In two and a half or three hours, the very reliable Daytrans will get you from Yogya to Salatiga, via those wonderful Javanese landscapes that never fail to please. We had our first views of Merapi for this particular trip. Just the top. And a fuzzy bit of the bottom. The shoulders were in cloud.

Salatiga is an ordinary but engaging little town. It didn't take us long to find a place that supplied juice and doughnuts (all sorts of doughnuts, but we chose durian), and spot the elephants in the shopping complex.





And then we walked to the Kayu Arum Resort.

This turned out to be a delightful place to spend the weekend.

The buildings are about 10 years old, but they've been kitted out in traditional style, and arranged round a lovely, butterfied-filled garden. The ensemble works really well.





We had a nice big room, with a balcony and shutters. I had to work, but where better to do it than on a breezy balcony?





Meals can be taken on the upper or lower deck of the dining room, and the paved area near the lobby is a good place for evening drinks.

I thought the food was great. Indonesian, but with a little twist. The rendang, for example, was presented very elegantly as three little stacks, each made up of cassava leaves, a little steamed rice, a small "cake" of mung beans, and a piece of beef. Or the gurame rojak. This consisted of deep fried, faintly spicy gurame, from which little pieces had been handily cut out, fried separately, and piled back in, with an accompaniment of melon, watermelon, pineapple, and papaya, and a lick of spicy, peanutty rojak sauce. Stunning.

Also to write home about was the ginger and lime soda.



Before breakfast on Sunday we went volcano-spotting. Not easy to glimpse these giants, as they play hide and seek behind trees and roofs. But as usual, they're awe-inspiring. Merbabu is to the fore up here, but you can also see Merapi.

Yep, want to come back here too...