Precious and grace: Ubud to Yogyakarta

For a relaxing time... make it Bin Tang time.

So, where were we? Ah yes, we were just finishing up in Ubud which I loved dearly. Sadly, it came to a terrible end. I was talking to some guy about the average wage of an Indonesian worker and it is less than a cup of coffee a day. Knowing that the meals I was eating were considerably more expensive than that and how disgusting it must be for local wait staff to see uneaten food left on the plate, I vowed that I would finish every meal I ate for the rest of the trip.

That night, we celebrated the end of our time in Ubud with a nice dinner. I chose to have dessert but unfortunately I chose a thing called the chocolate divinity. It was a small dessert but had a ratio of a trillion parts sugar per gram with the consistency of cake mix. One mouthful was like taking a hit of LSD with a cocaine chaser - colours started to blur and I saw ghosts in my peripheral vision while talking like a lunatic with delusions of grandeur. This was after one mouthful but with my mind on the Indonesian worker, I ate it all, bite after disgusting bite. Here's some photos of me enjoying dessert:




Sad to say I didn't stray too far from the toilet that night and only made the flight to Yogyakarta the next day by sheer will power and more Immodium than is medically recommended. I did it for the Indonesian worker but I have since learnt my lesson - capitalism is a brutal mistress.


We landed in Yogyakarta and from the chilled out happiness of Ubud, it was quite a shock. The rolling greens had been replaced by a harsh industrial brown both in the sky and street. Our taxi was checked for bombs as we pulled up to the hotel and there was a general unease around the city. I'm not sure if this was terror trial related but the heavy atmosphere wasn't lessened by the roaming police trucks with water cannons nor the ridiculousness of our hotel. Sometimes you book stuff online and don't know what you're getting but this place was fucking well out of order. It was like the days of the Raj, a colonialist nightmare with staff demeaned in safari suits and the door people wore a uniform that looked like it was from Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - only in beige. I don't know what was worse - the preppy white people drinking gin in a palace while the most abject poverty was on display some 10 metres away or that I was one of them. An uncomfortable time was had by all.


Anyhow, the main reason to go to Yogyakarta was to visit two temples. The first was Prambanan, a Hindu temple built in around 850AD. I have to say that it was pretty impressive, covered with a thin sheen of volcanic dust, the ratnas punched into the sky in a manner which was both profound and intimidating. The main obstacle to the enjoyment of the site was the hundreds of school kids in attendance. Usually, this is not a problem but as it turns out this is the curriculum for learning English in Indonesia:

1. Dump students at historical site.
2. Get them to ask every tourist passing by whether they can practise their English.
3. Request awkward picture with tourist as proof that they've completed the assignment.

Not to dump on the worth of the idea as an educational tool, but I thought it was bullshit - kind of like when my teachers used to show videos for the final weeks of class rather than teach. Anyhow, you want to be supportive so you chat politely and then have your photo taken, we must be in about 50 different photos.


Here's Ruth being mobbed by her adoring public.



As always, the details on the carvings is fantastic and considering all of the temples are made without any bonding materials (they piece together like a giant jigsaw puzzle), it is quite astounding. What I found interesting was that the temple was abandoned in 950AD and no one has any idea why (seems a common story amongst temples of this nature). Maybe they were the ancient equivalent of record stores and all the religious types just moved on to downloading and piracy.



All in all, it was had a similar vibe to Angkor Wat but on a much smaller scale - like mini golf is to real golf or Coldplay to Radiohead (too harsh?). Anyhow, I was much more excited about the next leg of the trip which was Borobudur - the great Buddhist complex about an hour's drive from the city which is said to genuinely rival Angkor Wat...




It didn't quite reach those heights and to be honest, initially it was a bit of a let down. Firstly, it was infested with more school groups wanting photos and chats in English so you couldn't really wander around in silent awe of the temple. Worse, as every visitor was made to wear a sarong, I looked particularly stupid making the photos with the locals now extend from schoolkids to entire families laughing heartily at the idiot tourist...


Nice skirt buddy.


Even more disappointing was that the top tiers of the temple were closed for cleaning. The top levels contain a number of bell like stupas which house Buddha statues. If you can reach through the stupa and touch the Buddha, your wish will come true. Not today.


I suspect that the cleaning was a result of Richard Gere coming to visit next week. Damn you Richard Gere, damn you and all your crappy movies.


And then there was piss hat. All in all, a little disappointing and what I thought was going to be the highlight of my trip was a bit of a fizzer. Then something magical happened.

We had booked a sunrise tour of the temple and as I lay down to sleep that night, I was wondering if getting up at 3:55am was a bad idea. As we poked our heads out at 4:30 to start the tour, the world of darkness was very much alive. In the distance, you could hear the cry of the morning prayers, a sound jarring and unrelenting the previous day as it came from multiple directions, clashing and distorting but through the still of the darkened morning, they were a call of pure beauty. Above us, the full moon was half way through an eclipse and the moonlight shrouded the country in pale deathly blue. A heavy mist hung in the air and there amongst it all stood the towering, silent form of Borobudur - ancient and far more beautiful illuminated by both moon and eerie floodlights. This is how this site should be experienced.


We were given flashlights and free reign to explore the temple. Behind the temple, the mist seemed heavier over the forested valley (sorry for the crap photo but you get the idea). Everything in the temple was still, silent and timeless but breathing with calmness and serenity. The eclipse was slowly waning but as it faded, you could see the sky slowly changing as the sunrise approached over the volcano in the distance.







Sometimes it's hard to explain when something changes you but the sheer beauty of those few hours, second to second, breath to breath were so exquisite that I felt altered, better, calmer.




In the end, it didn't even matter that Richard Gere stopped me getting to the top level of Borobudur because I climbed up anyway when the guards weren't looking - suck on that Gere. I guess that calmness didn't last very long.

--