Indonesia to the End (March 1)

Oh dear. I started this posting on February 24. I have spent hours uploading photos, swearing not to upload photos, and uploading more photos. In any event ....

Yogyakarta and Surrounds

Yogyakarta was next on the agenda. Described as the spiritual home of Java and surrounded by truly mag archaeological sites, Yogyakarta was on lots of people's agenda.

I got into town on February 19th via train from Surabaya. I took a charming bekac (tricycle rickshaw) to an equally charming hotel where I had not made reservations. No rooms. My response was to be self defeatingly frustrated (I like trains, without necessarily arriving refreshed by trains). So, in the beginning of rain, I decide I'm going to walk to the next hotel, and the hotel after that, in what is now fully begun rain.

My third try is a hotel I'd stayed at some 15 years ago, which I was not going to stay at, hence one and two, but which in the rain I was reasonably sure I could get to through some slightly freakish display of memory. Except I got lost and wet and then got to the hotel by following signs. I think this still counts as some sort of freakish display, without any constructive brain engagement.

The rain stopped, the sun came out, and birds somewhere were doubtless chirping. Yogya is a bit noisy so I cannot swear to the bird part. I walked around, avoiding batik touts as best as possible, though I did buy a conical straw hat of the sort used by local farmers and bekac drivers.

Over the next four days I did what was there to be done: I visited the local palace (Kraton), sat through some of a shadow puppet show, saw a dance performance much more overtly theatrical from a tourist point of view than I'd seen in Bali - plenty of plot, and watched some local fishermen using really large tackle, in the form of traps that you could crawl into.


I have a modest goal of racking up many types of semi-purposeful transportation, so local horse power, in the form of an andong, was a must do. Mine got the horsy equivalent of a flat tire, which added a bit to the memory.



My first excursion was to Prambanan, a beautiful Hindu complex (reached by local bus!) with some less large but still beautiful Buddhist temples.

And the local school outing. Apparently teachers find it bad form to pass up the chance for some Q&A between students and even a slightly used tourist. This is charming. Even standing in the sun, this is charming.



Next up was the prodigiously fantastic Borobudur, a somewhat earlier than Prambanan Buddhist site. I got there with an early morning mini-bus ride with a group of tired backpackers.

Borobudur covers a low hill in a many terraced square building. The lower terraces are surrounded on both sides by truly lovely sculptures of the life of Buddha, Buddhist teachings and the story of Buddhism in Java.




The top of the temple is surrounded by a large number of large Buddha sculptures in curious stone lattice work. And two groups of students from competing English language schools, both of which broke into many gangs to seek out and speak to tourists "for just one minute."





One of these engaging groups decided that dancing was in order. Yes, me too.

I also took a train to nearby Solo, a town of like size to Yogyakarta with it's own palace and sites. I was visiting in the days leading up to an Islamic holiday. This seemed an excuse to have fairs in the squares in front of both the Yogya and the Solo palaces.


Solo had some young girls trying out their dance moves.

Both towns are big on batik (cloth drawn with wax and dyed) and leather shadow puppets (the best hides come from Sulawesi or so I'm told). I am the proud owner of both, if a person who has sent items home via Indonesian sea mail can be said to own something.





A fowl interlude (for that certain someone who knows who he is)

But Yogyacarta has more than batik and shadow puppets and straw hats on offer. It also has the Pasar Ngasem, or bird marked. To be sure there were pretty birds, but for me it was all about the chickens.

You had your standard chickens in their prime.

You had all kinds of goodies to keep chicken in their prime (in case the photos are unclear, they are of seed, crickets, ants and maggots).
There were also some chicken somewhat past their prime, and other chicken that seemed to be going through some difficult youthful phase of experimentation with fashion. Do chicken mothers worry?

Then there were the things that "taste like chicken".

OK, I've never actually heard anyone describe bats as tasting like chicken, but it seems inevitable.

Bandung

Some places I take too. Some places I do not.

I arrived after a night train from Yogyakarta, no doubt cranky. The train station was perfectly nice. The strolling guitarists were well represented.

I found the market odd. I thought the city's mosque had a minaret that looked like something from air traffic control. I did however find a cafe during a rain storm.

I did not take to Bandung.

Jakarta

I like Jakarta. I think I want to live in Jakarta. I probably just want to be the young Mel Gibson in The Year of Living Dangerously, complete with a wise dwarf (played by Linda Hunt) and the beautiful love interest (played by a young Sigourney Weaver). I think I want to live in Jakarta.

Jakarta has more than its share of monuments to Indonesia. It also has a fantastic "old school" museum of dusty shelves and cavernous rooms without benefit of lighting consultants filled with archaeological finds and ethnological displays.

I stayed up north, towards the old Dutch port of Batavia.
This part of the city has a number of small museums in old nicely mantained colonial era buildings, a square that saw good use day and night and a large number of other buildings needing bunches of care.

There is also the remains of the Dutch era canal system. The main canal ran in front of my hotel. It was the foulest smelling most vile looking bit of water I've ever seen. The only good that could be said of it is that it seems to keep mosquitos away.

The canal discharged (flushed) into the old port. This still sees lots of really cool business with cargo ships that would have been at home 100 years ago. I hired a small boat to be paddled around in. Another form of transport.

The cargo ships seemed well supplied with guitarists.

Another rain storm at the end of the boat ride. To the rescue came a curious sort of bicycle taxi with a padded seat. Another form of transport.

And a photo of me. I'm on the little boat surrounded by that water. I do not dare move even face muscles to form a smile.

Best regards,

Sam

Bali and a bit of Java

I spent six nights in Bali, three at the lovely Conrad Bali resort on one of the south coast beaches and three at the equally lovely Hotel Tjampuhan near Ubud in the hills towards the island's center.

While I'd not stayed at the Conrad before, Bali seemed pleasantly familiar from previous trips. I took a peak at the beaches and then went to the spa for a nice massage and a couple of more dubious treatments (though I am assured my skin in now quite refreshed). I think I'm on safe ground saying that the beach resorts of south Bali are fully attuned with any number of other good beach resorts around the world. So that is what I got, a relaxing beach stay.

Ubud is more the thing, with an attractive combination of walks through forest and farms, temples and markets. I did some of each.



Ubud likes to describe itself as a place defined by its culture. It is full up of nightly performances based on old royal entertainment that has been preserved through the temples. I can't say how closely the tourist performances tie to these anticedants, but they are very nice to see. My first night in Ubud I saw classical dance with gamelan music. It had all it needed to have, the beautiful girl who might be trouble, the hero who might be a bit dim and the evil villan who might be the most interesting of the crowd.


However, the good guys had celestial help, and the bad guys took it on the chin as they should.

The next night was somewhat the same, though this time the gamelan orchestra was replaced with a kecak chorus. The chorus, all male, forms a circle several deep around a large oil lamp. The chorus chants as the background, or perhaps the dramatic force, of the dance that takes place within the chorus circle and around the flaming lamp. More good guy, bad guy and gods help out.

This performance also included two trance exhibitions. The audience is asked to believe that various participants go into a trance and then dance beautifully or perform acts of courage or endurance only to be revived by a priest with sacred water at the end. Come what may, it is interesting and sort of neat to watch a performer kick and swirl his way across hot coals.

Another Ubud site is the sacred monkey forest. It is lush with growth and lively with the sound of music this time of year. It is full of sculpture and temples and monkeys. I assume the forest is sacred in spite of and not because of the monkeys. I reject that it is the monkeys themselves that are sacred. They are, however, photogenic. This fellow planted himself in front of me while I was getting ready to take a picture of another critter at a bit greater (safer) distance. Other monkeys seem bolder yet.

Now doesn't that just look like fun! Or not.

And I ate a lot. So this was all very nice (except the for monkey thing, and maybe the spa thing), and it was just what I expected and I was kind of glad to be on the move again. I took a bus from Bali to a town in east Java named Probolinggo and then minivan up the side of Bromo, a volcano sat in a national park. A nicely long and uncomfortable trip to get all that Bali pleasantness out of my system. And there was a boat ride too.

The hotel at Bromo was perhaps too much of a good bad thing. I know I've stayed in tougher hotels but it has been a while. And I have grown to like a degree of comfort, like sheets on the bed. And hot water. Though in fairness, there was one sheet on the bed.

The Bromo thing, ordained by those who came before, is to jump in a rattling jeep at 3:30 AM, head across the crater floor and up the other side across difficult terrane and on broken roads to catch the first rays of a glorious sunrise. And so I did. And so did 200 others in about 50 other jeeps. Having seen the sun rise, we then jump back in our jeeps (which jeep was that I was in?) and head back to the crater floor to walk up the mini cone in the big cone (I apologize to anyone reading this that knows anything technical about volcanoes). This involves ascending what was stated in my guidebook to be 248 steps (but I counted 250 and really resented the extra two), and then a bit of vertigo inducing prancing around the lip of the volcano. Someone sold me some flowers to throw into the volcano. This I dutifully did. Aside from the heart attack risk associated with climbing those 250 (not 248) steps, the most dangerous part of the day might have been fending off the pony hustlers on the path to the steps. If that sounds like I am questioning the morals of the ponies, let me say I have no reason to think ill of them.

Then, bringing me to yesterday afternoon, I took a short but not so comfortable bus ride to Surabaya, city of heros and Indonesia's second most populous town. Having had my little adventure, I checked myself into the wonderful Hotel Majapahit and its colonial splendor. How much extra to upgrade to a suite?

The bus ride is worth a couple of lines. I got on an air conditioned bus at the Probolinggo bus station. Let's be nice to the tourist. Here we will put your luggage next to the driver. Away we go ... about a mile where everyone is instructed to get out of the bus and board its un-airconditioned poor cousin. I kind of sat on my luggage for the next three hours.

The ride itself wasn't horrible. Lots of merchants jumping on and off selling food and drink and weird whatnots. There were also the singers (the largest group was five including drums and two guitars). Jump on, sing a couple of songs, pass the hat and off they go.

When I pried myself away from my glorious hotel room, I walked around Surabaya a bit. It has nice markets and mosques and temples, and the remains of a Dutch colonial city.
I lucked onto some kind of event at the Governor's mansion. The good and great of Surabaya sat under a deep portico while children danced before them. Love the shades.

Then the big number! With a marching band! And beautiful girls!

And yes, those are cow boy boots. I truly have no idea.

Tomorrow I am off on an early train to Jogyakarta in central Java and another shot of culture. Tonight, I think I'll look for another marching band.