Adventures in the city of Batik and Gudeg

Wednesday, April 15th : Yogyakarta (Jogja), Java
The awesome becak driver who was supposed to come this morning did not turn up so one of the guys we were chatting with last night (who happens to be a becak driver) offered to peddle us there. The batik course was at the house of a lady named Susi who has been doing batik for over 20years. She has a small showroom of her work at the front of her house and then a work area out the back where she teaches students whilst her batik workers in the yard behind wash and colour huge beautiful batik pieces.
We sat down next to 2 big pots used to heat the wax which, when put on the canvas, forms the lines of your picture.
Susi showed us the technique of using the special tool which you draw the wax on with and we had a few practice gos before beginning our own. We chose a general template for our batik design and then added some extra things and made changes to make it our own.
After a day of batik-ing, I can fully appreciate now why the work is so expensive when it is sold. It takes so long to produce and it quite labour intensive.
You begin by slowly drawing the wax on, once it is completed you check the back to make sure it has gone through so the dye does not run.
Next, you use a brush to paint in with wax any areas which you want to keep white. You then use dyes to put your first colour (the lightest colour first) in the picture, dipping it into a range of buckets of chemicals to create the end colour, then wait for it to dry. You then use paraffin to cover up any areas which you want to retain the first light colour and die the next colour...and so on and so forth. Ours had only a few colours and paraffin crackling so that process did not take too long.
While we were waiting for them to dry we made our way through the tiny alleys between houses bustling with children, chickens and dogs and blossoming orchids sprouting from cracks in the walls and made our way to a tiny little roadside warung (food cart) where we tried some new Indonesian food we had not yet eaten. The gorgeous Muslim woman (who eventually understood with a smile that we didn't want the usual 50 chillis) ground up a spicy satay in her stone bowl and we had spinach, bean sprouts, tempeh, potato and tofu all wrapped up in a banana leaf to take away. We also grabbed something for Harry, the guy who has been helping us out at the course.
Enjoyed our (spicy!) lunch while the dyes dried. And chatted to Joko (who we named Loco Joko) a local artist originally from Sumatra who used to live there in a tree house where he did carpentry. There was a river full of fish at the front with monkeys coming to drink throughout the day. His area was devastated by the tsunami (many of his friends are still 'missing') so he moved to Jogja to try and find a job and start a new life. He tried his hand at batik and was a natural so here he stayed, working with other artists at Susi's.

It was so lovely to spend the day there, back from the noisy road in the quiet house compounds, watching the batik workers pull water up from the well to rinse the dies in big tubs on the ground. They produce all the batik by hand in the hot sun, with chickens scrambling in the dust under their feet and traditional Indonesian music coming from the little radio inside.

After our work was dried Harry folded them into a little bag and gave us a couple of the little tools used for drawing the wax as a present so we can continue doing batik at home! Awesome!
Having spent the majority of the day sitting, we decided to take a walk to Via Via for a smoothy and to use the internet. It was a very very hot walk and by the time we go to Via we were dripping with sweat. The smoothies were great but the internet was not working so we hopped onto the nearest (and cheapest) becak and headed back to the resto next door for some dinner and an icy cold Bintang.
After tea we went to book a bus ticket to go to Borobodur, Prambanan and Keliurang Volcano. Then back to the hostel for some sleep!

Thursday, April 17th : Yogyakarta (Jogja), Java
Decided on a quiet day of R'n'R today. Checked out how we're going so far in our budget, organised our bags, read our books, plotted possible places to go and meandered out a couple of times for food.
Pretty uneventful day, spent mostly in our room to recharge our energy stores!

Friday, April 18th : Jogja -> Borobudur -> Mt Merapi -> Prambanan -> Jogja
Woke early this morning to wolf down breakfast before meeting at the bus pick up point to head to Borobudur at 7:30am. Hopped on, there was a US/Aussie guy called and a French lady as well as the semi-guide guy Bai Pai (like 'buy pie').
We began by crawling through the Northern area of Jogja, past the other markets for restuarantuers and hotel staff who come to buy fruit and veg from 4am. Headed on out of town by the Chinese Cemetery which is very impressive. The gravestones are the size of small houses and are really ornate and decorated. Bai Pai explained that this is because there are many Chinese here who have successful business (like restaurants and traditional medicine) so they can afford to have such glamourous tombs!
Choking on the exhaust fumes being sucked in and puffed out of the fan vents we made our way to a village which is reknowned for producing statues and carvings made from lava rock which was spewed from Mt Merapi (where we will go this afternoon).

Observatory side note : I absolutely love this country and watching it's inhabitants in their day to day life as we creep through their towns as inquisitive voyeurs behind the windows of our van. The people are beautiful, they are so beaming and generous and willing to teach you about their language and customs, food and religion. They are also such a colourful people to watch.
Whether it be the 3 women swathed head to toe in glorious colourful fabrics, perched side saddle on a motorbike, their brown toes curled up to stop their shiny little sandals from falling into the stream of traffic. Or the small child with a birdcage fashioned into a backpack full of squawking pigeons, eagerly peddling home on his push bike. The truck full to bursting of wooden crates loaded with all kinds of fruit and vegetables, with 4 people crammed into the front seats, smoking cigarettes and laughing heartily at a joke. Or the old leathery skinned men crouched on the filthy roadside, oily hands twisting and turning bike wheels to be repaired whilst discussing the state of current affairs. Or the lovely old lady with one white tooth smashing peanuts and chillis on her mortar behind her food cart, with stray cats bearing broken tails purring at her side....it is a wonderful, diverse place to be and to explore.
Although travelling overland can be stressful (particularly on Indonesian roads) it gives you the experience of watching people and seeing the goings on of some of the most interesting places you would not see otherwise.

After an hour or so's driving, we arrived at Borobudur, a UNESCO world heritage site of a massive Buddhist temple. It is very impressive and set amongst very beautiful botanic grounds. The park is set in the Kedu Basin which is a fertile valley surrounded by big volcanoes. Built around the 9th century, it is like a bunch of stacked up blocks, 6 square bases topped with 3 round ones, getting smaller and smaller as it goes up. It represents the cosmology of Buddism: the human realm of desires (Kumadhatu), the transitional realm where humans are released from their desires and worldly concerns (Rupadhatu) and the realm of Gods, the sphere of perfection and enlightenment (Arupadhatu).
On each level you walk around clockwise and there are carvings in the stones which tell an important buddhist story. There are many many buddhas about the place looking down on you and out to the mountains as you walk past, it is a very calm site. We made it to the top where there are lots of bell-looking stupas with buddha's inside. For luck you reach inside the latticed stone and touch a buddha, we both had a go for good luck and walked around the various sculptures in the searing heat and humidity. The view was amazing, from there you could see the threatening Gunung (Mt) Merapi which once erupted and covered Borobudur in pyroclactic (volcanic) dust and it was hidden until it was rediscovered in 1814.
Our next journey was up through the winding roads and tiny villages to Kaliurang, which is a little town on the side of(!) Gunung Merapi. This town was all but destroyed in 1994 when Merapi erupted. 65 people were killed as the area was completely smothered in pyroclactic dust. The town was evacuated in 2006 before lots of seismic activity threatened another eruption to cover the village again.
Due to the mineral rich lava which flowed down the river during the eruption, the area is really fertile and is bursting with dense plants, trees, flowers and juicy tropical grasses. The air is fresh and cool and beautiful to wander around in. We made our way to Kali Aden to view the spectacular Merapi in action, we could see it peaking up through the clouds, looking rather threatening and steamy.
After looking at (thankfully only) images of the eruption we made our way back down the windy road to grab some lunch. There was a slight confusion over the orders and Rick ended up eating what turned out to be half of my meal. He very kindly offered to pay for it and gave me the rest to finish when his arrived. I said that I should make people eat a bit of my food all the time if it meant getting it for nothing! Who said there's no such thing as a free lunch??
Hopped back in the bus and headed to Prambanan, the biggest Hindu complex in Java. Also built around the 9th century, the area has over 50 temples but unfortunately many of these were destroyed or badly damaged in the 2006 earthquake. Many of them are still undergoing restoration and are closed to visitors but the main temples are able to accessed and are very interesting. Big, pointed temples jutting into the blue sky, they each contain the statue of a deity. There are many Hindu gods which take on forms of animals, humans or combinations and there a lots of carvings in the stones to depict them. The biggest temple is the Shiva temple (47m) and this has many deities inside, although unfortunately this one was not open to see just yet.
Once again we had a few happy snaps with some Indonesian school kids (still don't quite get that...) and walked around the park for a couple of hours before diving in for a squat toilet and back to the small markets which are at the entrance to the temple park.
We bought a coconut from a stall and cracked it open to share amongst us and also got some snakefruit and Javanese oranges, which are very similar to mandarins, like baby oranges. We were approached by various people selling there wares of foods, the most amazing being a tiny old lady with a huge package on her back. She put it down next to me and removed the fabric covering it to reveal a massive bucket full of big chunks of tofu. It is fried in brown sugar and looks, well, kind of disgusting! I said that I would not buy any as I was full of coconut, but asked if I may take her photo if I gave her some money to which she smiled. However another tourist took the liberty of taking some without her permission and she got very upset and packed up and left. I wonder about how that must make her feel, people taking photos of her without asking, as though she is some object.....I felt very bad as she seemed upset with me and was repeating the same phrase as I walked past (which I did not understand) I don't like the fact that I was unable to apologise and explain to her in a language she understands. I think I'll learn more Indonesian when I am settled after this trip. Although what I know now is enough to function here, I think I may have some lessons at some point so that I will be better able to communicate when we next come here (and I'm definately coming back!).
We finished off our fruits and made our way back to the van for our hour or so's drive back to Jogja, chatting and sharing travel stories along the way.
Once back we wandered down the little alley where our hostel is and grabbed some (bloody spicy) soup from a guy with a food cart on the corner. For 5.000Rp you get a big bowl of absolutely beautiful, steamy, fresh made noodle soup. Can't beat it!
A great adventurous day under our belts, we headed to our room for a shower, to write in our journals (that's you!) and have a relax.
Then out to a cool little artsy place called 'Bedhot' for some spciy curry and to go online to update this very blog