Have Feet:Will Go: February 2014

A visit to Yogyakarta, also known as Jogjakarta, assures one that before you leave this place you are sure to start calling it Jogja lovingly, as the locals do. There is a special warmth and an unexplainable fondness about this place.

We arrived late evening and were greeted by our friend Param at the small cramped airport. The immigration counter as usual was overflowing with passengers. Usually the queue ends up out on the tarmac; however, since it was raining they asked us to wait in the aircraft while they cleared the crowd. Anyway, once we were queued up for our visa on arrival, all processes went quite smoothly.

That night we had dinner at a recently started, and the first, Indian restaurant in Jogja at the Sheraton. Param says there are only 16 Indian families in Jogja and they were all invited for the opening ceremony. We did see a few Caucasians in the restaurant other than the Indian tourists. Hope the business survives.

We checked into Dusun Jogja Village Inn, an interesting place. Set as a typical village house with rugged walls etc. but with modern facilities like good air conditioning, nice warm water in bath, good showers etc. Everything around was lush green. The rains added a gloss to every leaf and grass around.

Day 1

We started with a tour to the Sultan’s palace and museum, something not very impressive. Just as we were leaving one of the officials at the gate asked us if we would like to visit a Batik printing school. We happily agreed and he took us through narrow lanes to a school/house where they were selling Batik prints. The works were fabulous. We didn’t see much of batik teaching but were awestruck by the work and hence couldn’t complain. Without wasting time we started looking for which ones to buy. Came out as happy tourists and that is what mattered. Next visit was to a place called Kotagede, known for its silver artistry. For namesake one could see silver jewelry making; the key objective obviously was to sell us something. We did justice to their efforts and bought something to make them happy.

After lunch and rest in the hotel we set off for Prambanan, one of the two great temples for which we had come to Jogja. We reached the temple site around 4 pm. The first glimpse of the huge imposing structure made us stand dumbstruck. The scale was huge. There are 6 main temples, one each for the trinity and their vaahanaas – Brahma, Hamsa, Vishnu, Garuda, Shiva and Nandi. Shiva had the biggest temple. Within these there were Ganesha, the Sun god, Parvati and Agasthya muni. Agasthya muni had Mongolian features as he came from Tibet, apparently! The walls have a lot of reliefs on Ramayana and Krishnayana stories. There was a relief of Kubera, too, though they call it Kuvera. The temple, being in an active seismic zone, has suffered a lot of damage. In fact when one enters the Shiva temple they provide helmets for safety, as there is a crack in the sanctum sanctoram. Interestingly Maithri did not have a helmet and they said it's fine! Once the sun set, we headed back to the hotel. At dinner we watched performances by students on Javanese and Sumatran traditional dances. This temple is famed for the Ramayana ballet in which there is an interesting, almost ironical, twist to the profiles of Ravana, Ram and Sita. Elsewhere in Indonesia, and mainly in the capital Jakarta, the "Gamelan" orchestra and puppet shows called "Wayang Kulit" add to the cultural extravaganza.

Day 2

We started for our next temple – Borobudur at 5 am. Some people reach there to see the sunrise; however, with 2 kids that would have been overambitious. The main reason for going early is to escape the sun. By 9 am the sun gets unbearably hot. This is a Buddhist stupa. There were hundreds of stupas with a Buddha inside each one of them. The circular conical structures are stupendous. The temple has three to four levels, before reaching the main stupa in the centre. Throughout the pradakshina at each level there were many such stupas. Again the size and scale of the temple is astounding. There are reliefs all around with many stories about Buddha- starting from his birth, then as prince Siddhartha and finally as the Buddha- the Reincarnated One!.

Our next destination was the Merapi volcano, an active volcano which erupts once every five years. The last destructive eruption was in 2010 Oct. It looks calm as any other mountain range but holding explosive energy under it, waiting for the slightest tremor to bring out rivers of molten lava, hot gas clouds and tonnes of ash. People in the surroundings live quite close to it, and when they receive the warning signals, they move out and let Merapi destroy all that they had built. Once she settles down they start rebuilding everything, growing crops and trees around till she awakens again! They say Merapi gives them excellent soil that can grow everything at a faster rate.

Afterwards we reached the hotel for lunch and stayed indoors relaxing and resting most of the day with a movie treat and pool time for Amitav, while Maithri took a nice afternoon nap. The evening tea was savored watching the beautiful shower of rain outside, and later we walked down to a nice cosy restaurant for a quiet dinner.

Day 3

Shopping at Malioboro was so satisfying for lazy shoppers like us. Everything is available under a single roof, and it got us moving and shop till hearts' and wallet’s content!!! We had lunch there and visited our friend’s place for tea before heading to the airport to catch our flight back to Singapore.

[Write- up by Rashmi Ramachandran; only the lines in lilac are by me]