temples galore

We arrived in Yogya a few days back and immediately made our plans for the week. Yogya is short for Yogyakarta, pronounced Joe-jha-karta, and is a major city in central Java. We arranged a tour on 10/30/'08 of the two big temples nearby: Prambanan (Hindu and Buddhist) and Borobudur (Buddhist).

Leaving at a relaxed 10am, we took a private, air-conditioned 30 min bus ride to the town of Prambanan. Nice ride. Paid the exorbitantly high admission (by Indonesian standards), hired a tour guide and started exploring. My understanding is a bit incomplete, but IIRC there are three main Hindu temples devoted to Brahma (creator), Siva (destroyer) and Vishnu (protector). There are also 3 adjacent temples devoted to their wheels/ride to the heavens, such as horses, elephants and such. The main temples are huge, with reliefs carved in the side telling the respective stories. They were restoring them, so we couldn't get as close as we'd like to admire the detailed reliefs, but the sheer effort to build such a sprititual monument was striking nonetheless. Surrounding these 6 main temples are hundreds of smaller temples for the 4 non-kingly castes. They are ruins really because they were destroyed by volcano Merapi and not yet rebuilt. I couldn't help but imagine what it must of have been like standing at the main temple looking at thousands of people praying at their respective temples.

At Prambanan, the main attraction is what I just described, but there are also Buddhist temples off the beaten path, so we decided to go. These were really in a state of disrepair, destroyed by the volcano and not rebuilt yet because of local corruption by the equivalent of an American union. The Buddhist temples had more of a peaceful/meditative vibe, rather than mythological and epic story feeling of the Hindu temples. They were also a little more fun to explore because you could walk inside and see the statues and reliefs up close. The massive temples with clear bright blue sky and puffy white clouds in the background made for a beautiful (albeit hot) environment to explore.

It is when we left Prambanan that the transport adventures/hell began. On the way, we noticed a naked woman sitting roadside (prostitute? crazy?) that unnerved me a little. The direct trip from Prambanan to Borobudur should have taken about a half hour via bus. However, after that period of time, we noticed that the driver was taking small roads and looking for signage. I won't go on a long rant, but suffice to say that despite us clearly deliniating what transport we were paying for, the driver took an extremely circuitous, unagreed upon route to make a few extra bucks. The worst thing is that it wasted a few hours that we could be exploring the awesome temples with. I was enraged and fought with the driver for a really long time, and eventually got some cash back, but the principle of it really ate away at me. I eventually got over it, and we enjoyed Borobudur too, but it was an odd series of emotions, from spiritual to viscerally angry (almost physical), back to spiritual. The driver even tried to return us home by 4:30pm, totally negating the point of the 'sunset tour of the temples'! Enough about transport.

We eventually took a bus with a few french tourists to Borobudur. Once we arrived, the torrential downpours started almost immediately, so we grabbed some lunch and javanese coffee. BTW, Javanese coffee rocks! They brew it with the grinds still in and it is strong, but not acidic. Don't worry, we bought some for you all to try. Normal coffee reaks havoc on my stomach, but Javanese is smooth. We put on our raincoats and started the 1/2 mile walk up to the temple. It is massive, with meditating Buddhas in every direction! It is organized in the shape of layered rectangles (akin to concentric circles) with around 6 or so tiers. As you walk clockwise around the structure and up the tiers, it tells the story of Buddha and espouses the teachings of Buddhism. We couldn't make out much of the story from the reliefs, but it was still peaceful and neat to walk through at sunset. Once you reach the top, there are stupas everywhere with Buddhas inside them! The temple is adjacent to the Merapi volcano and a large mountain range (probably formed by Merapi). To boot, it was misty/foggy out, so it had this misty mountain spiritual vibe. Apparently the volcano erupted ~1K A.D., driving all the surviving residents to east java, so the temple is no longer active (at least not by the local community). There are persistent (almost comically so) hawkers along the exit, which is in sharp contrast to our time at the temple.

Halloween in Jogja

happy halloween from jogja (yogyakarta)! we went to a wayan kulit (shadow puppet performance) tonight and felt slightly halloween-y. what did you all do? :)

i know it's been a few days, so in case we don't have time to catch up for a bit, i'll give you the quick run down. on the 25th, we took the train from malang to solo (surakarta) and fell in love with the town. it didn't hurt that the world heritage cities festival and conference was also going on. we lucked out with seeing many cultural performances from groups all over indonesia as well as a parade! at the parade we met a very nice university student, adam, who showed me around the parade to get the best pics. let me clarify that - he led me *into* the parade to get photos! i was dodging performers! it was awesome! we ended up having dinner with him and his friend the next night. they showed us around the main festival grounds and we got such a better appreciation of everything. not only that, but they were a ton of fun to hang out with. and ladies, they're single, so don't miss out! :)

we also took a bicycle tour through the countryside and got to see how tons of local products are made. it was very educational and beautiful at the same time. the bike seat was rather hard, so my behind was happy to fit a nice comfy seat when we were all done. it seems we couldn't get enough of the bikes, so we took another motorcycle tour (still didn't drive on this one) into the surrounding mountains to visit two temples - candi sukuh and candi ceto. incredibly beautiful and with few tourists. we like the less touristy areas. unfortunately we were caught in a crazy delgue on the way home and were soaked through, partially due to the rain, partially due to the flooded streets. we showered, ate dinner and hopped on another train to jogja. it was a cross between a subway and a commuter train. i loved the open windows and wind. i'm finding i really appreciate it when i'm not sweating.

so, to jogja! and the rainy season! :) the first day here was a catch up day of firming up our flights to sumatra and within sumatra. we also booked a tour to the big temples outside the city - prambanan and borobudur. we did some wandering around the city as well - it's a much larger city than we thought! the second day we saw the temples (and had an awful experience with the tour company - adi. don't use them! they added stops in without telling us *after* we clarified with them our itinerary). they were amazing and we managed to dodge the rain. very exciting. today we did more wandering around, including finding a batik art center. very nice. we also ran into a few locals that were very friendly and very helpful - knowing full well the types of "friends" and "guides" that chase after tourists. it was refreshing.

tomorrow we hope to meet up with nancy's friend, sarah, who lives here with her family. and then on sunday we fly to medan in sumatra and hope to be in bukit lawang by sunday night to see the orangutans!