Yogyakarta

After a week surfing in Batukaras, our arms sore and nipples chafed, we took a few buses east to the "cultural and intellectual center" of Java, Yogyakarta (pronounced jog-jah-karta). Yogya is a huge town with a small-town feel. Its unusually quiet, with narrow meandering alleys and family owned shops at every turn. Nowhere are the towering hotels and supermalls of Jakarta and other asian cities of this size. The town is centered around the Kraton, a massive and somewhat gaudy palace that encompasses a few neighborhoods and a flimsy carnival. We explored much of the city by motorbike, meandering out of the city limits one day to the base of the nearby Mount Merapi for a short hike. Merapi is the most active volcano in the world- on a clear day, a dark ribbon of smoke can be seen perpetually rising from the peak. Much of Yogyakarta was damaged and 6000 people were killed by an earthquake in 2006, preceding a massive eruption from the volcano. Apparently Merapi erupts every two or three years, often wiping our entire farming villages each time. The earthquake also seriously damaged the two ancient temples that draw most of the tourists to Yogya: the Buddhist temple of Borobudur, and the nearby Hindu temple complex of Prambanan.

Our first attempt to visit the temples was canceled due to a slight oversight in planning. we decided to have a few beers the evening before, and go to bed early. unfortunately (semi), a triumverate of beautiful german women decided to join us, and it ended up being a rather longer night than intended. ian woke up in the morning, had a search high and low of the hostel, and gave up. he got on the bus, only to realize 2 minutes later that i have all the money and get off the bus again. he lost his card at the airport in jakarta. i woke up on the roof, around 8.30, and wandered downstairs with a thumping headache.


Both temples were stunning, our first major cultural sights of the trip. To get to Borobudur in time for sunrise, we were pulled out of bed at half past five and shoved onto a minibus with a few other very weary travelers. Unfathomably, this is prior to the first cup of the day. We arrived at the temples around six, two hours before the masses of students and other Indonesians arrive. The morning air had a pleasant nip, and the air was beautifully scented from the overnight rain. The temple itself must have been a real hassle to put together - no mortar to speak of, the gigantic, ornately carved stones supporting themselves. The architect employed a system of male and female grooves in each of the stones to prevent them from shifting. The temple has ten levels, and tremendous number of buddhas. around the periphery of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th levels are intricate reliefs telling the story of buddha's life and reincarnation. the top three levels contain 72 stuppas, and the temple is topped by a gargantuan stuppa over 25 feet tall - the largest in the world.

Prambanan is a Hindu temple, and was very seriously damaged by the earthquake in 2006, rendering all but 2 of the 51 remaining temples inaccessable for safety reasons. There are three main candis, dedicated to Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Keeper, and Shiva the Destroyer. They are very tall, and very beautiful. it breaks my brain trying to think about how they made them, and how on earth they have stayed vertical since the seventh century. We were guided by a guide-in-training, and tried to ensure that he got the most learning from the day possible. Questions included: How does the security react to climbing candis? For 1,000,000 rupiah, what can do we get? What am i thinking of right now? He did very well.

On the way to Bali, we stopped at Mt. Bromo. This turned out to be a rather poor decision, as it necessitated two very long days on busses rather than a 1 hour flight. none the less, it was a very cool way to start a birthday (My 23rd!). Again, awoken at an hour best approached only from the evening side, we stumbled bleary-eyed to our destination. This being 3.30 in the morning, it was understandably very dark. we were told that it would be impossible to miss the trail, there being a clear path and a set of stairs towards the top. well, we didn't see the trail, and we didn't see the stairs. by the time we figured out where we were supposed to be going, the sky was begining to glow. we reached the top just in time for sunrise, only to realize that we had climbed entirely the wrong volcano!! Mt. Bromo's neighboring peak is about twice as high, and much more difficult to get up. it was rather obvious, in hindsight, as bromo is constantly billowing huge amounts of smoke. after much discussion, we decided that the view is way better from our mountain anyways.


i won't go into details on the busride to bali, because nobody likes to hear a grown man whine. lest just say we didn't get in until an hour after my birthday ended. wtf, right?