Day 30: "Excuse me, cowboys, can I take your picture?"

We were awoken at 4:30 am by the Muslim prayer chant being broadcast right outside our window, rendering our alarm useless, but we needed to wake up this early anyway to catch the 5 am bus to Borobudur, a 9th century Buddhist temple and World Heritage Site. Being able to watch the sunrise from the top of the temple was mystical, and reminded us both of Machu Picchu as the sun broke through the mist to light up the hundreds of stone statues.

After meditating next to the huge stone stupa, we were approached by three Indonesian students wanting to practice their English. They pumped us full of questions and at one point asked, "How can you tell the British from the Americans?" to which Danny replied "The Brits have a proper accent and bad teeth." Right at that moment, a British girl walked by, smiled, and said "I don't have bad teeth." Like the English language, there's an exception to every rule.

On our way out of the temple, as the crowds started to pour in, we were accosted by a huge group of giggling highschool girls wanting to take photos with us "cowboy twins". Our matching hats and bro-shirts are a huge hit with all of the locals.

On our way back into town, we sat next to the quintessential Italian man - tan, greasy hair, and extremely loud and animated. At one point, the driver asked if the man was from France. He was not happy to be mistaken for a Frenchman, "Mistake me for Spanish, Greek, anything but French". He went on and on about how he doesn't understand the American social welfare system, waving his hands with every exclamation. He described the Italian philosophy of taxing the rich and making sure everyone has a decent lifestyle. He went on to criticize "new money" American rappers for having too much gold and diamond jewelery, and said, "Come on, one less Lamborghini and help some poor people! Once the rich in Italy have good food and beautiful women, they don't mind paying more taxes."

When we woke from our 4 hour nap (mind you it was only 1 pm by that point), we stumbled upon the starting point of a large community fashion parade. There were hundreds of people dressed in exotic, colorful, and elaborate costumes that compared to those seen at Mardi Gras or Carnival. With our matching outfits and propensity to take pictures with large groups of people, we quickly established our own paparazzi following. Literally, half a dozen people were following us around, forcing us to take pictures with the different parade groups. One man even asked for our facebook information, introduced us to his daughter, and had us take photos with her both indivually and together. The crowd would "Ooh" and "Aah" as we gave thumbs up, put up peace signs, or even struck the Hussein Bolt pose. Our favorite group was the 20 identically dressed female flight attendents who took a special liking to us. We will most likely end up in the newspaper tomorrow. Always wanting to say hi, offer help, make casual conversation, and even take our pictures, the Indonesians are the nicest people we have met so far.

With an empty evening ahead of us, we booked tickets to the Ramayana Ballet in the open theater with Prambanan Temple in the background. It was an amazing display of authentic Indonesian dance, costumes, and music. It told the Troy-like story of Shinta, a beautiful princess who was stolen from her prince and apparently had a face that could launch an army of a thousand monkeys. In the minibus ride back we met the most unfriendly French couple who wouldn't even say hi to us. We now understand why the Italian man from this morning was so upset.

We leave in the morning for Mount Bromo (an active volcano), so we will probably be out of touch until we arrive in Bali on Saturday.