Yogjakarta, Indonesia

Hello, all. Katy (and a little Jamie) here! First and foremost, happy year of the fire rooster to you all! The 27th of this month marked the lunar new year, and according to the Chinese zodiac, and the symbology adopted by much of east and southeast Asia, that means we have entered the elemental year of fire, and the animal year of the rooster. J and I rung in the new year with Tet in Vietnam, but this week, I'll be catching up by telling you all about our stay in Indonesia which ended just a few days ago.

There's a lot to tell, as you can imagine, so I'll take this more or less in chronological order. First of all, why Indonesia? Well, on top of the fact that we were desperate to escape the winter weather, we also have a good friend from Java, one of the bigger islands that make up the archipelago. He features heavily in the photos, so I'll tell you now, his name is Adi and he was J's roommate in college. Ultimately arriving in the morning (a two hour time difference from Korea), we started our adventure after an eventful, 36 hours of traveling and multiple layovers, with a long nap.

The first event of note was a trip to the Kraton. Now this requires a little explaining, since I didn't know before I went that such a place even existed. Yogyakarta (pronounced Jogdjakarta) is a city on the island of Java, many hours from Jakarta, the capital that most people are familiar with. It was its own country until as recently as WWII, and though it has joined with the country of Indonesia, is still it's own special district with a sultan presiding. That being said, the Kraton is the Sultan's palace. I was surprised that it was open for tours, and granted the hours are limited, but the amount of the grounds that the public is allowed to wander was surprising to someone who has never seen more than the outside of the White House. There we walked through halls, displays, and galleries of traditional art and clothing of old Yogyakarta. One of the most impressive and interesting things to me was the Batik. Batik is an old style of wax printing on fabric, in highly symbolic patters that were worn traditionally tied around the waist in a sort of skirt by all genders. Those worn by the nobility, obviously, were very unique, as there are certain patters only one of royal blood was allowed to wear. Others were unique because they displayed animals, a pattern that is not so common anymore, due to the Muslim influence in Indonesia and the religious taboo against depicting living beings in art.

 

 

Photos of the Kraton below...

The language on the sign is the Javanese script.
It was based on Sanskrit, so it looks a lot like it for anyone who is familiar.
It has largely been replaced by the Latin script (this one),
but the government has elementary students study it, and
it is used in public signage alongside the Latin script.

Photos of Batik below...

A sculpture display showing how Batik is made.

A batik skirt with traditional garb

Photos of the traditional language (numbers) and symbol below...



The symbol in the middle is the official symbol of Yogyakarta from
its days as a nation. It is still represented on their flags.

The next big adventure was a trip to the water palace which we, fittingly, took on a rainy day. The water palace was originally a palace for the Sultan and his family with elaborate underground tunnels for escaping in the case of emergency. It also housed beautiful green pools, elaborate carvings, all in more or less disrepair after the nearby volcano crumbled large parts of the original structures. Nonetheless, wandering the grounds of this palace was hauntingly beautiful. The surrounding town, within a specified area, is preserved as part of the old city, and is home to Yogyakarta's underground mosque. Here it is worth noting that the country of Indonesia is majority Muslim. More than 85% in fact, which is greater than the percentage of Christians in America (which to my understanding sat around 70% in 2015). So when we visited the underground mosque, which is no longer in use, it was surprising to hear of the time in Indonesia's history when Muslims had to hide to the extent that they buried their place of worship to avoid detection. The space was incredible, with short doorways, and tunnels and staircases to boot. And, while we're on the topic of religion in Indonesia, I have to say that one of the things I found the most surprising and interesting was the interplay of different religions, making up the cultural landscape. Old tradition, at least in Yogyakarta, and it seemed, all of Java, was that the island was Hindu, as seen in old architecture. Recently too there has been an influx of Christianity leading to an interesting population celebrating the traditions of the east, mid-east, and west. As I said though, Islam is still the majority religion by quite a margin these days.

Photos of the Water Palace below...

Jamie snags a local tour guide

There were once walls where I am standing

Photos of the Underground Mosque below...

Next was Temple Day. We visited two of the ancient temples uncovered within an hour or so of Yogyakarta, one of which was completely buried until archeologists dug it out quite recently. The scale, preservation, and detail of the temples was absolutely awe inspiring. On most days, it is important enough to preserve the reverence of the spaces, that anyone wearing shorts is asked to wrap a batik cloth around them as a long skirt, which is provided at the entrance to the temple. On this particular day however, the batik were not available, and all of our clothes covered our knees, which seemed to be the important part. In the first temple pictured below, called Borobudur, the one which was recently excavated, you can see the tiers from the pictures. Each tier allows a person to walk all the way around the temple on that level, until you come to a set of stairs which would take you to the next. There was a set of stairs on each side, one for ascending and one for descending. The belief is that those who built and used the temple originally would spiral up and then down the temple in a sort of sacred pattern, much like those who walk labyrinths for spiritual reasons.

Photos of Borobudur below...

I was very impressed by the preservation of the carvings in stone

There is a Buddha in each of the diamond holed
domes. This one was revealed.

The stairs were a little steep for my taste



There's Adi!

Dragonfly for Gma

The second temple, Prambanan, was actually a collection of temples, each dedicated to a different Hindu god, with a different statue inside each to represent the god. We were here during sunset, which added another element of tranquility to the space, which was much needed given the size of the crowd, and the volume of the schoolchildren there on a field trip. Speaking of schoolchildren, many of the tourists from rural parts of Java had not seen many, if any white people before, and it could be difficult to move from temple to temple without being stopped and asked for a selfie together.

Photos of Prambanan below...

Jamie and Adi approach the temples

Schoolchildren ask Jamie for a selfie

It was hard to take a break anywhere without being scouted by schoolchildren

Spot the Jamie

One unfortunate event was that on the day we intended to go up the volcano, by the time we reached
the base, and wandered through the museum there, it was pouring rain and we couldn't go any further. Needless to say, I have no volcano pictures or stories, but getting caught in the rain at this particular museum was a blessing in disguise. The museum showcased artwork of traditional Yogyakarta, from before it joined with Indonesia, and held the family trees, portraits, and stories of the Sultans and their families. Pictures were not allowed in most of the museum, until the end where we were allowed to pose in front of the large piece pictured below. By that time it had started to rain, and so we rushed inside to the restaurant of the museum.

Photos from the museum below...

Traditional instruments

Winter vacation family photo

The restaurant was the first I had seen of the Dutch influence that Adi had told us about. Apparently, the Dutch and Japanese were the two big colonizers that tried to take Indonesia. Interestingly, Indonesians seem to remember Dutch colonialism with less bitterness, while the Japanese are still considered villains. From what Adi told us and our own understanding of history, this is because the Dutch were mostly interested in getting their hands on spices, and while they were disruptive, the Japanese tried to completely supplant traditional culture. This restaurant was very European in design, and offered a range of western foods that we happily ordered too much of. From pasta to cheesecake, I was in foodie heaven, eating my fill of foods I know I wont get again for quite some time.

Finally, our last excursion was to an art gallery of a local Yogyakartan artist who looks a bit like the Indonesian Einstien (mostly for the hair). Regretably I don't have any pictures of the artist himself to show you, as I was told after taking a few pictures, that photography was not allowed. If you want to look him up though, google Affandi Yogyakarta. The pictures below show what I did manage to take before I was told to put the camera away. Affandi was a bit of an eccentric man, and he designed his museum himself, including the home he built himself in it, and burying his entire family on the property.

Photos of the gallery below...

 

 

 

Some additional notes of interest on life and culture (or as much as we could gather from a 6 day trip) were as follows. Eating with your hands it pretty acceptable, especially in certain types of restaurants. The way to recognize such a place is if the give you a small bowl of water which you should interpret as a place to wash your hands before and after your meal. Street food is also very good and very cheap. We had no concerns about food poisoning, though we did have Adi to point out when a vendor's sanitation wasn't up to par. There is also a lot of floor sitting in restaurants, much like in Korea. As for money, the exchange rate is about 12K Indonesian Rupiah to 1 US Dollar. Additionally, when reading a receipt, know that they use commas where we use periods and vice versa. Also, expect streets flooded with small motorcycles (maybe more aptly referred to as mopeds?) and when hopping in the (rare) four wheeled vehicle, expect the steering wheel on the right side of the car, and to drive on the left side of the road. And finally, local products include shadow puppets, sweet soy sauce, and Bali Hai beer.

 

And last but not least, to complete this post. Thanks to these fella's for getting along in college, and thanks to Adi in particular for showing us around and kicking off this trip in the best way!

 

 

Cheers, and I hope everyone has a great first week of the year of the Fire Rooster!

Next week, Ho Chi Minh City!

-K