Haircuts in Yogya {Cath}

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Yogya is a vibrantly colourful place, with horse drawn carriges, Wurung cafes on the pavement and all the batik you could ask for! It's an easy place to take it slow for a while, as long as you don't let the " "You want Batik?", "Transport", "Okay just looking I give you good price" "Batik?" " screeches get to you. And slow is exactly how we spent our time there.

Batik is the traditional way of dying fabric, using wax to block out the parts the artist does not want died. The artist uses a hot pen to melt wax over the initial pattern. He then dyes the fabric with the lightest colour first using more wax to cover the parts that will remain light. The fabric is then dipped into the next lightest colour, and more wax is added. When the whole thing has been dyed, the cloth is then left to dry and later boiled to remove the wax. Voila!

Although the oldest trick in the Batik artist's book is the "you're so lucky you arrived when you did, there's a 'student's Batik gallery' on show and today is the last day!" and we were caught hook, line and sinker by it! Mind you, it was great. The artwork was beautiful with designs ranging from traditional to ultra modern. We did end up buying 2... couldn't help it, and would recommend to anyone going to Yogya to have a look while you're there 😊

Aside from the batic and other curios that need browsing, the main tourist streets (Sosrowija and Malborough) are lined with awesome restaurants, each with their own style, and just about anything you can think of in terms of food offered. Also along these roads are where the cheapest accomodation is. Ours was a smallish room with a double bed (no sheets), small fan and onsuite bathroom (toilet with no seat and cold water shower) for all of Rp 35 000 (Anda's Losman if you're interested) 😊

We spent one day walking all the way around the small town, passed all the market stalls and on towards the king's palace. On the way there, we passed a barber. An old man, with shuffling feet, steady-only-when-necessary hands, and a worn grandfatherly face. We'd just been talking about getting Darrell a trim... so we popped in -much to the delight of our onlookers! 😊 It took a while, he was meticulous with his hand operated clippers... that and every time he wanted to change sides, it was a great shuffling balance effort! 😊 I don't think Darrell has ever been cleaned up so well. He left his plastic chair a new man, freshly shaved and cool on top.... for Rp4000 (That's about R3.50 at home or US$0.40!) It was so good, in fact, that after our trip around the water castle, I went and got my hair cut there too! 😊

Feeling a bit peckish after the cut we joined up with another family at a Batik-encased Wurung. This, if you're interested in coming to Indonesia, is possibly the cheapest, most delicious, most social way of eating. We started chatting to the father of the family -who turned out to be the Chief of the Java police!

Unfortunately with our haircuts and lunch we didn't make it to the Palace in time, it closes at 3pm. The Water Castle, however, is just through through the bird market behind the palace and that closes much later, so we took wound our way there instead.

What we didn't know, however, was how spread out it all was, and that there's not much more than less than vague descriptions of where everything is.. and there's an entry fee of Rp7000 each. Fortunately, a Batik artist found us and as the ruins were on the way to his galery, he decided to be our impromptu tour guide.

The first one stop was a rather crumbly old building where the Sultan resided (apparently they are just waiting for money from Unesco to renovate it, probably in the next year or 2). Next, we came to the recently renovated 'water castle'. (Yay for Unesco) although it looks like maintenance has been largely neglected,with algae in the rain filled pools and graffiti on the walls. Unfortunately, there're no plaques explaining what any of the rooms or areas were used for, which means that if you want to get any sort of understanding, you need a guide. It's a shame because it's a really interesting place. Apparently the Sultan would sit in one of the balconies overlooking the pools. From this vantage point, he would chose his pick of one of his 40 concubines and together they would go to his private swimming pool.

Next stop was the small underground Mosque, hidden amongst the maze of locals houses. Again there was an entry fee (Rp2000) if we wanted to get into the circular building. The Mosque has 2 levels and the center of the building is open (I think the fee collector was trying indicate that it's for the singing to be sent up into the village (?) but we're not sure. In the open center, there are stairs to the second level that look like something out of a M.C. Escher painting. On both the upper and lower landing, there were small rooms off to the side of the circular corridors, again, not sure what they were for.

All in all Yogya is a wonderful combination of art and culture and was well worth the visit

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Photos

Batiiiik!!
Browsing the markets that sell Java's famous had-dyed cloth.

A close shave
Sit very still.

His first time cutting a woman's hair
He did get it straight later, with a bit of help from everyone watching.

Transport?!
Becak drivers waiting for customers