Sleepless in Yogya (and beyond)

So took the train from Jakarta to yogyakarta (prounounce joegjakarta or jogya for short). It was a very nice and comfortable train with nice scenery. This country is so full of volcanoes it's crazy. Everytime you look out the window is another volcano rising up above the rice fields. The scenery out the window of the train was very dry, like thailand in the dry season, which I really liked. Got in to yogya early in the evening and immediately liked the place. The walk from the train station to the budget area was only 200m and the budget accommadtion was insanely cheap, but 200% cleaner than anywhere else I'd been to. Then there was good food everywhere and so cheap as well. Tried lots of the local favorites. And since it was a big city and touristy, there wasn't a problem with getting food due to ramadan. The city is also very, very artsy. It's like the home of batik, so there are batik stores everywhere. And major forms of transport are human powered tricycles or horse carts which is pretty cool. And then there are little alleyways (called gangs) which are fun to wonder around.

The next morning would start a marathon of no sleep, keeping in mind that I had also stayed up nearly the whole night watching anak krakatau as well as staying up late in jakarta and waking up early for a train ride in which i didn't sleep much b/c of the nice scenery. Although the next week or so would be little sleep, i never really got too tired b/c I guess you just get used to it, like during finals week, and b/c there was so much exciting sutf going on. So woke up before 5 to catch a tour that left at 5 to watch the sunrise at the famous buddhist temple of brobodur. The temple was quite huge and surrounded by mountains, so it was quite cool. Met two czech guys on the trip, martin and lucas, who were quite cool. After brobodur the tour went to another more minor buddhist temple, and then on to the famous Prambanan hindu temple, which is the biggest in indonesia. It was beautiful, but was being repaired a bit b/c of a major earthquake that happend on my birthday is 2006.

Once back in yogya that afternoon I handed in my laundry which was desperately needed and then headed out to explore the city. Walked along Jln Malioboro, the famous street there full of batik and other shopping things to the Kraton, which is the big palace where the sultan lives (this city is still ruled by a sultan) There is a palace for the sultan inside the kraton walls, but also some villages, so I walked inside and to the bird market, which was quite disturbing. There were obviously thousands of birds for sale at the bird market as well as fish, rabbits, reptiles, worms and other crawlies to use as food, cats, and dogs all crammed in little cages. But there were also some endangered or at least threatened species for sale there I recognized like some fruit bats, owls, and baby flathead cats (a type of wildcat similar to an ocelot). After this I walked some more through the tiny lanes of the kraton until I got to an area called tamansari which was like the pleasure garden and water garden area for the sultan in days past. There were the ruins of the water palace with good views of the city, as well as the now restored swimming pools where the sultan could watch the ladies bathe. And explored an underground mosque which I found quite cool with it's interesting staircases and windows. Continued exploring some more before heading back to the big food markets on jln malioboro to sample some of the food and browse a bit of the batiks before spending the next 3hours trying to find size 13 flip flops at the 4 malls and infinite shoe shops around there as my sandals were hanging on by a thread and were about as thin as a piece of construction paper. Size 9 seemed to be the largest anyone carried, but finally found some 11's which were good enough.

The most active volcano in indonesia is called merapi (translates to fire mountain and there are actually 4 merapis in indo, 2 in java, one in sumatra, and one somewhere else). Usually you can only take a tour to a viewpoint to see the lava flowing down, but for a couple months it's been inactive and you can actually climb it, which is pretty rare. I had wanted to climb it, but of course had the issue of trying to find another person for the minimum of two. Luckily the czech guys were all about it and we also found a brit named Cairo that wanted to do it as well. I had planned to take a nap that evening, but the sandal shopping took too long. We got picked up at our hotels at 10 and then driven to the base of the volcano where we started hiking at midnight. It was a very, very steep climb, but were approaching the summit at dawn, which was a surreal experience b/c we were walking through sulfur steam vents turned red from the approaching sun, so it looked just like a martian movie or something. We made it to the top intime to see the sun rise and were rewarded spectacular views of the area and merapi's twin volcano right across the way. Once back the czechs were taking a train to surabaya to eventually get to mt bromo where I hoped to see them later, but that night I wanted to watch the ballet ramayana. I had time for a quick nap and then headed back out to the prambanan temple to watch the ramayana ballet. I had really wanted to see it b/c back in freshman year with Dr. Simonton we had focused a bunch on the ramayana and written so many papers for it, so I had a special interest and even though the ballet was in hindi, I could still follow what was going on. The ballet was well done with elaborate costumes and a an orchestra of traditional instruments and of course with the stunning backdrop of the lit up prambanan temple in the back. That night instead of getting a good rest as I maybe should have since I had been up all night climbing the volcano and had started the day long long ago at 4am when I went to the temples, I headed out for some more good food and walking around at night and then stayed on the internet til past 3am b/c I hadn't had access in forever and knew I wouldn't get it after that for awhile and I had credit card bills to pay, people to write back to, and the blog to update. I'm not a coffee drinker, but that night I had some of the famous java coffee and then also a specialty there called coffee joss which is a strong coffee drink where they put a steaming coal into it, which is quite unique.