By train to Surabaya

5th January

We chose a small hotel near the railway station for our final night in Yogya. It has two big advantages. The rooms face on to a swimming pool, ideal to cool down in when we get back from Borobudur, and we can walk to the station for our 7.15am train. But we hadn’t factored in the disadvantages. The large Muslim party who take over the restaurant for the evening, complete with cabaret singer of the Vic Reeves style. The train announcements from the railway station that can be clearly heard at 4.30am. And the children splashing in the swimming pool at 5.15am. At least we are packed and ready for breakfast at 6.15 – but we are still the last people to reach the dining room. The days start early in Muslim Indonesia as everyone is up before first light for morning prayers.

No matter. We are on to our next adventure, the train to Surabaya. The very name conjures up a romantic picture. I imagine tinkling fountains in shaded gardens, covered walkways cooled by gentle breezes and handmaidens – and handmen – to answer our every wish. First we had to get there, and the railway through Java is one of the few Dutch infrastructure projects that benefit modern Indonesia. The express train takes 5.5 hours to reach its destination. Not much of an express, but we are told that Executive Class is modern and comfortable. Sadly there are no Executive Class tickets left, so we buy Business Class tickets, which are half the price (all of £3.50). We feel quite pleased with ourselves. We’ve seen a few trains by now and, apart from Economic Class – with hard plastic bench seats facing each other - they all look to have air-conditioning. Arriving at the station, we quickly realise our mistake. Being Westerners we are directed to the Executive carriages, which are, as promised, modern and comfortable with reclining seats, footrests and the all-important air-con. Reluctantly we make our way to our allocated seats at the back of the train and haul our bags on board. There is space at the end of the carriage to store the big bags, and our seats are padded with plenty of leg room. But there is no air-con, just a row of fans on the ceiling and windows whose top section you can prop open – if you are lucky. Ours seems to drop down after every bump in the track, and we have a running battle with the family sitting in front of us to keep the nearest fan on. They seem convinced that the slightest breeze will prove fatal to their baby and keep turning it off. It seems that each set of coaches has a cabin manager who rents out extra cushions and provides a running supply of cold drinks and food from the buffet car – we are good customers so have officialdom on our side, the cabin manager ensures the fan stays on. I’m confident that no harm came to the baby as the fan barely ripples the air. The pretty hand-held fan I bought many weeks ago in Singapore pays for itself several times over on this journey.

Apart from the steaming heat, the journey is rather civilised. Everyone has a seat. Animals aren’t allowed on the train. No one seems to be smoking – an exception in this country as almost all Indonesian men smoke incessantly. There is plenty to eat and drink – aside from the buffet car, there are hawkers at every station passing food through the open windows, and later in the journey when the buffet closes, coming onto the train with baskets of fresh food and cold drinks.

The journey takes us through Central Java to Eastern Java, but until we are close to our final destination there is little change in the landscape. Paddy field after paddy field passes by, with coolie-hatted workers bent double tending to their plants. The rendered concrete and stone buildings are mainly topped with red pantiles – the Dutch influence – and are far more picturesque to anything we’ve seen up to now. But there is never a moment when you can’t see a building, or land under cultivation. This is a densely populated country – according to our next guide, at 235 million the third largest population in the world behind China and India.

Finally, when we are almost at the point where we can bear the heat no more, the view from the window changes and the urban sprawl of Surabaya begins. It is far from picturesque. There are no handmaidens wating to carry out our every wish, but the station is packed and we are pounced upon by touts offering us a lift to our hotel. Our first taxi driver refuses to put his meter on. Much to his annoyance we get out of the car, and probably end up paying the same fare to the private driver we then negotiate with.

Surabaya means “shark” and “crocodile” – as it is at the point where a river meets the ocean. We never see the ocean, and the river looks polluted. As we are to discover when we venture out with our guide and driver the next morning, there is little to recommend in Indonesia’s second city. It has none of the charm of Yogya. The roads are teeming with motorbikes and cars – in fact it is impossible to cross the road from our hotel to the shopping centre opposite – and while it is not yet as polluted as Jakarta, there is only good reason for staying there. Our hotel.

After our cheapest journey to date, I relish being taken to the most expensive hotel in town - the magnificently colonial Majapahit, designed by the son of the architect who created Raffles in Singapore and very much in its image. This is one bit of Surabaya that lives up to my romantic expectations. Once we set foot inside the Art Deco reception – a later addition to the original hotel - we stay there until our driver collects us the following morning. Our rooms, which are the smallest in the hotel are, nonetheless, huge and look out over manicured gardens complete with fountains. They have enormous beds, comfy sofas and dark mahogany furniture including a vast mirrored unit with marble basin and countertop and an array of drawers and cupboards for the Edwardian gentleman to keep his toiletries in.

We drink cocktails, eat lunch, snooze through a thunderstorm and dress up for more cocktails and dinner – an amazing Chinese meal of crispy duck rolls,, smoked duck, chilli prawns and a whole crispy fried fish. It is one of the best Chinese meals any of us has eaten – and we are the only people in the restaurant. Our every wish is indeed the staff’s command.