Traveling north through Indonesia to Singapore to Kuala Lumpur we spent two weeks moving from one very large city to the next. Our urban adventures began in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. With a population of nearly four million, Jogja (as it is known by the locals) is a huge bustling city but it has few high-rise buildings. Much of the city is old, one or two-story buildings with a few mid-rise thrown in. While there we visited the temples of Borobudur and Prambanan (both temples are UNESCO World Heritage sites) and took in an Indonesian Ramayana ballet.

About an hour outside of Jogjakarta is the seventh century Buddhist Temple, Borobudur. The monument consists of nine stacked platforms, six square and three circular, topped by a central dome. The central dome is surrounded by 72 Buddha statues, each seated inside a perforated stupa. It is the world’s largest Buddhist temple as well as one of the greatest Buddhist monuments in the world. Borobudur has the largest and most complete ensemble of Buddhist reliefs known.

When we toured Prambanan Temple it poured rain so we spent the day under our umbrellas dodging from cover to cover. Prambanan Temple Compound consists of four main temples.  All the temples in the archaeological park were built in the 8th century. The three larger temples at the Prambanan Temple are dedicated to the three great Hindu divinities (Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma).

The venue of the Ramayana ballet was stunningly set outdoors with the temples of Prambanan as the back drop. The performance is the engravings of the temple brought to life. It is a theatrical performance combined with music (150 performers) of the story of Prince Rama’s struggle to get the kidnapped Shinta back. Just before the end of the first half it started pouring rain and after a short intermission they announced that the rest of the ballet had to be cancelled. Mike was glad as he had had enough culture for one evening.

While in Jogja we took a ride to buy train tickets in a motorized bechek.  It would have been a good idea except that our big western sized bodies did not fit very comfortably.

We took a train to Java’s capital city, Jakarta. At over ten million people, Jakarta is huge and the traffic is terrible. We were only there for one night and then flew out the next day to Singapore.

Singapore is a thoroughly modern city with a population of about 5,700,000. It has beautiful architecture and green lush landscaping. The boat-shaped structure on top of this building is a park. In Singapore it is all about the shopping with giant western-style malls on many corners.

The highlight of our Singapore visit to was their outstanding zoo. We are not usually zoo people but could not resist one that boasts of no cages, Giant Pandas and Manatees. These little guys greeted us at the front gate. It was a charming start to our day.

While in Singapore, we had to visit the famous Raffles Hotel. It was opened by the British in 1887. In 1915 the bartender of its Long Bar developed the drink called the Singapore Sling as a cocktail for the ladies. We just had to have one but at a cost of 34 Singapore dollars each we weren’t sure it was worth it.

The final stop on our cities tour was Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. KL (as it is known by the locals) has over seven million people in its metro area and is under construction. It seems that it is a race to build new public structures and skyscrapers. The Petronas Towers was the most awesome.  When it was built it was the tallest building in the world.  During our city tour we visited the Thean Hou Chinese Buddhist Temple.  There is a garden with statues of each of the Chinese years.  I was born in the year of the dog and Mike in the year of snake.

At the Hindu shrine of Batu Caves we were greeted by this huge golden statue and a whole bunch of monkeys.  I climbed the 275 stairs to the caves while Mike and his bad knees stayed behind.

When we visited the National Islamic Mosque we had to wear these robes to be properly covered.

One of the most interesting aspects of Southeast Asia is the mix of cultures and religions. In the cities people who are Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim all live, work and publicly practice their religions.

After all of these cities, we decided it was time to go to the beach and headed for the island of Penang, Malaysia for a few days.