Yogyakarta, Borobudur, and Prambanan 06/17/08-06/19/08

I left Jakarta and headed east across the island of Java. I had to meet a friend in Bali on the weekend, so my time on Java was limited. My first stop after Jakarta was Yogyakarta.

Yogyakarta is a sizable city and is well liked among Indonesians and travelers. I was only there for two nights, and most of the intervening day was spent outside of town, but from what I saw of the city, it did seem like a pleasant place.

Some of the attractions of Yogyakarta are its batik, leather goods, silversmiths, shadow puppet theater, and the walled royal enclave (the kraton). I saw none of these things (well, you cannot avoid the batik) because my days were spent outside of town.

Within an hour of Yogyakarta are several temple ruins. The very famous Buddhist temple Borobudur and the Hindu temple complex Prambanan are the most well-known. There is also the very active volcano Gunung Merapi.

The train from Jakarta to Yogyakarta was quite pleasant. Views of rice fields and distant volcanoes.

While waiting on the train platform in Jakarta, I met a Dutch girl who was waiting for the same train. We talked a little and then ran into each other again when we arrived in Yogyakarta. We decided to look for hotels together. That rarest of beasts, a helpful tout, actually helped us find rooms (since our first choice was full.) We had a hard time explaining to desk clerks that although we walked in together, we wanted separate rooms and might not even stay in the same hotel.

She and I ended up in the same hotel right across the hall from each other--the Merapi Hotel in the backpacker ghetto near the train station and the main shopping area. I liked the hotel, but alas, there was just no escaping the pre-dawn blasts from the loudspeakers on the nearby mosque.

After settling in, she and I decided to go take a little walk around the area. It was around dusk. We walked through the markets and ended up doing a little shopping. Once again, everyone thought we were a couple. In the end, we just stopped fighting it. She would walk up to me with something she was thinking of buying and say something like, "Honey, what do you think of this?" With my woefully bad haggling skills, I bought a couple of pairs of earrings. I didn't feel too bad--the more expensive pair was only about a buck and a half US. We both ended up buying some really tasty fruit. Neither of us knew what it was. After stopping at the tourist information booth, I walked her back to the hotel. That was the last I saw of her in Jogjakarta.

After that, I went to meet someone that I had chatted with online. He and I ate at a nice, open-air Thai restaurant a motorbike ride away and then ended up at a mall having coffee because, well, a mall was the only place where we knew to go. Being a good muslim, he doesn't do bars. Like I said before, life seems very mall-centric in Indonesia.

The next day, I took a tour (not really a tour--just transport) to Borobudur, Gunung Merapi, and Prambanan. Aside from me, there were 3 young Indonesians and a bunch of French people.

Borobudur is an impressively restored--and just impressive--old Buddhist temple. It is just one large building with a few little museums around it. There were tons of people there. Nonetheless, it was easy to find places to be alone, since they all seemed to just run up the main stairways and hang out at the top instead of exploring the walkways on the sides at the different levels.

It was cool and all, but I was done after about 45 minutes. The bus was scheduled to stop there for 2 hours. I guess if you went around and studied all of the intricate bas reliefs you could fill up 2 hours.

While on Borobudur, people kept coming up to me and asking if they could take a picture with me. The guidebook told me that this might happen. Whenever anyone wanted a picture, I obliged. First, it was this trio of giggly teenage girls. Then a school teacher. And his co-worker. And the entire primary-school class. This continued at Pramabanan with a middle-aged woman, another middle-aged woman, her husband, and my two tour guides. It was bizarre. I cannot imaging that white people are that rare there. I asked someone else from the bus if they got the same treatment and he said yes.

As I was walking around, three boys dressed in slacks and dress shirts, probably between 12 and 14, came up to me and asked if they could practice English with me. In many countries, this is often a ploy in the hopes that money will eventually change hands. As such, I declined and went on around the structure. A while later, they came back up to me and started talking to me. They showed me their badges which was supposed to convince me that they were legit. I had nothing else to do to kill the next hour, so I kept talking to them.

While talking to them, I discovered that they really were just wanting to practice English. Apparently, their teacher brings the kids on field trips to tourist places like this and sends them out to have conversations with English speakers. I later found out that their teacher was occassionally wandering by to make sure that they were doing their assignment.

I had fun talking with these kids. The conversation ran the gamut. It started with the usual, "Where are you from?", "What do you do?", etc. Then it was questions about school and life in America. They told me about their schooling--I was amazed to learn that they had only been studying English for a year and a half. They told me that they hoped to someday go to college in America. Some of the questions were very broad, like "What is life like in America?" I laughed out loud when one of them asked "What about sex in America?" He insisted that if he was ever going to live in America that he would need to know these things. "Is it true that people can have sex before they get married in America?" What a conundrum.

The kids asked if I wanted to see any of the museums. I had heard that they weren't very interesting. They seemed to like one museum in particular, so we went there. They referred to it as something like the "unique" museum. When I went to pay for my ticket, the woman at the booth saw that I was with students and just waved me in. The museum was devoted to items in the category of "the something-est something". It had (supposedly) the world's largest dress and the biggest book in Indonesia, but mostly it consisted of panels that looked like photos out of the Guiness Book of World Records. No wonder it was popular with the kids.

We walked through a couple of other buildings that had chunks from Borobudur and photos of the reconstruction. Then, it was time for me to get back to my bus, so we bid each other farewell and parted company. It was an interesting way to kill an hour.

I hopped back on the bus and we were on our way to Gunung Merapi. Bascially, that stop was just a photo op at the base of Merapi. That was fine--I just got the tour for transport to the temples.

From there we had lunch and went to Prambanan. I don't usually like guided tours. I prefer, instead, to wander around on my own. Yes, I don't get all of the history and information, I overlook details, but I also don't get bored and antsy about keeping with the herd.

After a few minutes in Prambanan, a pair of young ladies in head scarves with badges around their necks came up to me. They said that they were tour guides in training and asked if I would mind allowing them to give me a free tour as practice. I really didn't want a guide, but I agreed anyway. They later told me that they have to do this for 3 weeks before they can start getting paid for giving tours. Their presentation had some definite flaws and I had to review them after the tour was done.

Prambanan is a complex of several temples. They are pretty impressive, but unfortunately, they were damaged in an earthquake a few years ago and now visitors cannot walk up to the main buildings due to fear of injury.

After a hot sweaty day of temples, I went home and booked a bus out of Yogyakarta for the next day, rested a bit, and had dinner with a friend. I would have liked to have stayed in Yogyakarta another day or two, but I still had to get to Bali by the weekend.