I don’t often admit to doing dumb things but I did a really dumb thing and decided to spontaneously hike a mountain whilst Nick and I were in Indonesia a couple of weeks ago. I’ve provided some nice but deceiving photos of some of the monkeys we encountered at Kaliurang.

We spotted some monkeys and walked around. My mum waited for us while we wandered a bit. We went up a bridge and around the edge of the bottom of the main entrance area, but as we passed the fountain at the entrance, we continued to follow the trail as it went in the opposite direction.

Naturally I am a bit adventurous so I suggested we keep going. After a couple of minutes we passed a rather run-down sign that suggested another 800 metres. I thought, wow, no big deal, let’s do it!

It was a bit hard to continue because we had to climb the slopes a little bit. I was trying hard not to get dirt between my nails or really rely on any piece of nature to help me up, but it was inevitable.

After a while we reached a small platform. There wasn’t much of a view and the trail still continued. My Indonesian is really bad but I decided to give it a try. I asked a man if there was still far to go, and he said there wasn’t. I think we walked for another forty minutes and reached a wooden hut, where you had to climb a ladder to get a glimpse of the view. It was OK, not amazing, but OK.

At the wooden hut I asked a man (who was there with his family) what was up the top. I didn’t understand what he meant but I phoned my mum to let her know how we were going and she helped decipher what he said. Apparently he said there are ‘views’. They better be good, I thought.

Nick was concerned because we had to be back at the bottom of the mountain within an hour if we wanted to visit the other places we planned to visit. He said we needed to factor in the time it would take to go back down. And that the 800 metre sign was clearly deceiving because we must have walked a lot more than that.

I told Nick that I wanted to keep going because I don’t often hike in a place like this and I would feel like crap if I didn’t get to the top and never found out what was there.

The walk just got worse, with lots of leaves making us more prone to slipping, and steep slopes without any rock. We held onto roots and trees to help us climb but it just seemed like every corner we turned, there was a long way to go.

We had been taking our time. At some point we encountered that man and his family, coming back. I asked them how far it was and he said in Indonesian that it was very far, and I asked, ‘An hour?’ and I think it was the wife who said it wasn’t even that long, but maybe about half an hour. I asked if whatever was up there was good, and the daughter said it was.

After they went past us I had some serious trouble getting up a steep slope and slipped and fell down. Nick caught me and I was clutching onto him in dead silence then we both started laughing really hard. Apparently, I was the one who started laughing.

‘Now do you want to keep going?’ he asked. LOL. I decided it would be silly to keep going and it was about time we went back. I realised my sunglasses were missing after we started walking back and Nick went back to look for them, but they were nowhere to be found. We looked all the way back, watching the ground as we went. I was quite disappointed and Nick was pretty disappointed in me as well, I guess, but I told him not to worry about it and to just focus on getting back.

On the way back we saw a young boy trying to climb up a section near the beginning of the trail, and his father was telling him that it looked hard. I nodded and he said something in Indonesian wondering how far it was to the top and I took it in my stride to tell him the truth. I said it was very far, and really hard, and it would take about two hours. I admitted that even we did not get to the top. He was nice enough to help me and Nick down. His son was clearly very eager but he laughed and said there was no way he was going up.

Although I lost my sunglasses, as soon as I got back home I went to Fossil to see if they had the same ones in stock. They didn’t, but the lady was so nice to me and took the barcode I still had, checking if other stores had them. I just loved the glasses to pieces and I really just wanted to get the same ones. I get like that with things I own if I really love them. I can’t really live without my sunglasses either, haha.

Thankfully there was just one other store that had them in stock, and because they were transferring some other items, they could send my sunglasses along too.

I was so grateful to that lady, I left my details and a few days later I got a call saying that they had arrived. I picked them up and I was just so happy to get the same sunglasses again!

Next time I should just keep them on my face or in my bag, I can’t trust myself to hang them from the neck of my shirt or on my head. D:

Other posts about my 2015 trip to Indonesia

• A Day in the Life: October 2015
• Borobudur, and things in a new light.
• Parangtritis at sunset