For what was intended to be our final day in Indonesia (spoiler, we decided to cancel Brunei and instead go to Bali for a couple nights) we decided to visit Surabaya, a city that is (apparently) well off the tourist circuit (the only folks we’ve met here for tourism are using it as a launching point to hike Mt. Bromo or to catch a flight northward to Borneo for orangutan-related tourism; all the locals we met in Jakarta and Yogyakarta assumed we were business travelers when they heard our itinerary). Now that we’re on the ground, we sort of understand why – it’s definitely a “big city” but similar to Zurich in that it has some history and beautiful architecture, as well as a vibrant and diverse food scene, but is much more oriented towards day-to-day living activities vs. tourism.

To get here from Yogyakarta, we opted to take the Kai Intercity train, which was a much more pleasant experience than some of the locals warned. If you book, be sure to get the “executive” train (aka more direct train) and, if you can swing the extra $20 or so, book in business class. The train was very comfortable, clean, absolutely on time (left Yogyakarta at 11:30am on the dot and arrived in Surabaya at 3:30pm on the dot as well), and the food / beverage service on board was reasonably priced (and yummy!). The restroom facilities were also clean, which was a plus.

The ride itself was a nice way of spending several hours taking in the Javanese countryside. We saw a number of interesting sites, including a great example of a Candi (or Hindu-style ~7-9th century temple in the countryside like Borobudur and Plaosan, with rural towns just growing up around it) as well as the Great Mosque of Surakarta (and many other incredible small mosques – even in the most rural town, the mosque was an architectural highlight). There is also beautiful agriculture, with many terraced rice fields.

Since it’s monsoon season in Asia, we were pleasantly surprised with how clear the weather was – only when we got to Surabaya did we experience monsoon-level rains and see some minor flooding in the clay streets of the suburbs.

Surabaya appears to be a sprawling city, although much of the “downtown” area is relatively compact.

Since we only had a day in town, we decided to explore a bit, beginning with a walk from our hotel northward to “Old Town” (which we mistakenly thought would include some of the Dutch colonial sites recommended for tourists; we had read some bad info in a variety of other travel blogs and did not realize that those sites are actually to the southeast of the Old Town area). Surabaya is definitely hot, humid and a bit dusty, but as always, people are incredibly friendly and everyone smiled and practiced saying “hello” to us. We also passed a variety of amazing-smelling food stands – Surabaya is definitely a food town and has some local specials (such as rawon setan, the “devil’s soup” which unfortunately we weren’t able to try).

That being said, it was nice doing a walk through the city, which has a variety of large, multi-lane roads as you’d expect as well as many beautiful little side streets covered in gorgeous murals, plants and bird cages. The side streets were much more relaxing than the main roads, especially since the way to cross a busy four-lane street here is just to start walking through traffic and hope for the best.

We decided to see a couple of the local malls, which our Yogyakarta guide had mentioned were a big draw for Javanese folks from around the area. The first one we tried also included one of the few museums Surabaya offers (the Surabaya Museum, which is the primary history museum). Sadly, the museum was undergoing renovations and the rest of the “mall” building was actually some kind of government building (it looked like an Indonesian version of the DMV), so that was a bit of a dead end.

Instead, we headed out to brave crossing the four lanes of traffic again (don’t be fooled by the crosswalks, they don’t have any signal to facilitate traffic stopping for pedestrians), this time heading for the BG Mall, which is a 7-or so story mall selling everything from clothing to manicures and all sorts of esthetic treatments to a mammoth, three-story “kids zone” fun area (picture go-karts, cool bouncy castles, a massive ball pit, video games, etc.). Of course, the mall also included a variety of food favorites, including KFC (which offers a “cheesy chicken”) and McDonald’s ice-cream only stand (no ice cream machine woes here!) and Starbucks, which has delicious locally-grown coffee beans (not burned!) and offers you the option to customize the sweetness of your drink a la boba tea, which is much nicer than the US all-or-nothing policy.

Overall, the mall was a bit lackluster compared to the luxury of the Singapore and Jakarta malls, but it was a nice stop nonetheless. From there, we headed back out into the 90+ degree heat and made our way to “Old Town” further north. Wandering the streets was a cultural experience – half the time we were walking with locals in the streets, given the lack of clear sidewalks in many places; many of the mosques had afternoon prayers ringing out, and once prayers were complete, men wearing every variety of batik began strolling with us on to their next destinations as well.

Along the way, we passed a couple more “museums” although they didn’t have any signage in English (or any language other than Bahasa) and were more of “stumble-upons” than designated landmarks. The first was the Museum Dr. Soetomo, which was an open-air pavilion dedicated to a local Indonesian hero. All of the photos and signage were on a giant platform, which appeared to be more of a napping spot for locals versus a point of interest for tourists stopping in to peruse.

After that, we inadvertently came upon one of the main sites of interest, the Monumen Tugu Pahlawan dan Museum Sepuluh Nopember Surabaya, aka the Surabaya Monument and a museum dedicated to the Battle of Surabaya in the mid-1940s. The site is well manicured, although much less populated than the Monas national monument in Jakarta.

From there, we had a couple other sites of interest we hopped to hit: Muhammad Cheng Hoo Mosque (a mosque in the style of a Chinese temple), the Grahadi (the Dutch governor’s home) and the Majapahit Hotel (which we’d heard served a lovely high tea in a beautiful historic property; the property certainly looks beautiful, but we were unimpressed with the food offerings we saw online and suspect the blog we read was either outdated or completely misinformed given how erroneous the “Old Town” recommendations were).

All of these items are located much closer to the area our hotel was in (we stayed at the JW Marriott), and by the time we finished our 30 minute trek back, the skies were threatening rain and we were covered in a grimy dust from the day’s walk (not to mention, had to cancel the Brunei-leg of our trip and rebook for Bali!).

So, sadly that was the end of our Surabaya exploration (if we had an extra day, we’d attempt to hit those sites, and you certainly could do it all in one day if you opted for the much quicker taxi route).

It was also disappointing not to get to try some of the local foods, below is a short list of recommended items from our guide in Yogyakarta if we’re able to return in the future:

• Soto Ayam “Cak To” from Undaan Wetan
• Nasi Cumi (a rice with squid cooked in its own ink) – parkir Psr Atom (food stall in a market)
• Warung Nasi Cumi by Cumi (Ibu Atun) – supposed to be good, but less exciting than the market version
• Bebek Sinjay Tidar
• Rawan Setan from Embong Malang (this one is literally located across the street from our hotel, but had mediocre reviews, so we were planning to find a different stop out and about and simply never got to try it)
• Nasi bebek from Sinjay

Tomorrow, we’re onward to Bali for a bit of rest and relaxation after a rather fast-paced past several days!