Advertisement
Published: July 22nd 2011
So yesterday we woke up at 4:30am and drove to the Borbobudur Temple - the largest Buddhist temple in the world! Although our guide was really informative, there was such low energy that it was kind of hard to make sure his words didn't go in one ear and out the other. It's often compared to Ankor Wat in Cambodia, and even though this one is bigger and older, it doesn't have any of the enchanting romance that Ankor Wat does. There, it is overgrown with trees and in the middle of the jungle so you really have the sense that it was a long lost temple rediscovered. This one was restored with volcanic rock, and similar to the rest of the country we've seen, it kind of seems like a black void contrasting with a completely gray sky. The sky all over the country is gray because of a volcanic eruption in 2006 that surprised everyone when they realized the volcano wasn't dormant and killed 400 people.
Then we drove back to the hotel and I slept from noon until 3pm when we drove to the Prambanam Temple - one of the largest Hindu temples in South East Asia.
Our guide was hilariously peppy which made the experience entertaining to say the least. Both temples had the stories of Sidhartha engraved on the facades of the walls and the guides explained to us the various tales. Many of them were similar to biblical stories (such as Isaac and the sacrifices as a test to god), which just goes to show...
Instead of joining the rest of the group for dinner and the traditional ballet performance (it was a two and a half hour show, and the idea of sitting on concrete benches for that long did not sound appealing - plus we got the idea after a 5 minute preview...) Mike and us went to "Maliboro street") and walked down the avenue of shops. It was only 6ish but it looked like 10pm it was so dark! There weren't any crafts for sale, mostly just western clothes, but it was interesting to see "daily life" (I guess). Honestly, none of us were that impressed. The clothes for sale were just western versions of "traditional clothes" and everything was black: the street, sidewalk, buildings, sky. It was like we were inside a chimney. We kept walking in search of
the shadow puppet show we had heard about, but after a half hour when we started to see less and less signs of life we asked for directions and found out we had been walking in the complete wrong direction. Heads between our tails we flagged down a rickshaw. It really only had room for one person, but we were in the middle of nowhere and the shoeless old man on the bike was very confident that he could peddle us to the puppet show. Mike and my mom sat in the seat and I sat on the bottom part where their feet were supposed to go, with my feet hardly an inch off the ground.
Into the traffic we went, and I tried not to think about the motorcycle and car headlights heading directly toward me. The ride was a lot of fun and definitely one of the highlights of the trip I think. When we arrived at the puppet show we were relieved to know we could leave when we wanted... It was like an Indonesian style book club for senior citizens because you could tell that they all knew each other really well and did this
all the time, not for the job, but for the chance to meet up and gossip, a hobby to entertain themselves with. We learned that the show wasn't actually on the shadow side, but on the side with all the musical instruments.
Just when I thought I had the idea of it all, one of the old men beckoned for me to join them! So up I went, took off my flip flops, and sat down at the "xylophone-like" instrument and accepted the cup of tea they gave me. The next hour was like a dream, with lots of smiles to fill in the blanks where words couldn't be used to communicate. Most everyone has had a dream where they're thrown into a performance of some kind and all of a sudden are expected to play, even though they have absolutely no idea how - this was exactly like that. I had no idea of course how to play the xylophone, and furthermore what notes were expected to play in the performance. Luckily, it was pretty much a cacophony anyways, but I took my job seriously and stared at the old man next to me to try and copy
the same notes he played, if only a second later.
After four "turns" I tried to smile as graciously as I could and retreated to my mom and Mike who were grinning at the craziness of it all. When I was 5 we used to go to Orchard Beach a lot and there was often a Puerto Rican salsa band that played on the boardwalk. My mom would always drop me off with the musicians and theyd give me a pair of maracas to join along. Everyone found it hilarious and cute and funny but I remember it as pretty stressful. During the show last night I kind of felt like I was 5 years old again, but this time I thought it was cool 😊
It was a long walk back, and we were pretty hungry by this point, so we searched for satay and were relieved to find a little stand hidden away on a street corner. We got back to the hotel around 10:30, totally exhausted, but once again our break away from "the group" was one of the best nights of the trip!
Today, this morning, we got up around 7:30 and went
to the Sultan's palace was totally uninteresting to anyone who didn't really care about his war uniform or his boy scout uniform or the bike he road when he was a kid...
Then we went to the Water Palace which wasn't very interesting either, as it was pretty run down. There was a pool where the sultans kids, and "ladies" could swim, a viewpoint where the sultan could choose a lady, and a private pool where the sultan could swim with his lady of choice, and a bedroom by the pool for the sultan and the lady...
Then we went to an underground mosque from when the Hindus were in power in the eighteenth century (then they were "moved" south toward Bali) which was kind of cool...
And THEN, we went to an Indonesian Petco of sorts. Our guide explained that birds are to Indonesian men as cars are to western men - a huge symbol of prestige. In addition there were puppies, and snakes and mice and bats and all other sorts of lovely animals.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.162s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 14; qc: 57; dbt: 0.0623s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Louise
non-member comment
Enjoying yo Blog!
Hey girl! Love the honesty of your blog. We've all been at the perfomance, or the bus, or the whatever...felt the hard wooden bench..the drowsiness...and all of a sudden there is a special something that happens and makes it all worth while! Making Memories is a baffling process!