Temples, cooking, and celbrations galore in Yogyakarta

Temple day! 

I booked a tour with via via to visit the smaller temples then get dropped off at Panbanan temple complex.  The girl giving the tour was a college student, she had been working with the company for about 5 years on and off.  She really seemed to enjoy what she was doing and was super informative.   

 So on to the hidden temples:  Did you know that  there are two different types of temples in Indonesia?  I’m sure there are a few more than two, but the majority of the ancient temples are Hindu and Buddhist.  You can tell them apart by the tops.  One is bell shape and that is Hindu, a square shape is Buddhist.

The first temple we visited was for vishnu’s wife (laksmi) that was found in the 60’s by a farmer.  He found one of the corner pieces when he was plowing and slowly more and more pieces were found.  The temple was all over the place, so experts had to come in and piece it back together.   The locals didn’t want to sell their land around the temple.  So only part of the temple complex is restored today.  Archeologists think that the surround farm lands have more of the complex hidden.  

The next temple we visited was a monastery, with no floors.  The floors were the only thing made of wood, so of coarse they rotted out a long time ago.  You could tell it was a place of learning because the structure is two stories; giving a teaching space and a living space.  Also it had carvings of all the different teachings that would have been built there.  

The last hidden temple we went to was  a wedding present to a royal couple.  The couple was one of the attempts to unify the people so one was Hindu and the other  Buddhist.  I found this temple complex the most fascinating.  You could see all the differences in the religions and it was huge.  There were piles of stones that had yet to be put back together.  My tour guide said it took about a year to reassemble one of the small buildings that dotted the courtyard.  Also here we saw a great meeting room.  The roof and walls had long ago rotted, but the statues were still intact.  Well almost, most of the heads were missing.  I noticed this inside the restored temples as well.  Often the heads are missing.  My guide informed me that they were stolen and sold to collectors.  The society that owns and maintains the complex has replaced the heads several times, but in the end they always get stolen anyway.  

Prambanan is so huge you could rent bicycles to go around the complex or take motorized train.  Unfortunately it was also a bit pricy.  20 USD, that is 4 or 5 times more expensive than anything else I had done.  When entering they present you with a black and white sari and tea.  The sari is for the foreign visitors (who are required to pay more).  The designs on sari is traditional batik and design of the Yogyakarta region.

I wandered around a bit and eventually headed to where the crowd was gathered.  This is the most famous of the temples (prambanan).  You can go in, but you have to wear a hard hat and only 50 people are allowed in the temple at a time.  It was raining at this point.  But it was rainy season in Indonesia, so I was used to it.  I had a poncho and an umbrella.  After the main temple it was more of the same, and not as interesting without a tour guide.  My tour guide had to wait outside for me.  

 I walked around a bit and heard some music and what looked like dancers.  I caught the tail end of a trance dance.  It was quite weird.  The guy was dancing and seemed to be performing a story of some kind, but he was completely out of it.  He danced crazily and seemed to have convulsions throughout the story.  Other dancers were using their hands to “kill” him with knives and and convulsed as if it really hurt.  By the end of the dance he was so out of it he couldn’t even walk by himself and had to helped.  It was one of the weirdest things I have ever seen.  After locating my guide we went back into the city via another country route. 

 I loved seeing all the different houses and more of the agriculture.  On the way back we pasted pigeon races.  This was quite bizarre to me.  When I think of pigeons I think of little notes attached to their feet or pigeon pies (don’t look at me that way.  I read way too much.).  This was a similar concept to messenger pigeon.  The pidgins are released some ways away at the same time.  The owners then wait in a different location, but a location familiar to the pigeon.  The pigeon that gets there quickest and also lands correctly wins.  It was pretty cool.  The locals looked like they were having a great time.

I got back to the hostel and Claudia was waiting for me.  We were both a bit exhausted from our day (she did the sunrise temple tour) but decided to go out to Malioboro street later.  We heard it was a pretty cool place to go.  When we both were refreshed we headed that way in bicycle tuk tuk.  The first one we go was an old man and he could hardly take Claudia and me down the street (where he thought we were going).  The next guy haggled with us and we eventually got the prices down to something not quite so rip-off-ish.  

Mariobolo street is basicly a night market.  On the way there and back we passed horses with dyed manes and fully decked out tuk tuks with neon lights and brightly painted signs.  One we arrived we could hardly walk, there were so many people and shops.  We started wandering.  I had a goal: shoes.  I had bought some tennis shoes early in the week but now I was looking for hiking sandles.  I think mine died in India somewhere.  But of course we got side tracked.  Claudia was in a shopping mood.  So we picked up some traditional batik and then looked at funny hats and a few other things.  We also found a shoe store between all of our wanderings, and I got my sandles for 9$!!! Score.  After all that we were hungry.  We walked and walked and walked and came to a mall.  Instead of getting Mcdonalds, like so many people there, we hit the basement and got some fried noodles and soup.  It was a good night.

The next day was my cooking classes.  I asked specifically for the morning class so I could go to the market with my instructor and see where everything came from.  The market part was exactly what I expected.  After living in Asia and touring around so much you get used to all the craziness and less than sanitary conditions you buy things in.  After the market I got a coffee while my instructor got things ready.  She brought a friend to keep us company.  It was good.  Sometimes just two people can have a bit of a lag in conversation, but a third person can make all the difference.  We made Gulai nangka (jackfruit curry) a side dish, and Ayan Bumbu Rujak (Indonesian curried chicken).  The most interesting part of the recipies to me was using the mortar and pestel to crush all the spices together.  I had never done that before.  I guess in the western world we would just throw it all in the food processor.  But I really feel like the flavor came out so much nicer in a mortar and pestal.

After cooking I did manage to find a pedicure place.  After all the hours I had spent the last few months on my feet, it was great to just relax and get them looking nice again.  That night Claudia and I had made plans to go to the puppet show.  Before the puppet show I was advised to try a dish specific to Yogykarta, nasi godeg.  So we headed out to find it and it was interesting.  I was told it was gogin to be disgusting.  It’s made from jackfruit that has been slow cooked, spiced and sweetened.  I thought it was good, but not something I would eat everyday but good.  

 Claudia and I showed up early, so first we headed out a carnival we saw across the street.  At this point it was pouring.  So we were sharing an umbrella and laughing our heads off as we splashed around and just enjoyed to carnival.  

 The puppet show was great!  Because it was off season there were only a few tourists there to see the show.  It was nice, like having our own private showing.  The musicians and the puppet master were really nice as well.  The musicians encouraged us to help them play the drums and wooden xylophones.  I found it a bit awkward trying to figure out when to hit the notes, but it was still good fun.

  The puppets were so beautiful and diverse.  The story we stayed to watch was intricate.  About betrayal and family, women and men fighting, death and a victor.  It was a traditional story used to teach about morality.  It was all in Indonesian so after an hour we both were a bit bored.  We headed out early.  Claudia had a flight to catch in the morning and I had plans to go back to the sultan’s palace to see the celebrations for Muhammad’s birthday.  But when I got back, I sat down outside my room to enjoy a beer.  A few of the other guests were in the dining area chatting, eating, drinking and invited me over.  I’m glad I did.  They were friends from secondary school and took this trip every year.  I really enjoyed myself hanging out with a new group of people.    

Muhammad’s birthday was amazing.  I have never seen something so exotic and fun.   I had gotten there a bit late, so I just barely caught the end of the opening ceremony.  There were tons of people dressed up.  It seemed to me that they may have been different parts of the military dressed in traditional garb.  Whoever they were they were fabulous.  They even let me take my picture with them.  :)  They had a parade and bands and offerings of food shaped into huge towers.  The offering were brought to the mosque and the rest of the public celebrations were held inside the palace.  There was entertainment everywhere.  Vendors, historical sites, museum exhibits, traditional music, singing and more puppeting.  I ended up walking around a bit, sitting and listening to the music, then I wandered outside for a bit.

The carnival Claudia and I had seen the night before was in full swing.  It had tons of shops, people and just interesting things to look at.  I loved the hermit crabs with brightly colored shells.  It was so hot walking around looking at everything that I ended up buying a fan.  I feel like I have sweated more in Indonesia than any other country I have been to.  One thing I did not like was the traffic getting out of the celebrations.  It was wall to wall with people walking, tuk tuks and cars.  I was trying to get to the bird market that Claudia had told me about the day before.

 The bird market was interesting, but at the same time a bit cruel.  There were all sorts of animals not just bird.  I saw owls, bats, lizards, multicolored chicks and of coarse your run of the mill birds like ducks, chickens and canaries.