Indonesia - Yogyakarta and Bali

Ancient Temples, Allergic Reactions, Active Volcanoes and [Excessive] Alcohol Consumption

The first few months of 2013 were going to be dominated by holidays, and with India done and dusted it was on to Indonesia. In between i had started work on a new construction site, but i'll talk about that another time.

Anyway, we had booked this trip way back in September for some reason: i think mainly due to the boredom of working in the office at the time doing pretty much fuck all apart from planning new and inventive ways to spend our parents/ the governments money. I had been reading a lot about the Inca Tribe in South America and Machu Picchu so when i found out what i could see in this part of Indonesia i was determined to go.

Therefore, one humid morning we set off for Yogykarta in central Java.

Yogyakarta

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This place is a city, albeit a pretty small one about 30km2 with a few Dutch colonial buildings dotted about in the centre and with no real skyline to speak of. It served as the capital of Indonesia for a few years from 1946 after Jakarta fell to the Dutch and is the only state in Indonesia to be headed by a Monarchy (The Sultan). However, this is not Jakarta. There are no towering high rises or much post-modern Architecture to speak of and generally speaking it's pretty under developed in modern terms.

We were here for two reasons only: Borobdur and Prembanan.

Borobudur

Stolen from Wikipedia

Borobudur is a 9th century Buddhist temple, abandoned around the 14th and for all intents and purposes lost until 1814 when the British governor of Java, interested in it's history sent a Dutch engineer to investigate rumours of a huge structure in the jungle. Cornelius, the Dutch engineer and his 200 men cut down trees, burned the vegetation away and dug at the layers of earth and jungle until they revealed the monument.

Us on the bottom steps

It was most likely abandoned due to the proximity to the active volcano Mount Merapi, burying the monument in volcanic ash which is still a problem today. The volcano itself is the most active in Indonesia, less than 20 miles from the site and in 2010 it's eruption killed 300-400 people and displaced hundreds of thousands. This eruption also covered the monument in fresh ash and resulted in a multi-million USD clean up courtesy of UNESCO. Throughout the trip there was a silent worry inside of me that we might all be killed.

Anyway, the monument has been restored and there's a lot more to it's history than in the 2 paragraphs I've given it, but it was a place i didn't want to miss out on in my year in SEA. This resulted in us waking up one morning in our 6 bedroom dorm at about 3am, collapsing in to a hired taxi and travelling to the monument for a sunrise climb.

We arrived at the site, paying an extortionately high price for our early entrance via the hotel, saronged up, handed our torch lights and set off into the darkness. We rounded the corner and i could just make out the black silhouette of the huge structure against the night sky. We began the climb on the first of the 9 platforms which are divided into three areas. Each of these symbolizes the three realms of Buddhist cosmology:

The world of Desires
The world of Forms
The formless World

Stupas on some of the upper levels

I really don't know much at all about Buddhism so i won't try and do a half arsed explanation, but give it a read sometime. It really is an awe inspiring place and it would require a long time for you to truly understand it's meaning and the countless inscriptions that cover every level. However that time we did not have, so i left not necessarily more informed on Buddhist culture but very glad for the experience.

Relief Panels

We stepped down from the monument, unfortunately not quite quick enough to miss the bus loads of school children who saw us (the white man) as a bigger attraction than the structure itself. After posing for about 10 photos we decided to call it quits and got out. enjoyed a breakfast at the hotel and set off for our next destination - More temples i'm afraid.

Prambanan

Stolen from Keith

This is a 9th century Hindu Temple, another UNESCO world heritage site and features a 50 meter central building inside a complex of other temples, built to honour Lord Shiva.

One of the remaining outer temples

Stolen from Keith

The court of Mataram which was located nearby was moved to East Java in 930, possibly by a power struggle or an Eruption at Mount Merapi, resulting in the temple complex being abandoned and deteriorating. During a major earthquake in the 16th century it collapsed, turning into a huge pile of rubble. Although the villagers in the surrounding area were aware of the ruins they were officially rediscovered once again by the British when a surveyor Sir Thomas Raffles came across them by chance. Much like Borobudur, looting of the monuments happened after rediscovery with pieces taken off as ornaments, while the compound was officially rebuilt by 1930.

The rubble

The outer ring of temples are all but destroyed. And i mean that literately. There are thousands of stone blocks that form a huge pile of rubble around the site which were once temples. There used to be 240 temples but today only the 8 main temples and 8 smaller survive. The rest remain in pieces waiting to be restored from the scattered stones.

This was taken shortly after it's rediscovery in the early 19th century - Stolen from Wikipedia

And today

After exploring the ruins we came to the Shiva temple, the tallest of the lot and in the middle of the complex. Here we were greeted with a rather worrying sight, apparently because of repeated earthquakes and the age of the structure this temple is rather unstable and prone to pieces falling off it. Thus we were required to wear hard hats as we walked around. On we went and soon enough we were greeted by cracks pretty much everywhere we looked, in every stone. These cracks had been filed by a black waterproof putty to try and stop further degradation and were slightly unsettling as we walked around the various chambers of the shrine as our guide told us some of the history. 

"Relatively Stable"

Even though 90% of the meaning of the carvings that were explained to me went right over my head it was an awesome experience. Suffice to say however by the end of that day i was pretty templed out and ready for a change of pace.

The rest of Jojga

The next day we spent chilling in the hostel and walking around the city. Lunch consisted of some street food and heated bargaining with some noodle vendor whom i insisted was trying to rob me of 5 rupea. (Looking back i feel like a huge twat as this works out at about 30p)

Anyway, it wasn't long before Karma came back to kick me in the balls and laugh at my misfortune. On the way to some art Gallery that specializes in Batik works i began to feel incredibly sick. My head turned numb, my skin felt rubbery and before long i was finding it difficult to stand up. My throat felt like it was closing, i was struggling to swallow and felt hot to the point of fainting.

Fuck these stalls

I told the guys i needed some air, left the gallery and threw up in some unlucky persons front drive. From there i stumbled back to the main road, hailed down some guys on bikes until i got a decent price and headed back to the hostel. My eyes at this point were pulsating and my throat was closing up, i walked into the front door and staggered up to the desk.

Don't trust it

 The women at reception glanced up at me, pointed to the door and exclaimed to me in broken English "The hospital is that way!". I assured her that all i needed was some orange juice, walked to the toilet and had a look at my face. My eyes were slits, and my eyelids/brows had swollen to the point of forcing my left eye shut, whilst my right was nearly fully engulfed.

I had turned a colour between green/yellow while my cheeks had swollen up. This was my first allergic reaction but i decided to ride the storm upstairs on some beanbags rather than risk a battle with the Indonesian health care system. Luckily i was already on some antibiotics for a cough that i hadn't been able to shift since before India, so no issue. I only regret i didn't get a photo at the time as i really did look hilarious hideous.

Anyway, i recovered, ate some Oseng Oseng Mercon which was hotter than the depths of hell and made me look quite the fool in front of the locals and met a couple of cool Americans. The next day the guys climbed Mount Merapi which looked like an amazing trip but i wasn't in the state to do so and skipped that one out.

Some of the dancers

Edu hostel where we stayed was great, with a huge chill out area allowing me to get a lot of Les Mis reading done, along with a dipping pool on the roof giving us views over Yogyakarta. Later on we went to the Sultans Palace, took a  tour, saw a dance and ular'd the day away. Just a note: Indonesian food is really terrible  I'm sorry if i offend anyone but coming from Malaysia which probably has the best selection of food in South East Asia it really did taste awful.

We left  Yogyakarta and went onwards to meet up with the rest of the group in a little place i like to call

Bali

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We arrived at the airport, hitched a ride on a taxi, dumped the bags and headed straight to the beach. We were staying on Kuta which is essentially the Australian version of Magaluf or Benidorm. It has been ruined by them in the same way the British have ruined Spain, but once you accept this you can begin to move forward. The beach i'm sure was once tranquil but now a huge tourist trap. A local would approach you 2-3 times a minute trying to sell you something, a hat, ice cream, mat, whether the fuck you want. You want Massage? My hands very experienced... You get the picture.

Enjoying our first beer upon arrival

Ket

Don't get me wrong though, it was still a great place to waste the day away.

A half group shot - From George

Creep - From George

In all honesty i don't remember much about the nights out in Bali. On James's 21st he dressed up in a kids spiderman outfit and tried out his slimiest dancing possible in sky garden or whatever the fuck it was called which was the main club on the strip. 2 heavy and great nights were had - i vaguely remember 20 shots of some kind of home made rice vodka for 200,000 Rupiah which equates to about 12 quid and a lot of prostitutes in this bar which was smaller than the inside of a Fiat Punto.

Lots of beer, lots of tequila, god i don't know. It was probably awesome.

The Tour 

Monkey

To offset this we did some more cultural stuff. Keith had booked us on to a flash tour of the island in the state of Ubud. We set off for the Sacred Monkey Forest which is a nature reserve and temple in the centre of Bali. There's about 350 of them here and watching them climb all over, fight upon and steal from tourists was a true highlight. Monkeys are assholes, never forget.

Temple

From this it was onwards to Mount Batur, an active Volcano on the island whose side is covered in the lava flow of a previous eruption in 1968 and was an extremely impressive view, even at our distance where supped for lunch.

Mount Batur

This was followed by a trip to a coffee plantation where which produces the worlds most expensive coffee, Kopi Luwak. How is this produced? The Asian Palm Civet, which looks like a large Ferret on speed eats the beans and shits them out. They're then cleaned, pulverized, heated and drunk. This animal is seriously wired and looked like it was on the brink of a heart attack as it ran around it's small cage in circles, or a smack addict 6 hours sober.

Coffee Worker

We finished at Tirta Empul Temple, built in 926 AD. This is a place where Hindus go for purification, moving from each spout of the water and not a bad site to end the day on.

Water Temple

Water Temple

Indonesia had been the longest holiday to date and my first proper experiences with Ancient temples and culture in Asia. I had spanked yet more money and was under the impression that the precedent set by the last few months of travelling was coming to an end, only work remained. I was wrong.

Check out my Flickr for the polished photos at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/glenncook/sets/72157632067033774/

Toodles

One last thing:

Angry Keith