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Published: October 14th 2007
Carving
BorobodurAt check-in for our flight to Jakarta I was informed that my rucksack was now at 17kg, up 7kg from when I left London in January and the result of accumulating journals, CD backups of photos, half the works of Jared Diamond, etc. Some pruning will be needed soon, as well as another parcel to be sent home.
Air Asia broke with tradition by landing us in Indonesia's capital in time for our onward connection. Indonesian airlines, of which there are about 50, don't have a great reputation for safety, to the point that the EU had recently banned them from European airspace (not that any of the carriers concerned actually flew to Europe, but it was the thought that counted). However with land-based journey times long, and airfares tantalisingly cheap, we threw in our lot with Adam Air to get us from Jakarta to Yogyakarta. Adam Air is (in)famous for losing one of its planes at the beginning of this year, when about 100 passengers perished in an as-yet unexplained tragedy - the aircraft was found 10 days later on the sea-bed. This was the most newsworthy of a string of other incidents involving the airline, all of which
Ceiling detail
Sultan's Palace suggested that a commitment to safety was not high on upper management's agenda. Certainly our plane was not the newest one in the skies, with the seats bringing back dim recollections of flights in the late '70s.
We'd been allocated seats 1A and 1B, convenient for any emergency evacuations required along the way, but unfortunately the seating gods had given me a neighbour who was a Christian preacher. He confided how alarmed he was at the spread of militant Islam in the country, claiming he had already been arrested once for his religious beliefs and would have been killed "but for the grace of God", and continued on a mildly anti-Muslim theme. I sat awkwardly through this, religion not being the least contentious of subjects, and was relieved when a more pressing topic came up, namely how to remove the lid from the meagre sealed cup of water that passed for sustenance on Adam Air.
I wasn't too sure what to expect of Indonesia, with badminton, batik, and Anggun being 3 of the main associations I had floating around in my brain, but Yogyakarta was not a good introduction. The RG had labelled it "one of the most
Stupas
Borobodur attractive cities in Java", a recommendation I found increasingly hard to square with the grubby, crowded roads we passed down in our taxi from the airport. We'd picked a hotel in the supposedly least squalid of 2 backpacker areas, but though the room itself was fine, the street outside was uneven, dusty, and strewn with rubbish. Droves of buzzing motorbikes and pavements set up as obstacle courses kept pedestrians from becoming complacent.
Hassle was back big style, bringing with it memories of India strong enough for the title of this blog to come to mind. Any wanderings outside would bring a salvo of cries of "Transport, sir?" from the many cyclo drivers in the area. Attempts at shaming soon followed - "Why you go everywhere on foot? Why you not want to help local people?" Locals initiated conversations that inevitably led to plugs for some shop or other. Even the hotel staff were constantly reminding us of the array of tours that they could book for us, ignoring my protestations that we wanted to relax. LA Woman reported that, when walking alone as opposed to with me, multiple unwanted and inappropriate comments came her way.
The Sultan's Palace
is one of Yogyakarta's main highlights but its Javanese architecture and batik displays didn't particularly move me. We refused the offer of a "free" guide (translation - tip expected), not because of the money but because my experience has been that most guides tell you less than a guidebook, but she stalked us around the palace anyway.
Visiting the nearby temple complexes of Borobodur and Prambanan would have been a logistical nightmare on public transport and probably not much cheaper than what we paid for a tour. The tour was simply transport to each site and then a waiting period. It was tedious that the 2.5 hours at each one that we'd been promised when buying the tickets turned out to be 2 hours and 1.5 hours respectively, but the minibus was the Holy Grail of vehicles, with ample legroom, headroom, and aircon.
Borobodur is the site of a Buddhist temple that is supposedly the largest monument in the southern hemisphere. It was built over a 1,000 years ago and consists of a multi-level stupa made of a local volcanic rock. Ascending the levels is meant to simulate the path to enlightenment, and there are numerous carvings showing
Frieze
Sultan's Palace scenes from the Ramayana and the Buddha's life. Anyone expecting similar detail as the carvings at Angkor Wat will be disappointed though, as the ravages of the elements, time, and a myriad visitors have reduced the clarity significantly. The top of the temple features a large stupa surrounded by a number of smaller ones, each containing a Buddha, and there were views in all directions, even under a leaden sky.
The Prambanan complex could be considered a Hindu response to Borobodur, as it was built at about the same time. The 3 main temples at the site soar impressively out of the plain, however an earthquake last year left them in such an unstable state that they're now ringed by a fence, making it difficult to see most of the external carvings and impossible to see anything inside. Smaller temples nearby are predominantly in ruins, so as a tourist experience the whole is pretty disappointing.
After this day-trip we rounded off our Yogyakarta stay with a performance of shadow puppetry. We turned up early in order to ensure seats, which proved to be the least of our worries. One of the ticket sellers immediately latched on to us,
Sculpture
Sultan's Palace telling us he made puppets at home and he wanted to take us to his studio after the show. Apparently we'd save at least 35% on the cost if we bought them directly from him.
I'd wondered why the puppets possessed so much painting detail if they were simply for creating a shadow, but the layout of the "stage" meant you could choose your viewpoint. The gamelan orchestra, an informal collective who smoked and chatted sotto voce while cranking out their accompaniment, sat behind the puppetmaster, who himself was behind a screen with tens of puppets arrayed to either side. Thus by watching from behind the orchestra you could not only see the techniques used by the puppetmaster but could also appreciate the artwork of the puppets themselves. From in front of the screen, you saw the shadow puppetry proper. Members of the audience wandered freely from front to back as the mood took them.
Unfortunately the scenes being portrayed were difficult to follow for the layman. Though there were some helpful rules of thumb, such as small-eyed puppets with slanting noses being "goodies", attempting to follow a story you have only passing acquaintance with (the Ramayana) when
Gamelan
Sultan's Palace it's sung in a language you don't understand, and about the only scenes you can interpret with any certainty are ones involving much cymbal-crashing and puppets "fighting", tends to reduce the performance to an admiration of the art of the puppetmaster and orchestra, the novelty of which wears off after about an hour. Our performance was scheduled to last 2 hours (ones not catering to tourist attention spans can last 8) but a combination of having had a sufficiently good taste of it, and feeling a little light-headed in the hot and stuffy confines of the theatre, led to us leaving halfway through. The ticket seller spotted us departing via a side exit and, with a speed belying his 60 odd years, intercepted us before we could disappear. His disappointment that we didn't want to buy any of his puppets was matched by my incredulity that he could think a couple of backpackers would be likely purchasers of such large, fragile items.
I wasn't enormously impressed by Yogyakarta and was eager to move on to our next destination - the smouldering crater of Mount Bromo in the east of Java.
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