Diary excerpts Friday October 27th to Thursday November 2nd
Java wasn’t originally included in the rough guide of Grey and Gone travels but the promise of seeing a more Indonesian Indonesia, mystical temples, volcanoes and Java’s cultural heart tempted us more than the concern of Bintang being less available put us off.
Car from Ubud to Gilimanuk at the very western tip of Bali, to catch the ferry to Ketapang in East Java and then a train to Yogyakarta. The car journey took about 3 hours, down single carriageway roads used by everything from massive trucks to cyclists. The further west we went the more mosques we saw, as the Hindu temples were left behind.
The ferry from Gilimanuk to Ketapang is functional, once you can figure out how to buy the tickets and then find the right boat. The narrow strait between Bali and Java is busy with many crossings that continue 24/7. We sat facing the west Bali coastline – all national park, so looking at deserted pristine beaches. A pod of dolphins showed itself with some low level leaps and lazy swimming. The moon is just visible as the sky darkens. The other side of the boat faces East Java and the sun is going down, bathing the Ijen volcano in pink and soft purple hues. Ijen is a volcano with a sulphur lake where people still mine sulphur by hand. You can hike it from Ketapang to see the blue fire and sunrise but we won’t have time. We catch our train from Ketapang to Yogyakarta tomorrow.
It won’t be after much sleep. The hostel booked for our overnight stay was very cheap (£10) – private room and shower, aircon, balcony and, as it turned out, an unexpected breakfast BUT and it is a big but – it was a little less than pristine sheet wise and mossies were sighted. I may be being a little precious (still recovering from Dengue fever!) but we ‘went to bed’ fully clothed with trousers tucked into our socks!
Sleep was elusive, especially with the 3 am call to prayers and the 24 hour ferry terminal less than half a mile away! Still breakfast was delicious and the smiles were hopefully more infectious than the mosquitos.
We were up early (no surprise) and with time to kill before the 11am train we wandered around Ketapang. As usual the rewards came from turning off the main road and wandering onto a back street market. Meat, veg, fruit all on offer. As we continued walking inward the street became more of a path and there were clothes shops and jewellery stores – lots of families around the glittery gold. My sense of direction told us to keep pressing on as we’re heading back toward the station – a slight re-direction from a local helped us out!
Big air conditioned train for Yogyakarta. 13 hours – should be able to catch up on some sleep. Frustratingly sleep came and went, as did Java through the train window. Images flicker in your vision and you only realise that was worth capturing 10 seconds too late. Mosques now completely replace temples and noticeably there are more women with headscarves and coverings.
Java is over 90% Muslim in a country where it is not against the law to practice any religion but it is illegal to not be of any faith at all. Arriving late on Sunday in the dark in Yogyakarta the vibe is immediately and noticeably different. Roads are wider, more city like but still busy, with mopeds everywhere like demented ants. Food stalls and sheer numbers of people make it all quite overwhelming. Download Grab (Java seems to prefer Grab to Gojek) and straight to homestay – the briefest of check-ins before proper sleep. Thankfully clean sheets and no mosquitos.
The temples of Borobudur and Prambanan are the main tourist draws to Yogyakarta – both are within driving distance, although well outside the city. There is confusion about how and when they are best seen. Tours are available in every shop, café and taxi as well as every blog and wepsite. Just too much choice – however both are closed on Monday so we have 2 days to explore Yogyakarta freestyle. I am realising a few things :
1. If you have booked accommodation, unknowingly, in a quiet part of the city it is hard to assimilate quickly and there can be anxiety (mine) about missing things. Have not yet found a way around this however I am hoping to assimilate quicker with practice.
2. Astonishingly, all that is written on the internet is not accurate – including Tripadvisor, when it to comes to what is open, when and what is truly ‘amazing’. Do not bother going to the HeHa sky bar to view Yogya- it is a sort of Instagram production line where you pay for views to pout in front of. The world is not ready for Tim pouting.
3. We are getting up too early! Yogyakarta/Indonesian culture does not really get going until mid-morning. The exceptions are schools – (there’s one right opposite our homestay) and mosques calling to prayer – which of course are everywhere. Both are keen on tannoys. Once you are awake there seems a long wait for local coffee shops to open. However, it is fun to say hello to the smiling children at the school gates and impressive that they interrupt their play time unbidden to respect the national anthem played each morning over the tannoy right before a very stern sounding address.
4. Taxis are our lifeblood and need to be embraced. By Tuesday morning I have worked out that (for 89p) you can get a taxi to an open coffee shop somewhere for 8 am. Same taxi will take you to pick up your laundry (the height of luxury), a bar in the evening and then home safely. The driver (always male) will try to sell you a tour on every journey. However a smiling refusal never offends.
We arranged a (push) bike tour around a local village as a bit of an antidote to the hard sell of temples. We met in a village and managed to cycle in relatively non wobbly lines through rice fields to see various aspects of village life. Making nut based chips, tofu and local honey was interesting. Village life is not easy and work is repetitive. If you are making tofu in your family owned tofu factory then that is what you are doing 10 hours a day every day. It is hot and sweaty work and I cannot help but think that if my father was buying a family business I may wish for something different. On the other hand the beekeeper had lost his income as a printer in Yogya due to the pandemic and started his honey business. He now chooses to continue this as part job and part hobby.
Alun Alun or the southern square is a revelation after sundown. Jogja’s youth and families come out to play and enjoy themselves. Around the central grassy/sandy square, which is empty during the day, there are hundreds who gather to eat, chat, laugh and joke. Children can draw and colour in basic cartoon shapes on countless art stations that are set up. The main draw though is to see how many cars, taxis and mopeds you can hold up by cycling as many people as possible around the square in a seriously pimped up quadracycle (or Rosalie as we have always called them). It is innocent and light hearted and just makes you laugh as you wander around waving and applauding everyone’s efforts to pedal and steer the fairy lit, unicorn adorned very top heavy quadracycles in vaguely straight lines often with 2 nanna’s issuing instructions from the back seat.
Tuesday 31st October
Borobudur and Prambaren lived up to expectation. The sunrise visit to Borobudur is no longer possible and Unesco have limited the numbers of visitors allowed to the top each day to 150 per tour to protect the site. There are 8-10 tours per day at set times and you must pre book a ticket otherwise you only get to wander around the base. The tour takes you on a winding trail around and up the multiple levels mirroring the Buddhist levels of enlightenment and pilgramage. The very top level is not open as only practising Buddhist monks are allowed there to meditate, which they do daily before the grounds open. The lower part of the temple is made up of many hundreds of stone reliefs which either instruct on the importance of Karma – depicting the dire or delightful consequences of behaviour (including cooking turtles – bad and dispensing charity – good) or form a narrative around the birth and lives of Buddha, here as Prince Siddartha, and his path to true enlightenment. He could walk at birth, on lotus leaves and developed precociously, marrying at 16. Everyday life is depicted of the common people, nobility and the deity of the time. In the levels and passages above the narrative panels there are the bell shaped stupa’s with diagonal cut outs, each housing a statue of Buddha. The idea being that ordinary people can look for Buddha but he is not in plain sight.
It used to be a free for all and our guide tells us that on a busy day prior to the pandemic up to 50,0000 people would traipse unmonitored around the stupas on all levels (none of them reaching Nirvana I am sure), peering in at the Buddhas sitting serenely, sheltered from the sun since the 8th century. This overexposure and incessant clambering over has led to the temple sinking at a rate of 3-4 cm per year and the uncemented stones being worn away by too many heavy western feet in uncompromising shoes. On top of earthquakes, volcanic ash, microrganisms eating the stone and, for quite a long time from around the 14th century, pure abandonment, it is a wonder that the place still exists at all. However it more than exists – it commands the surrounding space and with Unesco funds, some regulation about its accessibility alongside local enthusiasm to keep cleaning (with lemongrass oi) and restoring, it will continue.
The ballet in the evening was how we experienced Prambanan. This temple was built to celebrate the marriage of a Buddhist prince and Hindu princess – it is a mix representing the two styles and approaches and it speaks of the tolerance and respect that runs through both philosophies. Also a recurring theme when we have spoken with people or listened to their introductions throughout Philippines and Indonesia so far. The ballet re-enacted the story of a lovestruck couple whose romance is interrupted by various villains and powerplays – the white monkey is key. All is resolved satisfactorily with some well-placed arrows. The victor is able to rescue his princess however annoyingly she has to prove she is still pure before he can accept her back – it was ever thus! The dance, intricate, delicate, in the female part and dramatic with fire and fireworks was given a stunning backdrop with the illuminated temple spires – quite breathtaking.
We spent our final evening in Yogyakarta at the Phoenix Hotel – over 100 years old, beautifully maintained but, at least while we were there, almost completely empty. A rare bit of luxury and we can still kid ourselves it is part of an authentic travel experience as it is steeped in dutch colonial history. On the definite plus side there was enough food for 100 people at breakfast and only 5 or 6 guests of which we were two – stocking uo for the forthcoming travel day. Train to airport and then a long flight to Mdan. Sumatra here we come!.
