Javanese Adventures
February 20, 2008 – 5:50 pmI shouldn’t have been surprised when we arrived at Medan Airport in Sumatra to be told that our AirAsia flight had been cancelled. At 6am, nonetheless. By Murphy’s Law, it shouldn’t have been unexpected that it also meant we’d miss our connecting flight from Jakarta to Solo. So when it all came crashing down, it was all frustrating because we lost a day of travel and had to spend more time in the terrible city that is Medan. Really, it’s terrible - for the third largest city in Indonesia, they don’t even have grid electricity until about 6pm (they use generators other times). Then, AirAsia were real bastards and made us sleep at the domestic terminal of Jakarta airport until 4am on the hard wooden roach infested benches outside the check-in counter. This led to that and eventually we got on a plane and arrived in Solo to get straight on a bus to Jogjakarta.
We broke the trip in two by stopping at the Hindu Prambanan temples, which are impressive, but nothing compared to the Buddhist monuments of Borobudur (which we visited the next morning). Enormous stone temples dedicated to the path to nirvana and illustrated with carvings of the stories of the buddhist ways of life. Back in Jogjakarta, life is brimming with busy streets typical of a city deemed the cultural capital of Indonesia - tacky shirts and terrible handicrafts (except for the impressive works of the Batik artists). Hostels are smacked in the middle of lanes which are impossible to navigate around, especially in the middle of torrential downpours. The Kraton, or the Sultan’s palace (Jogja has a sultan), is a huge mini city with over 25,000 inhabitants. They get free tea, coffee, accommodation and work within the premises so they have a pretty good life. I expected the palace to be a little bit more over the top, but it was quite sparse. The villages inside were also very nice, and we found a little shop making Wayang puppets for the Sultan’s performances. The Wayang puppets are two dimensional items made out of buffalo leather, stenciled and elaborately painted to make representations of important Hindu people such as Krishna.
We left Jogja on a two day tour to Gunung Bromo and then onto Bali, which seemed to be cheaper than actually going it alone. Gunung Bromo is a large national park around the volcano of Bromo, where we woke up at 3am for a trip to a viewpoint to see sunrise. Being wet season, we saw absolutely nothing but fog, and I froze because I had not many clothes. Our hostel had this magnificent view of the volcano which we hadn’t even realised until about 10 in the morning, by which time we were leaving for Denpasar. Indonesians in Java can be filthy liars. I don’t know why, maybe it’s a bad habit, but they seem to make stuff up or lie even when it has no direct impact on their lives. For example, we were told that our bus would arrive in Bali at 7:30pm, only to be frustrated, impatient and annoyed when we pulled into the bus station past 11pm.
Spent the last few days in Bali with Dani, Nikki and Jared, relaxing at the beach, lots of surfing and eating disproportionately large quantities of excellent food!
