Indonesia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbswmbkwLME Indonesia Video Part 2. Please click on this link.



July 23rd




Thursday started off early and with a nice breakfast in Chinatown, although the portions were lacking due to my loss of appetite. We gave ourselves more than enough leeway for breakfast but fell a bit short on travel time to the airport. The distance from the center of Singapore to the airport was a bit skewed in my mind. In short we left a bit late and we were standing fractiously glancing every second at the time; actually it was only me really. If we were in an American airport we would have missed our flight no if and's or butts. However we were in meticulously punctual Singapore and we made our flight with time to spare. Our flight to Indonesia was smooth. We flew over Mt. Merapi, which translates literally to Mt. fire in Indonesian. We landed in Yogyakarta, a small special region with it's own sultan. The area is the center of art and culture in Java which was one reason we came here. The other being the two famous ruins of Borobudur and Prambanan.
About a week or two before our trip I did a bit of research on places to stay. I settled on a place called The Austin Residences which ended up being a wonderful choice. We took a cab there directly from the airport and we were made feel right at home immediately. The rooms were fairly cheap and clean. The serves was great too. Its time's like this where I wish I was more tedious with my journal entries. I believe Polly wanted to take a nap at this point in the afternoon.....?? Anyways for this reason or another that slips my immediate memory I went for a walk alone. I was looking for my beloved Dorian fruit, that much is certain. I first walked about three kilometers north, three kilometers east and then walked back through dense motorcycle infested traffic. The sidewalks were just about non existent just like the Indonesian traffic laws. No matter how chaotic and flawed the traffic system was there was one thing in particular which made the experience pleasant. The smiles of the people. Everybody smiled and asked me, "Di mana andah pergi?" Which means "where are you going?" I had studied some basic Indonesian and I could answer, "saya jalan jalan." This means "I am just going on a stroll." The people would always smile and maybe try a few English sentences themselves. It was kind of the theme of my adventurous stroll just to meet and greet random people. In the end I never found any Dorian. And I had been walking for an hour at least. But it gave me a wonderful perspective and admiration for our neighborhood. That night we took a taxi downtown to the main market street. There we were soon persuaded by a friendly gentleman into a batik shop. The area is famous for these beautiful hand woven tapestries. We also got some free tea out of it. However it quickly got boring and we made our exit. There were so many of these shops and their soul purpose is to make money off tourists. Its a legitimate business for most of these shops. However not all. And all these pieces are of the same design as the shop next door. All machine printed and marketed as hand woven.
We found the downtown amusing. It was full of people, tourists and locals all enjoying themselves. Yogyakarta being a Muslim area like 90% of Indonesia it felt very clean and secure. There are no bars, no discos and absolutely no public drunkenness. There were no beggars either. Everybody was endowed with pride in their city and their community. This shined wherever you went. For dinner we ate at a small restaurant open for breaking Ramadan fasts. The food was awesome but they tried to charge us extra.... we caught it and gave the guy a look reserved for people like him.

July 24th

On this sunny Friday morning we woke up to a fabulous home made breakfast made by our lovely inn keeper. She too was observing the Ramadan holiday and abstaining from consuming food during the sunlit hours of the day. However she went through the trouble of spending her morning making us what was the finest breakfast of the trip.

 

 Polly had gotten in touch with a friend she had met in Europe in December. He is an economics teacher from Holland. He swung by our hotel around 10am. He was spending his summer months traveling through Southeast Asia. He decided to tag along or rather we decided to tag along with him for the day. He was excellent company and a really cool person to get to know. The three of us decided to walk around the city and check out some historical sights. Our first trip was to the Sultan's palace aka Kraton. I was looking forward to seeing a gamalan performance but because of the Muslim holiday there was none. Also to dampen my spirits I was made to wear a t-shirt instead of my tank top. This can be translated into buying a shirt from one of the over priced stores encircling the palace... But to make lemonade out of a lemon I used this opportunity to practice my bartering in Indonesian. It worked and I walked away with a decent t-shirt for only $2. The palace was really interesting. The architecture was a beautiful mix of old world Dutch, Indonesia was a Dutch colony until after WW2, and traditional Javanese. There were many old photographs of the Sultan and his family as well as the Sultans before him. It seemed he was a very educated and proud person. There was a quote describing the Sultan which said something like "Indonesian heart and heritage; Western education." We found a cool area where the craftsmen were making handmade Javanese masks. Also we got to see them making Javanese puppets which are used for shadow plays. They use cow hide's and natural dyes to make these small puppets. The detail is pretty amazing. They told us how every little body part has a deep underlying meaning.

 

Just outside the palace and through some small decorative streets is the Taman Sari or "water castle." This was built back in the mid 18th century as a royal garden. We got a tour from a very informed local. He told us all kinds of information about the place and he was very patient and kind. Of course on the way out he took us through his "father's batik house." We looked around; at this point I swore I never wanted to see batik every again in my life! Our friend Gijs ended up buying a nice piece of batik though so it paid off. When we were done with the tour we gave our docent his well deserved tip. We left the castle compounds and immediately decided to head for a glutinous lunch. The hot sun was making us very very hungry. I, being a proud geography buff, said I knew which direction to go. I was thinking as soon as we get to the old dutch fort on the main street there would be a multitude of restaurants open for our business. Fortunately instead of believing my canard Polly used her i-phone's map to guide us. We made a few wrong turns but in the end it allowed us to see more of the city and to build up a healthy appetite. During our walk I had found an ally way full of small street food stalls. Polly and I both bought some banana wrapped goodness. Her's being a sweet sticky rice and mine a watery banana soup, each was delicious and cheap which was a cause for worry. Polly got a little sick on her first day in Singapore and because of that she was worried. I have only one experience with food poisoning. That incidence occurred in Costa Rica on my roommate and I's last day which was of no consequence.  This being the start of our trip we were a little worried. Long story short we never got sick this time around. We eventually, some two hours later stumbled upon a decent restaurant. The food was good. Before dinner we left Gijs who needed some needed sleep, he was still Jet-legged. We invited him to come with us to the ruins of Borobudur the next morning. We had to wake up at 3am so we came back to the hotel and called it a night. 

 

  July 25th

We woke up at about 3:30 for our trip to the Borobudur and Prambanan ruins. I actually felt very chip and lively considering how early it was. Our hotel arranged a driver for us. He was very nice but didn't speak any English. We picked Gijs up from his hostel at 3:45 and then we drove off into the night. The rode was very well paved and lined with tall trees. It took an hour and a half to arrive at Borobudur. At the hotel/ main entrance we received some flash lights and at 5:00 or so we were told to hike up. We didn't have a guide and it was dark. I think I knew the way so I kept walking. I thought my only audience and companions were Polly and Gijs but as I turned around a whole group, maybe ten or so were following me. It was funny cause I was completely lost. We ended up seeing the lights of the group that left before us and we scurried through a big forest and flanked them. It was kind of like an easter egg hunt in the dark only we were hunting a massive Buddhist temple. Anyways we get there and wow. I will let the pictures and video's do the talking. Here is a link to the Borobudur Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borobudur.

 In this picture I look grumpy but I have to clarify I was extremely happy. It was the camera timing or I was in mid yawn or something, lol.

After we watched the sun rise and walked around for few hours we drove an hour east to the other Hindu ruin of Prombanan. Here is the link for the Prambanan Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prambanan
Again I will let the pictures explain.

We left the Prambanan temple complex in the afternoon. The sun was beating down on us and we were very fatigued. On the way back to the hotel we wanted to buy fresh fruit. I said to the driver, "Kita mau membali buah." It took me a while to think about the word order but this means "We want to buy fruit." I think the sentence is correct but seeing as I'm just starting Indonesian who knows.... Regardless of my lack of confidence and to my delighted surprise he understood me! He took us to a fruit stand and we bought a bunch of Mangosteen fruit and Salak fruit. Salak fruit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salak has an interesting taste. Its dry in texture, somewhat sweet, somewhat sour, with an aftertaste which to me tastes like  what a blue scented kids marker would taste like if it's smell was converted to a taste... unique to say the least. But they are tasty when you get used to eating them. We got back to the hotel around 2. We tipped our wonderful driver.
The night before we had arranged a place to stay in beach town called Pacitan. Its a small town with some great surf. However only until recently have people been coming to this town for surfing and there is little information about it. Whatever info there is was all positive. I read many stories of this place being the coolest little town in Indonesia. So because I wanted to surf I made the call for us to go there. I contacted a small surf-inn which could rent out surf boards. They said they hadn't any rooms but they could find a place for us and also they could get us a ride. At 4pm our drivers picked us up and drove us three hours into Pacitan. They drive was very scenic and our drivers were wonderful. The man driving was actually laughing and joking about something the whole way there. He didn't speak English but we could tell by his body language he was a laughable and loving person. We got to the hotel around 7pm or 8pm at night. It was already dark but we could hear the ocean swells rolling into the beach some 100 meters away. We were greeted by the hotel manager. He was about my age and married to a really kind French girl. We were shown our room which we didn't think we would have. It was a beautiful beach bungalow with a bathroom outside. The bathroom was crawling with cool frogs and huge geckos. It was a special place with a very homely atmosphere. For dinner we walked down the road to a small hole in the wall restaurant our bungalow manager had recommended to us. I think I ordered Nasi Fish and Polly ordered an Indonesian version of her favorite Thai soup, Tom Yam. Our food was delicious. At this point of the trip the spiciness was getting to me. I kept on eating as much as I could because I knew that once I got to Thailand I had to be ready to consume all kinds of spicy foods. After dinner we went to sleep. The loud chants of the Mosque`s call to prayer reverberated throughout the clear night sky.

07/26

Today we woke up at around 5:30am to the sound of strange animals scurrying about on our roof. We made our way back to sleep after I roomed around the room looking for a huge snake that I feared would be there, no snake or animal was found. At 6:30am we woke up to the sound of our alarms. We rented some bicycles and went out searching for breakfast. We found some small shops and bought fresh fruit from them. The shopkeepers were so friendly, unbelievably friendly. I practiced my Indonesian with them and they looked so happy. We rode back and made some breakfast. We started talking to an Irish couple we had briefly met the night before. John, who was a good surfer from the West of Ireland, invited me to go with him to a somewhat secret reef break 45 minutes away. I agreed and Polly decided to do some meditation on the beach while I was gone. At about 10am John and I made our way via motorbike to the surf spot which was supposedly "super heavy." The ride there was breathtakingly beautiful. I didn't bring my camera for fear it would get lost or stolen but I regret it now. Every person we passed on the way had a big smile on their faces and waved to us. We smiled and waved back. When we got there to the reef I realized what I had gotten myself into. There were two breaks, one on the left, one on the right. Both waves came out of deep water and explode on a shallow coral reef. In the center is the deep channel with a very strong current. It was easy to paddle out but almost impossible to paddle back in.

This photo I downloaded from the Internet. It was twice this size when I was there.

  I had brought a surf board I had rented back at the bungalow. It was too small for these conditions and I knew if I tried to ride it I would be in a very peculiar situation. On my own board these waves would be ride able but not on one I wasn't used to. So I decided to play it safe and stay in the channel, more as an observer.  It was truly the heaviest wave I've ever been out surfing. I almost paddled into a monster wave but reluctantly pulled back. I didn't trust my board. After an hour John finally caught one wave. Although for another hour I couldn't see him. Finally I saw him paddling for shore so I decided it was a good time to head in. I tried paddle a little toward the right to catch the breaking waves inside but I got caught in the massive current and recycled back into the lineup. I repeated this about four times. On the third try I turned around and spotted a massive snake just a few meters away from me. It was big and blackish greenish gray in color.

Not my photo but from the internet. I looked up more than 100 species of big snakes living in Java and this one most closely resembles my snake, The King Cobra. Although I will never be certain if it really was one of these deadly snakes it certainly could of been given the size, color and shape of the head. Scary for sure!

When I finally got out of the water I saw John had a massive wound to his leg which he got from bouncing off the reef. When we got back to the bungalows we went back to our restaurant for lunch. At 3pm Polly and I rode our bikes to the river mouth to go surf the other, beginner friendly wave. I rented a long board for Polly. John brought our boards on his bike. Several surfers and their girlfriends came to the beach. It was funny to see so many surfers teaching their girlfriends how to surf. I got Polly out there to practice paddling. She did pretty well. She wanted to stand up on a wave so I waited until a good looking wave came and I pushed her into one. I told her to stand up when she got momentum. She rode her fist wave for a bout 30 seconds down the beach. Seeing her smile was one of the best moments of our trip. The sport which has given me so much and the woman I love combined into one perfect moment. I hope she continues surfing. I caught a bunch of waves until the evening. We rode our bikes back and called it a night.

July 27

 We slept in on this day. Our bungalow organized a ride back to our hotel in Yogyakarta. We were very sad to leave Pacitan. It was a wonderful town. Great surf, beautiful beaches and amazing people. I would love to come back sometime in the near future. We left around noon. It took us about three hours to get back into Yogyakarta. All we wanted to do today was relax, eat good food and see a gamalan performance at night. I looked up online the best restaurants in the area. I found many reviews of this place 20 minutes north. We decided to go check it out. We took a taxi which snaked through the beautiful city.  Its amazing how much art is posted everywhere around the city. Also there are dozens of universities and educational institutions. Indonesia is about to boom!  Our restaurant turned out to be above all expectations. It was divine to say the least. Best meal of the trip! I had a roast duck with rice and vegetables. Polly had a curried chicken with this amazing banana rice. After dinner we went to a gamalan shadow puppet show at the regional museum. I had played gamalan in the UCSB gamalan ensemble for a year and I was quite interested in seeing a top performance in Java. It beat our performance hands down. It was beautiful and the players were very talented. It was way too long though and started to get boring. After the show we walked around downtown. We hung around some high school/ college kids riding BMX bikes off jumps. They were all super friendly. We then got a taxi back and called it a night. That was all for Indonesia. Its a beautiful country with great food and lovely people.