Shopping and What to Buy in Yogyakarta

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Yogyakarta is a craft city and almost everything worth buying here is made within a few kilometres of where it is sold. That gives you a choice at every purchase: the market stall on Malioboro, or the workshop in the village that supplied it. The workshop is usually cheaper, always more interesting, and the money goes further down the chain. The four things worth carrying home are batik, silver, leather and wayang puppets, and each has a specific neighbourhood attached to it.

Batik

Pasar Beringharjo's ground floor is the cheapest source in the city, sold by the metre and by the piece, and it is where you bargain hard. Teras Malioboro 1 and 2 hold the relocated street vendors and open higher. For quality, buy from a workshop: the Kampung Batik inside Taman Sari, or Giriloyo village near Imogiri, which works in natural dyes. Learn the difference before spending: hand-drawn tulis shows the pattern equally on both sides and has no exact repeat; printed cloth is one-sided. A printed sarong is 50,000 rupiah and a good tulis cloth is several million, and both are sold on the same street.

Silver at Kotagede

Kotagede, five kilometres south-east, was the capital of the Mataram sultanate before Yogyakarta existed and has been a silversmithing quarter for centuries. Workshops line the main streets and most will show you the process — filigree work in particular, where fine silver wire is coiled into panels, is what the district is known for. You can buy from the bench, commission a piece, or take a short class. Prices are by weight plus workmanship and are far below what the same work costs abroad. The old town around it, with its Javanese-Dutch houses and narrow lanes, is worth an hour on its own.

Leather, puppets and the rest

Manding village, south towards Bantul, is a street of leather workshops making bags, belts, jackets and sandals, made to measure in a few days at a fraction of retail prices. Wayang kulit puppets — buffalo hide, cut, punched and painted by hand — are made in workshops around the city and in Bantul; a serious puppet takes weeks and is priced accordingly, while the small souvenir versions are stamped out. Also worth buying: bakpia from Pathuk, coffee from the Menoreh hills, and the woodcut prints sold by the art collectives.

Bargaining and shipping

Bargain in markets and with street vendors, not in workshops with a fixed price list, shops or supermarkets. Open at about forty per cent of the asking price and expect to settle near sixty; buying several items together works better than haggling one hard. Cash is preferred everywhere and often gets a better price than card. For anything large, the batik and furniture dealers will arrange shipping. Note that genuine antiques cannot legally be exported from Indonesia, and anything sold to you as an antique on the street almost certainly is not one.

Shopping and What to Buy at a glance

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