, as I think it's nice to keep this space and time just for relaxation. But we had a save-the-earth group, who -- despite the rapidly warming day -- were heroically wearing tree outfits and carrying a world. And there was a free-Palestine-and-save-the-Rohingyas group. These are both extremely good causes, with which I wholeheartedly sympathize, but I have more than a few qualms about the practice of drafting in children as young as six or seven to carry placards and chant slogans for causes of which they can surely have very little understanding.

Having walked much of Slamet Riyadi in company with the mostly relaxed and jovial crowd, we turned off down the banyan-lined road that leads to the supposedly inferior palace (see my previous post on Solo), and made our way back via a parallel route. Lovely streets, many old and beautiful buildings, a few funky new restaurants, the flower market (with brilliantly pink and perfumed roses out front), and a stretch of pavement-based flea market, offering everything from those very popular large-stoned rings to old bits of electrical stuff and old spectacles.

Getting back to Yogya was something of a farce. The times of the Solo-Yogya trains do not seem to feature on any official website. So we took the advice of a blogger, who reckoned there was a train at 2.30, and we rolled up bright and early at 1.30. No train till 3.45, we found out. So, having bought our tickets for the air-conditioned train ("standing" class, ie no seats guaranteed), we retreated to the cool of the mall (and, in particular, to the cool of a couple of Excelso's "frappios") for another hour or so. Once back at the station, we got seats, and the train set off promptly, but it took ages. After an hour and three quarters, and after sitting for quite a while at the penultimate station (already in Yogya), we decided we'd cut our losses, and get out and get a taxi...

So, all in all, no stars on the transport front, but otherwise a highly enjoyable weekend. I'm pretty sure there'll be a Round 3.