Bats cure asthma

Monday June 30, 2008 - I arrived in Yogy at 3:15 pm and called Miranda. She came to get me around 3:45 and it was nice to see her. It's been almost three years. We walked to one of the guesthouses where I could leave my bag and meet her boyfriend and then we sat down and chatted for a while. Then we went to a travel agent to arrange tickets to Bali for the coming weekend. Bought our tickets and then went for some dinner. We had fried noodles at a little stand outside. Super cheaper than anything I'd had yet. And good. We went to get my bag and then got a cab ride back to her place. We spent a few more hours talking and catching up and went to sleep really late. Of course I slept like crap, my new favorite thing.

In the morning she went off to work and I stayed in and updated blog after blog after blog (as I'm sure you noticed). It was a good relaxing day for me, writing and chatting with friends. Miranda came home for lunch and we went to a nearby buffet. Again, stupid cheap. And yummy. She went back to work for a few hours and I continued on my writing rampage. After work, we went to dinner and then to a traditional shadow puppet show. Or at least, the shorter 90 minute version put on for foreigners. I thought it would be really silly when we first got there, but it was pretty cool. A bunch of people playing all kinds of traditional instruments (gamelon) and the man with the puppets behind the screen. And a crazy story in Javanese to watch on the other side. You could move around and watch from both sides, to see both the show and how they make it happen. Very nice. It was a good night.

Wednesday was an extremely lazy day. We got up and had breakfast, sharing fried noodles and an avocado milkshake. No really, they're delicious. I basically did nothing from the time Miranda went to work until she came home for lunch. It was a nice change. After lunch with her assistant, Hanna, I rested again and then took a walk around the neighborhood. After work we went downtown for drinks and then to a nice veggie restaurant for dinner. We tried to get some work done for her, but it wasn't really happening.

The next day I walked to work with Miranda, to see if anyone knew how to get downtown on a bnus, rather than a taxi. Hanna ended up driving me to a bus station on her motorbike. The bus cost 3000 rupiah instead of a 20000 cab ride. Not bad. And I was the tallest person on the bus. Bonus. I got off at Malioboro, the quite touristy street with store after store trying to sell you crap. This street is long. From there I went to the Sultan's palace. My tickets supposedly included a guided tour around, but I think my "official" guide was just trying to get me to go to an art store to buy Batik later. And I walked around again without him and really think somehow I missed something. It just wasn't that impressive, at least, the parts that I saw. You couldn't go inside, only looking from the outside. Weird really.

From there I dodged the taxi to the art place and instead made my way to the Water Palace. First was the bird market. Not my favorite place, but interesting in a horrifying kind of way. There were birds, of course. Beautiful rainforest birds from Sumatra and Bali and other places, all locked away in tiny cages. Most are just for people to buy and stick up at their business or home to hear the singing. Some are for singing competitions. They also sold roosters for cock fighting. And geckos. And snakes. And bunnies. They sold fruit bats - for asthma. You have to eat their heart, apparently. I think perhaps quitting smoking would be a better alternative. They sold baby monkeys. It just kept getting worse. Of course, I couldn't fail to pick up my own tout. He showed me around the bird market, let me pet the bunnies, and then started to show me around the water palace area. This included an underground mosque, in ruins. Very cool to see actually. Then wouldn't you know it? Magically we were at his mom's house, and she sold batiks! Batik is a special painting on fabrics, especially popular in this city. So after a while of not buying, I was able to go. I walked around the water palace, also in ruins, and met up with Else and Rhianne, two Dutch girls I had met in Sumatra. I saw them at the bird market, and then we walked around the grounds to the water palace together. We even climbed the tower from which the Sultan would look down on his harem in the bathing pool to decide which lady he's like to see today. Next stop was meeting Miranda for lunch. It took me about an hour to walk back to the right area, though she was a bit late anyway, trying to arrange something with her cell phone. We had a late lunch and then bought tickets for the Ramayana Ballet that night at nearby Prambanan temple. She got a ride with her boy on his motorbike, and I signed up for a tourist bus to get there. The dance was very interesting to watch, and told a famous Hindu story. The temples lit up in the background were quite a nice touch. From there I went back to Miranda's and to sleep, since we would have to get up quite early for the tour we signed up for the next day.

Friday morning I got up around 4:45am and got ready for the tour. Miranda had had a late night and decided she was going to skip it. She walked me to the place the bus would pick me up, and it was quite a nice surprise that the only other people on the tour were the Dutch girls from the day before. We went to Borobodor temple, the largest of its kind in the world. It was quite impressive and beautiful to see in the early morning. It has several levels that you can walk up, and the whole thing is full of carvings that tell different stories about Buddha. We then had a simple breakfast and went to see two other small temples nearby, including one with a large 9 foot Buddha in a regular sitting position. Our driver also stopped to show us things like chilis as they were growing, rice fields, etc. Next stop was Prambanan temple, this time in the daylight. There are several temples but disappointingly you can't get close to many of them. They were damaged a bit in the 2006 earthquake and many are still under repair. After the tour I had lunch with the girls and then met Miranda. We went to the flight office and I bought my ticket to Singapore for the end of my trip. That night we took things slow and just packed, got some fried rice for dinner (so spicy tonight!), and tried to get some sleep as we were heading to Bali in the morning!

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