Wednesday July 10, 2024 Borobodur
Java has devolved into a bit of a waiting game. I’ll be happy to get back to Bali tonight. Maybe the main thing is that Bali is far better set up to meet the needs of entitled westerners. That sounds harsh but after 7 days on Bali’s western neighbour I find myself yearning for the people, the food, the availability of activities to do. Don’t get me wrong, our trip to Java has been a different and pleasing experience overall. The initial travel on ferries, trains and buses, the uncertainty of where we were, the 3 nights in Kotagede at the wonderful nDalem Natan Guest House, the walks around the kampungs in Kotagede, the fleeting discussions and interactions with Javanese people, the grand Hindu and Buddhist monuments and their connection to a grander past. Looking back at the past 7 days has just revealed that it has been a worthwhile trip. Both of us being sick didn’t help. It limited our movements and meant that we stayed closer to our accomodation. Our bodies needed rest in order to recuperate. Overall my desire to explore Indonesia is still there, the idea of doing 7 day journeys to Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi and other Indonesian islands is still a viable option for the future and it has worked out to be a financially viable alternative. Renting out the villa for a week and hitting the road helps to finance our lifestyle. We have spent around $1000 this week but that includes travel and transport costs, food and accomodation.
My temperature increased slightly last night and I have a sore throat this morning. I have my fingers crossed that I don’t have a new dose of virus settling into my body. The food I have eaten over the past few days could not be called healthy so my bodies defences may have been compromised. Georgie’s viral load may have been a bit different to the one that I had at the start of the trip. The outcome is yet to be seen. The main thing today is getting back to Borobodur and roaming on it’s various levels, taking photos and taking in it’s splendour.
“The Borobudur Temple Compound is one of the greatest Buddhist monuments in the world, and was built in the 8th and 9th centuries AD during the reign of the Syailendra Dynasty. The monument is located in the Kedu Valley, in the southern part of Central Java, at the centre of the island of Java, Indonesia.The main temple is a stupa built in three tiers around a hill which was a natural centre: a pyramidal base with five concentric square terraces, the trunk of a cone with three circular platforms and, at the top, a monumental stupa. The walls and balustrades are decorated with fine low reliefs, covering a total surface area of 2,520 m2. Around the circular platforms are 72 openwork stupas, each containing a statue of the Buddha.The vertical division of Borobudur Temple into base, body, and superstructure perfectly accords with the conception of the Universe in Buddhist cosmology. It is believed that the universe is divided into three superimposing spheres, kamadhatu, rupadhatu, and arupadhatu, representing respectively the sphere of desires where we are bound to our desires, the sphere of forms where we abandon our desires but are still bound to name and form, and the sphere of formlessness where there is no longer either name or form. At Borobudur Temple, the kamadhatu is represented by the base, the rupadhatu by the five square terraces, and the arupadhatu by the three circular platforms as well as the big stupa. The whole structure shows a unique blending of the very central ideas of ancestor worship, related to the idea of a terraced mountain, combined with the Buddhist concept of attaining Nirvana.The Temple should also be seen as an outstanding dynastic monument of the Syailendra Dynasty that ruled Java for around five centuries until the 10th century.”
Tuesday July 9, 2024 Borobodur
I would have laughed if somebody told me that I would be sitting in a “b” grade hotel lobby eating an omelette at 7 am in the morning. Well, I’m not laughing and it’s happening. There’s nothing quite as depressing as a cheap hotel buffet breakfast, especially when you are on your own At the table with the clink of plates, knives and forks and the lukewarm warm dishwater music playing in the background. Georgie will be here soon and we will wander down to the grounds of Borobodur. The positive thing about our b grade hotel is that it’s only a few meters from the front entry of Borobodur Park which we are returning to after 27 years, almost 28 to be more precise.
We caught a distant glimpse of it in the early evening last night after we arrived in the surrounding town and went for a walk searching for something intersecting to do or look at, or eat or drink … to no avail. What I’m saying g is that apart from the magnificent structure that we have come to see the place is miserable, somewhat dirty and uninteresting. I may change my tune after our initial visit this morning. By the way, our hotel is called The Saraswati and it’s one of the better accomodations in the area!
I love the aesthetics of Asia as a rule and from all accounts and recollections of our visit in 1997 Borobodur is magnificent.
Monday July 8, 2024 Kotagede/Borobodur
I used to feel like I was cheating when I created digital music. My challenge is to put something together that has my “brand” on it that sounds unique, isn’t too repetitive, something that represents some aspect of my own experience and something that doesn’t necessarily sound like it was created on a computer. A while ago I gave myself a challenge, this is to create a piece of music every time I travel, whether it be on a train, a plane, a long bus trip. Usually a trip of at least 3 hours. I’ve been working on this project for a bit over a year during trips to Europe, Bali, Japan and Java.
I have a natural ability to “put ingredients together” in such a way that they end up coming together as I nice meal. I apply this same skill to the digital music I create. The working name for the project is “Music for Trains and Planes”, I may keep this moniker or it may change.
There are 2 things that I now do each day. One is to write my journal and blog and the other is to work on the music project. Neither is planned, they are impulsive, like my life. Whatever comes out of me at the time now remains in perpetuity with a limited amount of editing.
From time to time I look back at photographs of Georgie and I prior to our Indian trip in 2019. We had just begun our journey to healthier, fitter bodies in February of that year. It’s hard to relate to the ”fat people” in the photos. I know that the body is but one of the attributes that makes up the person but it is the symbol that the rest of the world has to look at and it does create a “first impression” that could influence the way that people respond to you. I had this happen to me yesterday when I met the German couple at Prambanan. The way you look, hold yourself, the care with which you dress, your overall grooming does have an influence of other people’s perception of you. This is a good enough reason to continue to work hard to preserve our bodies to the best of our abilities for as long as we possibly can. I’m still battling with what “me” is, what is immortal and will continue to exist in the present outside the limitations of time and space. When you strip away the body, the perceptions, the will, the mental images/memories …. what is left? There it is in it’s simplicity. Nothing is permanent, everything is in a constant state of change or re-creation. The concept is so simple yet so huge.
Sunday July 7, 2024 Kotagede/Prambanan
I had a good nights sleep and woke up at about 6.30, Georgie is still in the room, I’ve come out to the back outside courtyard which I find to be a wonderful place to sit and write.
Today marks Georgie and my 5th wedding anniversary, it’s funny getting excited about that after being together for almost 3 decades but we both do. We really do have what could be described as “a match made in heaven”. There are 2 basic things that I reckon you need to achieve in life, the first one is to be happy with yourself, to constantly and continually create growth, happiness, contentment and pleasantness, the second is to apply all of those qualities and attributes to your spousal relationship. Don’t get me wrong, during one’s life there are lots of other areas that need too be addressed and worked on but from my experience “you” are always going to be there when you wake up and for me, so is Georgie. I am very happy to be able to say that I am doing a very good job of achieving both of these goals. How lucky am I! I never get sick of or bored being together, each day is created as a new adventure and miracle together.
We aren’t attempting to set the world on fire on this trip to Java. I started of with a bit of a light flu and now Georgie has a dose. It’s OK to just relax and chill out at times.
Today’s interesting observation. I forgot my melatonin tablets which I have been taking for almost 4 years for the cancer. My deep sleep has increased as has my HRV.
Wednesday 18mins 16HRV
Thursday 73 mins 37HRV
Friday 89mins 61HRV
Saturday 91mins 55HRV
Sunday 48mins 70HRV
I have no idea if there is a direct correlation between these metrics and the change in melatonin protocol but it certainly is something that I have to watch with hawk eyes.
After breakfast and hanging around writing, talking and such we got a car and drove about 30 mins to Prambanan. From the UNESCO World Heritage webpage “Built in the 10th century, this is the largest temple compound dedicated to Shiva in Indonesia. Rising above the centre of the last of these concentric squares are three temples decorated with reliefs illustrating the epic of the Ramayana, dedicated to the three great Hindu divinities (Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma) and three temples dedicated to the animals who serve them.”
“Prambanan Temple Compounds consist of Prambanan Temple (also called Loro Jonggrang), Sewu Temple, Bubrah Temple and Lumbung Temple. Prambanan Temple itself is a complex consisting of 240 temples. All the mentioned temples form the Prambanan Archaeological Park and were built during the heyday of Sailendra’s powerful dynasty in Java in the 8th century AD. These compounds are located on the border between the two provinces of Yogyakarta and Central Java on Java Island.
While Loro Jonggrang, dating from the 9th century, is a brilliant example of Hindu religious bas-reliefs, Sewu, with its four pairs of Dwarapala giant statues, is Indonesia’s largest Buddhist complex including the temples of Lumbung, Bubrah and Asu (Gana temple). The Hindu temples are decorated with reliefs illustrating the Indonesian version of the Ramayana epic which are masterpieces of stone carvings. These are surrounded by hundreds of shrines that have been arranged in three parts showing high levels of stone building technology and architecture from the 8th century AD in Java. With over 500 temples, Prambanan Temple Compounds represents not only an architectural and cultural treasure, but also a standing proof of past religious peaceful cohabitation.”
The last time Georgie and I visited Prambanan was in January 1997. Like most things in the world back then it was quite a different experience, a bit like the Monkey Forest in Ubud that really was a forest back them, Prambanan was in the process of being resurrected, it is now a major tourist attraction … awe inspiring nonetheless. Most of today’s visitors were Indonesian, I spotted a few western tourists but maybe only 1% of all off the visitors, we chatted with a German couple while having a coffee.
Georgie wasn’t feeling great so I ran around taking photos in the late morning sun, it was actually quite hot. Most of the visitors were mainly concerned with taking selfies with the temple structure in the background. People have stopped using their own eyes to experience the beauty of life and now feel compelled to capture their experiences through their iPhone cameras, striking strange poses and gesturing with strange finger symbols.
What struck me most was the sense of history that permeated the site. Here was a connection to a Java of 12 hundred years ago, a chance to get a glimpse of how religion and belief impacted the lives of those who came before us. Java was still in the throws of it’s Hindu/Buddhist period, Islam had not yet arrived with any force. While it was amazing to think that the original temple was built 12 centuries ago I couldn’t help but ponder on the fact that it is only a fleeting moment in time based on the bigger picture. A flicker of an eyelid in relation to earth’s overall life span to date.
I could have explored more, found more to discover but I had my attention on Georgie who was waiting on a bench under a tree in the shade. We wandered off and spotted a coffee shop which is where we ran into the Germans. They were on a trip to Java and Lombok but were missing out on Bali which is interesting. I was keen to ask them some questions about their viewpoints on Germany, their answers were straight out of the mainstream press. Germany needs immigrants to sustain a future, Putin wants to take over Europe and is also responsible for their energy crisis. NATO is necessary and great. Sort of what I had expected too hear. Georgie made a couple of negative comments about America and we left it at that.
It’s now just before 4 o’clock and we are back at our Guesthouse. Getting a car back turned out to be more difficult than we had expected but all turned out well in the end. Georgie is having a rest.
Saturday July 6, 2024 Jogjakarta/Kotagede
I woke up at 6 a.m, well rested, in the nDalem Natan Guest House which is about 30 minutes by car out of central Jogja. This is a remarkable Guest House that was built in 1857. I’ll find out more about it a bit later mainly because I’m sure it’s history is very, very interesting. The building is huge, a warren of beautifully symmetrically placed rooms surrounded by formal verandahs and public areas strewn with antiques and artefacts. It isn’t at all pretentious but it does create a link to what must have been an amazing period in Jogja’s history from almost 200 years ago.
We arrived in Jogja a bit after 3 p.m when the train pulled up at the very crowded railway station, more like an Indian station than the pristine Japanese railway platforms that we got so used to a couple of months ago. The train journey from Surabaya to Jogja is quite flat and not terribly exciting but once again we got a glimpse of a part of Java that we’ve never before experienced which made the time differential well worthwhile although we are now considering flying back to Bali as opposed to our original plan of using trains, buses, cars and ferries.
It felt good to be back in this central Javanese city after almost 30 years. There was a instant familiarity, an affinity that washes over me when I am in a city that still holds it’s past close to it’s chest with pride or in some cases necessity. We sauntered out of the railway station and decided to get a coffee. The shop we chose was called Civet Coffee, a simple little outdoorsy shop across the road from the station. The feel was wonderful, a cavalcade of cars, rickshaws, scooters and horse drawn carts created a montage on the street in front of the chairs. The coffee making equipment was old school, the end result was one of the most delicious, aromatic coffees that I have had all year. Georgie had spotted pisang goreng on the limited menu for $1.50 a plate, I cant resist a good serve of fried bananas so we indulged, I even got myself a second coffee to wash it all down.
We strolled up the road until we reached the famous
“boulevard” called Jalan Malioboro. I first came her in 1987 with Melanie and the kids, we flew on a small plane from bali for an adventure. Allissa doesn’t remember being here but I still have a few photos from the trip hidden away in boxes at home. There are memories but to be honest they aren’t all that clear. Georgie and I first arrived here in February 1997 on our first big trip together.
We strolled down Jalan Marlioboro past shops, drink vendors, transport guys and hundreds of mainly Indonesian people. Probably tourist just like us but they were dressed in traditional Jogja clothing, some with their own personal photographers. We walked past pasars (market facades) which we will spend time exploring before we leave for Borobudur in a couple of days. Marlioboro comes to an end around the Sultan’s Palace. We were enjoying our walk but foolishly thought that we could easily make it to our Guest House. Like most Asian cities there weren’t really any substantial footpaths and where there were a food vendor had set up their street kitchen to block our way so we spent most of the walk precariously on the side of the road walking against the peak hour traffic. On and on we walked, past coffin shops that displayed their freaky wares with great pride by the side of the road. Finally after walking for what seemed like ages Georgie realized that the 19 minutes that google maps told her it would take was really in a car and that it would take another hour to walk the whole way so we finally decided to call a car.
We arrived at the nDalem Natan Guest House at about 6 p.m after night had fallen. Ironically at that stage we had no idea that we were in Kotagede.
The original house was built by a wealthy banker, unfortunately it was all but destroyed in the 2006 Jogja earthquake that killed almost 6000 people. The house lay empty and destitute for several years and was eventually purchased by a well off and caring Javanese businessman and lovingly restored by master craftsmen to it’s original glory. After being here for almost a day I’d like to say that you would have no idea that it is not in it’s original state. The restoration is perfection and retains the inherent sense of history. The design of the house is both eclectic and tasteful, a mix of Javanese, Islamic Sufi motifs and European style full of beautiful antiques, contemporary and Javanese traditional art and images plus Javanese artefacts.
We set off on a walk this morning at around 7.30 a.m. With no idea where we were going we turned into a laneway full of traditional houses, old merchant compounds which are now hotels, local shops, graveyards, ancient mosques and local kampungs. We were in a cultural goldmine, people smiled at us and greeted us. A small girl gingerly approached Georgie and asked her name, Georgie answered and told her that she was beautiful which caused her to smile, spin around and run off into the distance. It is a real treat to walk down the street and receive so much acknowledgement from people unlike in Australia, there is a genuine connect here.
Friday July 5, 2024 Surabaya/Jogja
About one hour out of Surabaya we pulled up at what appeared to be a bus station town, it was dark, there were buses everywhere, we were given laminated plastic cards with the word “makan”, which means to eat or thereabouts so I assumed we were going to be given a free meal. Georgie and I and a young couple behind us were the only non asians anywhere to be seen. We joined the queue and received a bowl of what turned out to be a delicious spicy vegetable soup accompanied by a handful of krupuks, Indonesian crispy savoury wafers. People sat at tables eating, not communicating, eating is a private activity in Indonesia. It’s like going to the toilet, not a grand social activity. I snuck across the road a bought a couple of cheap Javanese ice creams to soothe our trodden souls. We had been on the bus for almost 8 hours! So there you go, 180,000 rupiah, just over $15 Australian for a 9 hour bus trip with a meal thrown in. We got to experience something quite unique. It was a bit of a deja vu moment back to the bus trip in January 1997 when we went from Bali to Yogyakarta through the hot Javanese night. We got to see towns, fields, people … stuff that we would have never experienced if we caught a plane.
Just before 9 p.m the bus pulled up in Surabaya, actually we were on the outskirts. The next step was to find a car that would take us on the 30 minute drive to our hotel. Luckily this didn’t take so long, before we knew it we were sitting in the back seat of a Gojek driving into Surabaya which turned out to be a big, clean, relatively modern city. We were in bed by 10 p.m, a big comfortable bed with 2 huge soft pillows. The hotel we are staying in is clean, functional and comfortable. It’s called The River View and cost around $60 a night. We would have killed for it in Japan!
The next leg of our journey is about to start over again in 3 hours when he hop on the train from Surabaya to Yogyakarta.
We are actually on the train to Yogja, it has just left Surabaya Railway Station is is chugging along, horns blowing, down the tracks through the back streets of Surabaya.
3 hours earlier …… We had a coffee in the hotel breakfast room but unfortunately it was like a brew made with old shoe leather. We set off soon after on an early walk through the “river area”, we crossed a bridge over the murky water and were in the thick of the urban sprawl that was sir similar to other Asian cities that we have explored. The men sat around beside the road making comments in Bahasa and smiling so I figured they were saying good things. “Selamat Pagi” said with enough verve and a big smile goes a long way in Indonesia. It became very obvious, very quickly that we weren’t going to find the coffee of our desires in this part of town but 2 events made it all worthwhile. The first one was by far the best
Thursday July 4, 2024 Blambangan - Surabaya
We spent the night in a small town on the very eastern tip of Java called Blambangan just up the road from where the Bali Ferry docks at the port iff Ketapang. When we got off the ferry I wasn’t too enamoured with where we were, after a black coffee at the most decent looking warung we could find we decided on a hotel while listening to a husband and wife duo sing and play “An Englishman In New York”. They were actually fantastic. Georgie booked a car which took us about 7 kms into the centre of Blambangan.
From Wikipedia “The Blambangan Kingdom was the last Javanese Hindu kingdom that flourished between the 13th and 18th centuries, based in the eastern corner of Java.[1] The capital was at Banyuwangi. It had a long history of its own, developing contemporaneously with the largest Hindu kingdom in Java, Majapahit (1293–1527). At the time of the collapse of Majapahit in the late fifteenth century, Blambangan stood on its own as the one solitary Hindu state left in Java, controlling the larger part of Java’s Oosthoek.
The historical record and the study of the Blambangan Kingdom are scarce, which contributed to the obscurity of its history. Contemporary Javanese mostly know the kingdom through its link to the popular epic folklore, the legend of Damarwulan and Menak Jingga. The fictional story which is set in the Majapahit period, told that the rebellious King of Blambangan named Menak Jingga desired the hand of Majapahit Queen Kencanawungu.”
Western tourists seem to stand out, just walking down the street last night to buy a bottle of water was a bit of a song and dance with vendors doing high fives with me, smiling and seemingly surprised that I could pretend to speak a bit of bahasa. Most westerners who come here do so to climb the volcanoes at dawn.
Soon after arriving at our hotel the skies opened up again and the equatorial rain teemed down for a couple of hours.
It turns out that the days of last minute booking are over. The much anticipated train trip to Surabaya was booked out for the next 2 days which forced us to book an 8 hour bus trip stating at midday today. Georgie was right once again. My fantasy of doing last minute bookings is as antiquated as I can be at times, a remnant of some almost mythical past.
We stayed at the Hotel Blambangan which although basic was good enough for an overnight stay at the cost of about $55 Australian dollars. I secretly enjoyed staying here.
The thing that appeals to me most is being somewhere new in the world for the very first time, although we did drive up the beach at Ketapang on a bus after getting off the ferry back in 1997 whilst on out epic Eid trip to Yogjakarta, back then we simply stopped at a small warung late at night that had rats in the toilet and then drove on through the somewhat mystical Javanese night to Yogja. Overall our one night here has been fun, uneventful. The strangest thing happened at 6 p.m last night when all of the mosques in town started blaring out prayers over loud speakers. There must have been at least 20 mosques involved, nothing was co-ordinated so it became a cacophony of jumbled sound. Very strange, very discordant.
Wednesday July 3, 2024 : Penestanan - Bambungan
We have just boarded the ferry the travels across the strait between the Western Balinese town of Gilimanuk to Ketapang in Eastern Java. The car trip from Penestanan to Gilimanuk took just under 4 hours mainly due to the heavy rain that was still falling for most of the journey. It’s been 27 years since we’ve done this trip. The car trip cost us bout $65 and the ferry costs a little less than $4 for the 2 of us. We booked our car on InDrive, a transport app that offers better prices than Gojek or Grab. We are on a tight budget.
The water is calm and Java looms up in the distance. I think the crossing takes about 30-40 minutes. The ferry is basic but not as basic as the one we travelled on in 1997 which also carried livestock.
We have alighted from the ferry and made our way to a hotel which is sort of in the middle of Ketapang. We’ve spent the past hour booking in, ordering food and finding out that all of the trains to Surabaya are fully booked for tomorrow and Friday! So we went into option m
