Indonesia 2000, Part 11

THURSDAY 6 JULY

Looking back, it seems that we spent most of our time in Yogyakarta shopping (be it for real or
just windowing)! (I told you that it was a great place for shopping.) And so it won’t surprise you
that this day started with shopping at the local market, with me buying some batik baju Melayus
(nice but not even comparable to the one of Tuesday night). 

I then went to the Royal Palace, the Kraton. Lonely Planet seemed to think it was the world, but
neither Mustafa, who’d been a couple of days earlier, nor I were terribly impressed by it. We
must’ve missed it somehow and saw only tiny parts of it while the other bits might have been
closed to the public. 

However, I was impressed by the humbleness, for a royal residence, of the palace.  I’ve been to
many houses of leaders or former leaders of states that have been so lavish that, though impressed
by the structure, one felt ashamed at the extravagance on display. But the Kraton of Yogyakarta
was anything but extravagant.

Met Mustafa at one of the oldest mosques, which for some reason wasn’t aligned towards Makkah even
though it looked purpose built, near the Kraton. Prayed Zuhr and, after a visit to a tailor,
headed for Taman Sari (Water Palace), which was a complex of canals, pools and palaces but now
only the restored main pool and ruins of some gates are visible. It was very interesting as the
area surrounding the main palace and pool was still occupied by people in cute little houses
protected from the hustle and bustle of  the city.

Collecting from the tailor, we headed back to our guesthouse and made our way to Prambanan. On the
way we got a glimpse of Gunung Merepi. The view from the bus was great but once we arrived at
Prambanan we saw it again and this time it looked absolutely spectacular! The sight of the top
(the bottom was covered by clouds) of the smoking volcanic cone suspended in mid air and reaching
out to the sky was mesmerizing. It was particularly impressive, as we hadn’t expected to see it at
all. We’d come to see the biggest Hindu temple complex in Java but were treated to the
magnificence of one her best natural sights!  Fantastic!

The temples of Prambanan, which were built in the 9th century, were more impressive than the one
at Borobudur.  The temple-square had about 10 main temples, the highest of which is the lavishly
carved Shiva temple rising 47m high with statues of Shiva himself, naturally, Durga, Shiva’s
elephant-headed son Ganesh and Agestgu, along with other gates and decorations. Having not been to
many Hindu temples in India, this was by far the biggest I’d visited.  (Wait for a picture of
Mustafa I took there!)

Prayed Maghrib at a campsite, where kids from various parts of the country had gathered, and
headed for the Ramayana theatre. Had an excellent dinner at a really fancy, by our standard
anyway, restaurant by the theatre. (All you can eat for 1.50GBP).  There were plenty of vegetarian
dishes and I certainly took advantage of it. The best restaurant since Lahore, Pakistan!

And so on to the Ramayana ballet, and to the cheap seats of course even though we could’ve bought
the comfy leather VIP seats for just 4GBP. (Later moved to empty higher priced seats anyway.) The
show was about a familiar Hindu tale – the helpless heroine gets kidnapped by the ruler of evil
who wants to marry her, but of course the princess is saved and marries the heroic prince as “good
always overcomes evil”.  

Despite the uninspiring plot, I actually enjoyed the ballet, it getting better all the time. It
was quiet lavish and the scene, soon after I ran out of film unfortunately, where one of our
heroes burns down the evil kidnapper’s palace was quite spectacular.

After waiting quite a while we, helped by a local who we were very suspicious of, especially after
he was taking us past what looked like a man dressed as a woman, eventually caught a bus back to
Yogya. No buses from the bus station to our guesthouse, unfortunately, so we had to take a couple
of motor bikes. A fat dinner followed. 


FRIDAY 7 JULY  

Oh, what a bad day! Do you remember the journey from Cirebon to Wonosobo and all the problems
associated with it? Do you remember me saying that I was feeling great afterwards? Well, this was
another troublesome journey but I did not feel great afterwards. You see, there was a key
difference between the two; on the Cirobon-Wonosobo journey I was travelling with locals; on the
Yogyakarta-Bromo we were in a bus full of backpackers. It seemed a great idea at the time for we
were looking for a hassle free ride for a change and were willing to pay the price of travelling
with backpackers for that. As it turned out, we got the worst of both worlds.

Boarded the bus at about 8am. We were meant to arrive at 5pm but it was nearly 10pm when we
eventually did so in the village of Ngadisari. We were told that the bus would stop for lunch at
Jum’a time; Jum’a was at 12:30pm but we stopped after 1pm. I don’t need to say anymore.

Ngadisari was cold. It was very cold in comparison to Yogya. Had dinner with a couple from Chicago
who teach at an American (they call it ‘International’ for some reason) school in Bandung, and a
couple of students from Manchester Uni. Sleep followed prayers. (The transport included one
night’s accommodation at the company’s guesthouse.)