Yogyakarta, Java

We were up early to catch our 8am Executive train to Yogyakarta in Central Java (8hour ride, about 5 dollars each). The train was at the very back of the station and involved actually walking through sitting trains to get there. As we approached a man waved us over, looked at our ticket and told us to follow him. We assumed that he worked with the train station as he confidently took us into our train car and to our seats, making sure they were adjusted and working. He then stood there rubbing his fingers for cash – Ian handed him 2000 RP the standard fee for this kind of help (works out to about 30 cents CAD).  

I don’t mind paying that little amount but I hate the fact when you think someone is doing something nice or is just being helpful, they are really doing it for money.

The train wove along the north, through the hills and alongside rice paddies – great scenery. A server came by both for breakfast and lunch orders and the prices were quite reasonable. We arrived to the city without event and took a taxi to our guesthouse, the De Pendopo.

De Pendopo is located down a very narrow alley off the popular tourist road Prawirotaman. Our hosts, Ira and Budie, met us enthusiastically, offering us a choice of room and coffee and tea. The guesthouse is enclosed in a large courtyard with a central building in the middle and the 4 rooms running on the side. Each room has a queen sized bed, a/c, desk and TV, and bathroom with skylight and open areas so it feels like you are going outside to use the bathroom. Breakfast is included and is taken in the courtyard – all for 22 dollars a night. Here's a photo of the bathroom:

The food along Prawirotaman is excellent with both Indonesian and Western meals. Our best meal was at the vegetarian restaurant Milas, a 15 minute walk south of this area. Tables are all outside under a thatched roof surrounding a garden with fountain – quite lovely. The food was fantastic – we had bruschetta, mushroom satays, soup with crunchy vegetables and a tasty broth, and Ian had a curry. With drinks the meal total was about 10 dollars.

Our first day here, we booked a couple tours to temples outside of the city for later in the week, and then took a taxi to the palace, only to discover it was closed in the afternoons. The guard at the palace suggested we visit a gallery that demonstrates how Batik is made and then motioned over a becak (a cycle rickshaw that I had been determined to avoid taking) and informed us it would cost 5000rp to get there (60 cents). We squished into the narrow seat and off our ‘driver’ went.

It wasn’t a bad experience actually and I ended up feeling safer than I thought I would. When the driver got up some speed, we had a cool breeze on our faces and covered our noses when hit by exhaust fumes. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for our driver uphill and had to fight my urge to get out and push.

Learning about Batik was very interesting. Batik is an art form that uses wax resistant dyeing to create patterns, pictures, and designs on cloth. Batik shirts, sarongs, hats, baby slings, etc. are available but this place specialized in Batik art. We were taken to the back where we received a short lesson on how to make Batik.

First you use a piece of wax to fill in all the areas you do not want dyed (the negative space), once finished, the designs can be traced with a dye. The cloth is then dipped into the dye colour of choice, leaving the waxed areas free of colour. The wax can then be removed by heat, and new wax added to avoid the next colour from dyeing this area. The process is continued with each new colour and can take up to 5 days to complete a large painting or several months for the finest cloth. It’s certainly a time consuming process. 

Many patterns and designs are copied but with a slightly different approach taken by each painter. The cloth can be washed and ironed and the colour will remain firm – this is how you tell real Batik from fake. Fake Batik is called coca-cola Batik because the water turns brown when washed. These pieces of cloth are framed and hung on the walls.

We spent some time looking at the Batik and wanted to buy many pieces but of course, our backpacks would not allow that. Ian did however buy one for about 30 dollars – it folds up into a neat small area that will easily fit into his bag.

Following this, we walked to Malioboro road and mall to get cooled down at J.Co.  We then moseyed along the road, briefly walking through an indoor market and moved toward home. We hopped onto a bemo, the city bus, and made our way back to our guesthouse.

Borobudur

Through Annas Tours, we booked a visit to Borobudur and were picked up by our driver at 2pm. We were very lucky in that we were the only two going on this trip so it ended up costing us 18 dollars for the ride to the temple and another 12 to get in for our own private driver.

Borobudur is 40 kms west of Yogya beside limestone cliffs and surrounded by volcanoes. The temple is a multi-tiered Buddhist stupa that began its life in 775 AD but was abandoned 15 years later until construction was again picked up by the Saliendras. The temple has 6 square platforms and three circular ones and is decorated by relief panels and 504 Buddha statues – many with no heads.

Each staircase takes you to a platform where you can then walk around taking in the views of the countryside or admiring the various statues and reliefs. If you are able to read these panels and follow the story, you should walk clockwise.

The English rediscovered the temple in 1815 and in 1973, UNESCO began to take the temple apart block by block for restoration – the project took 11 years and 21 million dollars to complete.

The temple is featured in one of our favourite movies Baraka so it was quite exciting to see it first-hand. The sky was cloudy and mist was forming high over the hills so it made for a pleasant afternoon of viewing (rather than in the hot sun). Unfortunately, our camera batteries died and our new ones proved duds so we were not able to get any photos on the top level. I recommend that you google images of Borobudur to get a better idea of what we saw.

As we often do, Ian and I separated so that we could take things in at our pace. I am frequently amazed at the Javanese. While standing on the top platform, feeling the cool breeze and taking in the magnificent stone bells, a family stood beside me playing with their small child. I watched and smiled at them as the little boy practised his prayers on the ground. The grandfather then gently brought the boy over to me and I held out my hand to shake his but the little boy instead, took my hand and kissed it. So cute.

After this I went down to the ground to take in the enormity of the temple and was approached by three Indonesian boys, one about 12 years old. The one boy held out his hand so I held mine out in return. He took mine, bent, and brought it to his forehead – a traditional greeting of respect. Each boy did the same in return and then practised their English skills for a little bit, asking me where I’m from (Oh, Obama!?) and I explained how Canada was not the U.S.

Ian and I spent a couple hours here and then returned to our driver and home.

Prambanan

Tour 2 was to start at 2pm but our driver was the same one from yesterday and as he knew we wanted to see some more artwork, decided to pick us up early. We were the only ones again.  

We went to a ‘co-operative’ comprised of student Batik work which was much more exciting than the previous works we had seen. We sat and chatted over tea with the manager and then began looking around. It wasn’t long before Ian and I fell in love with several pieces which we narrowed down to three. Since Batik is cloth, it can be folded up into a tiny light-weight square easily fit into Ian’s backpack.

We then made our way to the Prambanan Plain, a 30 minute drive east of Yogya (or as the locals say, Jogja).  On route at one of the stop lights, we had company. Like Toronto, Indonesia also has its beggars hawking wares among the cars stopped at lights – sometimes they sing, or play guitars. This time we were visited by drag queens banging on the car windows telling us they loved us. I have to say, some of them looked really good, others just looked like guys wearing women’s clothing and too much make up.

Over 30 temples and palaces are spread out over a 30 square kilometre area at Prambanan Plain.  We entered the international visitors centre and paid our ‘foreigner’s fee’ and rec’d a coffee, tea or water for free.  Out the door and to our first stop, the Hindu Prambanan temple complex built in 832 AD – three giant, rocket-shaped temples.  

The buildings were magnificent and most open to the public. You could climb a set of stairs to a platform that surrounded the temple. Many relief panels ran along the walls.

Sometimes you could catch a nice breeze. Coming later in the day to avoid the heat was definitely a good idea. From these platforms, you could get some super views of neighbouring temples.

Visitors could continue up the stairs and enter a tiny dark and often dank chamber housing a statue, usually of Buddha.

Ian and I had a blast wandering around the complex, taking in the incredible sights. 

At one point, I sat on a low wall to wait while Ian visited a smaller temple. While waiting an entire family came up and asked to take their photo with me – of course I said yes, and they immediately propped their little girl beside me and gathered around. I often wonder what they tell their family when they show them these photos….The little girl wasn’t too happy sitting beside a complete stranger so I tried to be friendly by reaching out to touch her hand – the mother said something to her and the little girl grabbed my hand and drew it to her forehead in the traditional Indonesian greeting that the boys at Borobudur showed me. I was quite touched.

Ian and I discovered that there were more temples to see so we moved on. On route, 4 small boys ran up to me reading a script written in English. They were doing a project for school where they had to interview tourists and they wondered if I could help them with their project. So of course I said yes. They asked me several questions such as my name, what country I came from, what did I think of Yogya, what did I like about it, etc. They were all very sweet and each one shook my hand when they were finished.

Ian and I continued on across a large field and I could see in the distance that the next temple was merely a pile of rocks. In 2006 a large earthquake destroyed many of the temples here and they had yet to be restored. I told Ian I wasn’t interested in seeing piles of rocks so I found a place to sit and pulled out my Kobo and he went on without me. About 20 minutes later I received a text from Ian (yes we both bought phones and yes, I now know how to text!!!) saying that he wanted to see another temple further on which I was quite fine with so off he went. Ten minutes later Ian text me again saying I had to come and off I went.

I came across a huge temple complex, far larger than the first one we went to but unfortunately much destroyed by the earthquake. There was a central building surrounded by smaller stupas and of course, piles of rocks. You could go inside the temple but there wasn’t anything in it, however, unlike the other ones, this one had many entrances and exits.

The place was deserted, and it was getting quite dark, so it was really neat seeing the sun setting behind the temple and watching the rocks change colour without anyone else around.

We stayed until it was very dark thinking that our path back to the car park would be lit – never assume anything here. The path was wide and flat without potholes (a rarity) and ran through a large park lined with trees – we walked easily along it, even though it was pitch black out. It was tricky finding our driver but we eventually did and off we went to our next destination, the ballet.

Ramayana is a famous story in Indonesia and is played in an outdoor theatre next to the temple complex. In fact, the three larger temples of Prambanan were lit in soft yellow and served as an incredible backdrop to the story of Ramayana. Unfortunately, our camera takes terrible night pictures so I didn’t get any – the ballet was two hours long and very interesting. The dance style is quite unique using a lot of small subtle foot and hand movements. The costumes were incredibly elaborate.

I can’t tell you the entire story as it would take pages but it involves a woman, Shinta, who is kidnapped by Ramayana. Her husband Rama attempts to retrieve her. Rama is a quite proficient with the bow and arrow and many times, the dancer would shoot his bow across the very large stage where the waiting actor would grab it mid-air and hold it to his chest as if shot. Unbelievable skill but so dangerous – that would certainly never be allowed in Canada.

At one point in the story, Rama is helped by monkeys, one being the white monkey, Hanuman, who ends up being captured by the enemy and condemned to burn to death. The guards carry several flaming torches out onto the stage. Hanuman turns the tables and ends up burning the city – he grabs the torches and throws them onto the thatched huts peeking above the backstage area and they of course, catch fire. The stage is very deep, and we were sitting about 10 rows back, but could certainly feel the heat from the very LARGE fire. Needless to say, they had intermission here so they could put out the fire. Big differences between what would be allowed back in Canada!

I really enjoyed seeing the different dance style and even though I held the summary of the story close at hand so I could follow what was going on, it was a pretty neat experience.

Yogya isn’t the greatest city to be honest – but the temples, the ballet, the food, and the Batik were well worth the trip.