To my surprise, not everyone likes to travel. In a department I also work at, the quality assurance agency, I found at least two persons who are not into traveling, even when it is a company-paid business trip. Long story short, I volunteered to go for this particular trip of 2-day auditor training in Universitas Sanata Dharma (USD), Yogyakarta.
I am not in the highest rank in the organization, but high enough to be entitled for executive class in train trips. Therefore, for the departing trip, I chose Argo Wilis train. Lucky me, they just recently replaced the compartments for this line in December 2025 with the New Generation compartments. I like the fact they have screens to inform the next destinations and where we are now.
I arrived in Yogyakarta as scheduled, around 13.25. I took a TransYogya bus towards the south, to meet a friend in Institut Seni Indonesia (ISI) Yogyakarta. Surprisingly the fare for the bus was very cheap, Rp2.700 for a trip (for cashless payment – with cash it’s Rp3.500). ISI itself is not too close to a bus stop, so I took another motorcycle ride to ISI. While waiting my friend H to come, I decided to wait inside a gallery. It showcased paintings and statues made by ISI students.
Not so long after, H arrived. He drove me to a cafe in a northern area near UGM (Universitas Gadjah Mada), a favorite destination for UGM lecturers. We had tea and snacks on that cafe and talked a lot. H is a guitar expert and was one of the judges on the FLS2N event, where I built the scoring system.
He then drove me to UNY Hotel, where I would stay for the next three days. It is a decent hotel, but the location is very strategic for me. It was just 5 minutes walking east bound to USD, located inside UNY (Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta), and 5 minutes west bound to UGM. Both UGM and UNY have fairly good outdoor exercise facilities that are open for public. In UNY Hotel, I stayed at room 519, next to a wifi router. However, the internet was not working so I had to share internet from my smartphone.
That evening, I decided to run around the campus, especially because I had sit for 6 hours in the train. After running for 3,5km, it suddenly started raining cats and dogs. I regretted my decision to run but still feeling lucky that I was near a place to stay while waiting the rain to ease.
After a few minutes, it eased but did not completely stop, so I decided to have an early dinner in a restaurant nearby.
The next day, I spent most of my day attending the training at USD. I found USD‘s logo interesting, because the font they use for the logo resembles the font I frequently used in my various designs when I was in high school, i.e. the Copperplate Gothic.
In the evening, I went straight back to the hotel because the local weather agency predicted that it is going to rain soon. Just before I entered my room, I realized that I had a chance to fix the internet, simply by restarting the wi-fi router. I did try unplugged and re-plugged the power and it worked! Hence I had internet for the next couple of days, along with other guests on that floor.
In the morning of the third day, I ran. I ran around the area of UNY and UGM. I ran too early in the morning that some of the gates were still closed and I had to jump over. By the way, UGM has this nice “Wisdom Park” that allows people to jog or do various sports in the nature (pictures below were taken a day before).
I underwent the training during the day, and in the evening I took another bus to a gudeg restaurant on the northwest side of UGM (also to self-indulge for me being able to pass the auditor test). I spent the rest of the day writing work report and this blog post.
The next morning, the last day, I finished some other works in the hotel room, then checked out and headed to the city. I took another TransYogya bus to Malioboro 3 bus stop, near the Vredeburg Castle. I really like riding the TransYogya buses. It is a simple bus system just like in Bandung’s Trans Metro, but better. At almost every bus stop, there will be officer standing by to process fare payments. However, they do extra miles by ensuring passengers are taking the right bus for their destination, not missing a bus, and step carefully while boarding or alighting the bus. All of those without asking for extra money (pungli). Each bus also has one officer aside from the driver, processing fare payments for passenger boarding from unattended stops as well as ensuring passengers are not missing their stops.
The Vredeburg Fortress is a nice destination to visit at Malioboro street. This had to be some fortress used during the war era, and now turned into a museum. What I liked about it is that it is very clean and well maintained. The entry ticket is quite affordable (Rp20.000 per person) and the souvenirs are generally more expensive.
I then walked again along the Malioboro street towards the station. I also like the fact that the streets were generally clean. There was a little disturbance of some street vendors being too nice to you (with the hope that you will buy their products). Along the way, there were many old shops and cultural buildings like Djoen Lama coffee shop and Kampoeng Ketandan gate. I wanted to try Djoen Lama but it was full.
I then walked again and tried the Lumpia and Malio Gelato. Lumpia was okay, but not as good as ones in Semarang. The Gelato, opens at 10 AM, was really nice. I recommend the popcorn flavor (though I didn’t tried most of other flavors).
I then walked again and checked in at the station for my train trip back to Bandung. It was pretty crowded and I wanted to finish this blog post, so I rented the executive lounge. I grabbed some snacks for lunch in the train later, typed some paragraphs, then headed out because the train had come.
On my return trip, I took the Malabar‘s economy class, since it was a public holiday and I did not have to work on train. It was not as good as Argo Wilis‘ executive, but as long as you don’t have to work on the train, it should be fine (because there won’t be much space for your laptop when you are seated). On the bright side, you are forced to see outside the window, where the view is stunning on most of the journey.
The train reached Bandung on time around 18.01, and my wife was already there to pick me up.