Near Yogyakarta there are two UNESCO World Heritage Sites – one in one direction, one in the other. One Buddhist, one Hindu. They are both wonderful – and very different from each other, so you do need to see both – and I had never heard of either one. Marketing! (Or UNESCO!). I chose to go to Prambanan first, in part because my friend Martin lives near there. I’ve known him for years but we’d never met. We’re both on a listserv called Princeton-writing. In my early days on this listserv, I was more active, and one of the things I did was look at a manuscript that he wrote – so we communicated off-list every so often. I switched to web delivery a while ago (the writers wrote so much that I couldn’t keep up with the emails!) but have maintained correspondence with some of the people I got to know early on (we’re also both on the Princetoniana committee – which also has a lot of emails). He was free to meet me that day and Prambanan was a great place to meet! From there we also had great views of nearby Mt. Merapi, the third-most active volcano in the world.
Prambanan, begun in 832 AD, has one impressive main complex and several smaller temples – the Hindu styles are quite ornate.
UNESCO entirely reconstructed them; they had been piles of stones.
Prambanan had experienced a major earthquake in 2006; some of the structures are being rebuilt, some are off-limits because they are unstable, some parts were left as is.
Martin hadn’t been there since the earthquake so it was interesting for him as well. It was interesting to see everything but what made it special was the company. It’s true – when alums of Princeton gather anywhere, there’s a place they think of, longing to be there, etc. We talked about Princeton, writing, and other things. I mentioned that I was going to have a layover in Japan and he introduced me to his classmate, the person who spent the day showing me around. So I guess the New Year marked not only the shift from one country to another but also from seeing Peace Corps friends of friends to seeing Princeton friends of friends. I now have two strong networks to draw on!
After we parted, I stopped at another temple and heard some haunting music. I almost bought the CD then and there. It turned out to be one of the more popular recordings of Sundanese, a kind of Indonesian music, and fortunately I found it again and bought a CD. I wish I could link to a sample but a) I don’t see a way to do it and b) that might violate some copyright. I had bought some Moroccan music before I left, too – it’s a nice souvenir of a place (and doesn’t take up much room). I had heard some Thai music, but not a lot, and there was nothing I felt compelled to buy. I think in Thailand there is much more of a Western/rock-and-roll influence, at least in terms of what’s popular now, whereas here there was a unique sound. Part of that comes from the unique instruments – more on that later.
I had time after I returned to see more of Yogya. I realized the day before that if I tried to walk, I would be hounded every few feet by a becak driver trying to show me around – but if I hired a driver, everyone else would leave me alone. I found (or was found by) one who was low-sell but persistent, and also nice. This picture of me on in the driver's seat is just so you can see what it looked like - the rest of the time I was in the passenger seat!
It’s not so bad traveling around while someone behind you does all the pedaling! We went to the Sultan’s Water Castle (it’s good to be the sultan) – there was one pool for the kids and one for the wives. The Sultan would stand on the balcony and throw a flower down to the wives; whichever one caught it would swim with the Sultan in his private pool, on the other side of the wall.
We also went to a mosque - it had some familiar elements to it. And in this country, I could go in!
I saw some more Wayang (I had seen a Wayang tiger in the Sultan’s collections, so I went on a quest for that – I don’t need any more tigers, but a Wayang one would have been cool. I didn’t find one, but I got wooden puppets for my nieces; I hadn’t seen those yet) and some batik. Before I came, I equated batik with tie-dye – something I did once as a craft project. Well, true batiks – centered in Yogyakarta, though other parts of Indonesia have other claims to batik – are elegant and beautiful textiles. They are hand-painted or made with stamps, and the process is elaborate – waxing what you don’t want dyed and then dyeing one color at a time. Yoyga batiks are in indigo, brown and white. I might have gotten a few items…as I have said before, when you see how something is made, you appreciate the work that goes into it. We went to a few different places, but I made sure I had time to take advantage of the hotel pool, poolside restaurant and internet, including making some more reservations (Hawaii sticker shock!).
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