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Published: September 18th 2010
Borobudur
Borobudur was covered in the morning mist. Cool and stunning.A small cup of Java
I spent a few days in KL in a futile attempt to get a proper 60 day visa to Indonesia. August 31st was however the Malaysian independence day so the embassy closed and apparently didn't accept new visa applications the day before. The day after they threw so much red tape after me that I gave up and flew to Jakarta and got another visa on arrival in a matter of minutes.
I had a day in Jakarta before Eric would join me again after his short trip to Vietnam and I tried to get some practical stuff sorted out and get a quick impression of this weird city. When travelling in Indonesia you hear a lot about how awful the bigger cities like Medan, Surabaya and Jakarta are so I try to spend as little time there as possible but it also seems strange not to see the capitol of the country so this was a nice compromise. There is however some truth to the bad reputation.
First of all a city planner with grand ideas have been laying out the inner city. This means large boulevards and an imposing central square
Borobudur view
Although this doesn't do the massive scale of Borobudur any justice it does show how magical that morning was. with a fallic monstrosity in the middle commemorating the independence from the Dutch. All pretty standard in Asian capitals, but this city planner must have had some childhood traumas with pedestrians because the total lack of consideration for people who would like to use their feet rather than an engine to get around can only be interpreted as a deliberate attempt to kill off the few idiots who venture out anyway.
There are roundabouts rather than traffic lights and this means that the traffic is constant and unrelenting. The cars and motorcycles just keep coming at insane speeds and in obvious internal competition. So I was left at the curb waiting for a pause that would allow me to cross but not even the slightest hint of thinning traffic would show. Basically I was left with a choice of either dying of old age on a sidewalk or try to step into the traffic Saigon style. In Saigon you basically just walk straight out into the traffic and the horde of Hondas will magically weave around you. It is scary the first few times but after a while you realize that it somehow works.
That is not the
Prambanan
Prambanan was just as impressive as Borobudur. case in Jakarta. Halfway across the first eight lane boulevard I realized that absolutely nobody cared about my continued existence and instead the just honked a bit and actually seemed to speed up a bit. Caught in this life or death game of
Frogger I saw out of the corner of my eye that my imminent death was actually causing some amusement among the people waiting for buses. When I eventually made my way across they did however applaud me a bit and there were a few signs of respect. If you are familiar with the theories of parallel universes then consider me dead in most of them. At this point I was also sweating uncontrollably so when it started raining hard it was a bit of a relief since everybody else was getting just as wet as me.
I did manage to mail some books back home and I did survive another 10 or so of that kind of crossings after having developed some strategies for making them safer (essentially running as fast as possible and hope for the best).
I also went to the main train station and bought us a couple of tickets out of
Yogya Gang
It did rain a lot while we were in Yogya, but the alleys were a wonderful hiding place from the touts. the city. Pricey as hell. I went out to get something to eat and made a few unsuccesful attempts at striking up a conversation with people around me. That made me feel a bit lonely for the first time in years. Back in the hotel I went to sleep and waited for Eric to arrive. At a quarter to one in the morning he knocked on the door and we went out to get a re-unification beer. The main backpacker street in town was right around the corner but the miniscule proportions of the place is an indication of just little there is for a traveller to do in Jakarta. Less than fifty backpackers makes this city of 10 million people less of an attraction than Tuk Tuk in Lake Toba or Ringkøbing for that matter.
We had decided to go to Yogyakarta by train. First and foremost to try something else than the buses we had been using on Sumatra but also because you see different things from a train. The roads here a lined with billboards and ugly signs around the bigger cities and they also go through every single town along the way which obscures a
Water Palace
A view of the central pools in the wonderfully peaceful water palace. lot of the scenery. Railroads around the world on the other hand typically travels between the asscheeks of a big city and since Jakarta is one big asshole I guess we actually went through the intestines in this case. Once we had left the city though the advantage of travelling by rail kicked in and we had the most beautiful views of the rice paddies and tiny hamlets that dot West Java. After about 5 hours we started crossing the island and the mountains revealed stunning views of valleys and canyons and the pouring rain just enhanced the views. The train was extremely comfortable and for once we arrived at a destination feeling wonderfully rested.
The batik mafia will rule the world
Yogyakarta is a touristy place and my Lonely Planet book warned us about the batik salesmen. Seriously, batik salesmen. How can that even be a problem? As soon as we left the station we understood what they meant. It was like stepping into a gigantic seventies walk-in closet. Marlioboro, the main street, was lined with these shops and there was absolutely nothing I would ever want to buy. I would rather be naked in the middle
The central pool
The main courtyard in the water palace. Most parts have not been restored but this was as glorious as ever. of Store Torv in Århus than wear any of the things on sale here and the batik paintings could be used in questionable interogation technigues. We hurried past this and found a nice and very basic hotel and got quite a few beers to many at an excellent backpacker restaurant and woke up late the next morning.
As we were sort of stumbling through the town we were met by a friendly-looking guy who told us that we were really lucky. It was in fact the last day of a festival benefitting street children and it was right around the corner. As I have described before it has been people like him who has lead us to some of the best experiences on this trip so we followed along. When Eric told him that he is American the friendly local pointed out the funny fact that he had relatives there as well. Generally he was really good at keeping the conversation going until he brought us into a fucking batik shop. We had actually managed to let us be tricked into the most common batik scam in town. Imagine using tourists good will towards unfortunate children as your scam.
Water boy
We were not the only ones to just sit and contemplate a bit in the water palace. Enter cynicism and we starting having fun with these fools instead. Whenever they said that they came from an official government shop (and there are none of these in town) we insisted that we would only buy from charity shops and vice versa. We also came up with various occupations that would make the conversations funnier (like a seal killer from Greenland or Swiss batik wholesellers and they obviously had relatives in these places as well). Still these pests didn't manage to ruin the town for us. Apart from the main drag the inner city is inter-twined with tiny alleys called Gangs and their are absolutely wonderful. The residents seem to compete with each other in having most potted plants lining the gangs and murals cover many of the walls. We tried desperately to get lost and even the quite heavy rains didn't spoil the fun of investigating these mazes for me. The central market was pretty spectacular at the size of football stadium allthough about 3/4 of it was indeed also stuffed with batik. Eric's estimate is that there are probably about as many batik stores in yogya as there are people on this planet. I find that estimate
Watery colors
There were views like this everywhere we looked in the water palace. a bit conservative.
Yogya's two major attractions are in fact outside of town. Borobudur is a massive buddhist temple and we went there very early in the morning so that it was still covered in a mystic mist that almost overheated our cameras. The entrance and exit were very skillfully laid out as intricate labyrinths of souvenir stalls but fortunately most of them had not opened yet, but the ones that were had all the - you guessed it - batik you would ever want. If the world should ever suffer from a global batik shortage Yogya would be able to resolve the crisis without even making a dent in the stocks.
The following day we hired motorcycles and navigated through the city's torrent of becaks (bicycle cabs), motorcycles and cars to go to Prambanan, a large hindu temple, that was as impressive as Borobudur. So were the souvenir stalls and if there are batik-eating aliens somewhere in the universe they must be aiming for Yogya right now. Temples like Borobudur and Prambanan are beautiful - sure - but these batik guys sure now how to improve upon a decades old religious manifestation. If all the batik in
Gang mask
The residents in the gangs used all kinds of things for decorating their houses. This mask obviously caught my eye. Yogya should catch fire the carbon dioxide released would probably cause the polar icecaps to melt within an hour. I am however still not sure that it would be a bad idea to bring a book of matches and some gasoline to town.
Back in town we tried to make a third and also unsuccesful attempt in accessing the Kraton, the Sultans palace. While fending off batik pimps someone gave us yet another hour of day that this place had closed. Apparently the end of Ramadan, Idul Fitri, meant that it closed even earlier than the normal 2 o'clock in the afternoon and while we accepted the fact that this for some reason did not affect the local batik trade at all we found our way to the water palace instead.
What a gem. Obviously a place where the Sultan could rump around with girls scantily clad in batik bikinis this was indeed a place of amazing beauty. It has been greatly damaged by several earthquakes but that just meant that the gangs (alleys remember) had started sending their tentacles into the palace itself and since I really like gangs it only made it better. Everywhere we looked
Greek colors
Houses in the gangs can be painted in any thinkable color but pastels like here are very common and does give the place a very Mediterranean feel at times. there was frames to be made and Eric and I took tons of photos that all made sense. An old guy with really bad hearing showed us a half destroyed underground mosque that was layed out like no other building I have ever seen. Circular and with an amazing Escher-like staircase in the middle. Being half-deaf was not the only problem the old dude had as he completely forgot to trick us into a batik store and instead wanted us to go to a completely empty restaurant that was obviously intended for large tour groups. We were pointing at the black clouds looming in the horizon and hurried home reaching the hotel just before another rainstorm of biblical proportions turned the gangs into rivers. Where is the batik umbrella store when you need it.
That evening we went to the airport to catch our flight to Bali. In these Internet times it has become almost a given that you can make all your travel arrangements online in an instant but that doesn't apply to all Indonesian airlines. Sometimes a creditcard will be rejected, sometimes Paypal screws you, some airlines don't even have an online booking system. I'm not going
Plants
And then this apparent citywide competition in potted plants made everything lush and welcoming. The contrast between the gangs and the main roads was staggering. to bother you with the details but we have had some problems arranging our last few flights. They have also been late. The flights, that is, but fortunately the airport in Yogya had plenty of small shops selling batik. In case I have forgotten to point it out there is enough batik in this city to cover all the oceans of earth in a horribly intricate pattern. Batik is not decorative, it is just a systematized way of staining your clothes. With that thought in mind we left Java and we had not seen a whole lot of it. Definately a place to visit again.
Hell on earth!
Arriving very late in Bali and heading to a pre-booked bungalow in Kuta that is adjacent to the airport. In Balinese, Kuta must mean "This place is fucking horrible". The once wonderful beach there and its proximity to Australia has turned this place into a hellhole that caters to every possible whim of a ute-driving, stubby-drinking yobbo aussie (a pickup driving, beer drinking, young idiot Australian). Armed with a Bintang beer in the left hand and the arm in a permanent 90 degrees these bastards have managed to turn a
Underground mosque
This underground mosque was heavily damaged in a recent earthquake and the dome is yet to be rebuilt. In the meantime the sun peeks in and creates these shadows everywhere. little slice of paradise into everything I don't need on this trip. "Do you need transport/massage/girl/young girl?". The bars and restaurants everywhere are packed with fat ugly scum from downunder watching Aussie Rules Football. I have realized that the reason I like Australians so much is that most of the assholes have gone to Kuta. This is even more harsh but I couldn't help thinking that the Bali bombers were not islamic extremists but just people with a hint of good taste that for some reason was forced to stay in Kuta for more than a couple of days. This place is an example of the absolute worst of the "first world" enforcing itself on the best of the third world. I detest everything about the place and how it reflects on me as well. We hired an old Suzuki 4x4 and drove up north in a hurry the next morning. And let me apologize to the Australians that I know subscribe to this blog. There are tons of similar places in the Mediteranian that has been destroyed in the similar fashion by Brits and Scandinavians in perticular and this one just happens to be closer to Australia.
The
Escher in Yogya
This stairway seems taken directly from an Escher painting. Liberty
Bali is however a very beautiful place as soon as get away from Kuta (and Denpasar) on the southern tip. Our goal was the "Liberty". This US Navy ship was torpedoed during the second world war and limped from Lombok to the beach at Tulamben in Northeast Bali where the crew beached it. An earthquake in the sixties moved it about 25 meters off the shore and now it is a spectacular articficial wreck. It felt so good to be back underwater and the marine life on Liberty was as good as we had been hoping and the wreck was a perfect setting. We spent a couple of nights there and I did six wonderful dives. Our bungalow was on the beach itself and my love of Indonesia was back in full swing again. The roads on North Bali leading there was winding through the mountains and every single hairpin revealed a view of either a pictoresque village, a rice paddy packed valley or one of the majestic vulcanoes. It was with a destinctive feeling of having to go back to see more that we headed our little stubborn vehicle back towards the septictank of Kuta (actually septic
Jacks
Unfortunately none of us has a glorious future as underwater photographers lying ahead, but this is a nice one of a big school of jacks (trevallies). tanks gets emptied once in a while. I think Kuta is forever filled with turds) but we had to stay there another night to catch an early flight to Labuan Bajo on Flores. We were on a mission.
We did however try to embrace Kuta a bit this time around. We walked around with an L-shaped left arm with a beer in the hand (using only the left arm means that the right arm is ready for a fist fight). We did offer massages to people offering us transport and vice versa. We did walk along the beach after sunset and marvelled at the horror of the multicolored-lit resorts. We did walk through a mall that could very well have been in Wichita, Kansas. We did sit in traffic for about two hours trying to return our car less than five kilometers from our hotel. We did everything we were supposed to do and it just made me hate, hate, hate that place even more. I would't even have liked it when I was twenty. Among the penis-shaped bottle openers and the "Fuck me. I'm famous"-t-shirts they also had fucking batik in the souvenier stalls.
All the best,
Light and Darkness
This villa was largely destroyed as well in several earthquakes and reconstruction is slow. I loved this contrast between rooms with roofs and the ones without. Jens
Update:
It has taken quite a while to get this posted so the next post is actually ready as soon as the photos are uploaded. This one is a bit messy with the photos all over the place, but I will try to find time to clean it up a bit later on.
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Jens Maigaard
non-member comment
Batik galore
Hi Jens Glad you found the time to enjoy Yogya even though you must have been tired after the massive batik shopping effort. If taken by Borubodur and Prambanan, I recommend Cambodia/Angkor Wat once you feel like something other than Indonesia. /Jens