Yogyakarta

While Bali is a beautiful island and was probably once a paradise, I felt much more at home in Yogyakarta on the island of Java. It's a city of almost 500,000 people, which I'm starting to realize is the perfect size. Like a lot of other 500,000-person cities that I've enjoyed throughout my travels, Yogyakarta just large enough to offer plenty of things to see and do, but small enough to avoid the chaos of a major metropolis. I felt like I got the opportunity to witness the real character of Indonesia here.

Present-day Indonesia was many separate kingdoms before Dutch colonization, so they didn't have a shared national identity prior to their independence effort. Even their colonizers were content to let the existing kingdoms rule as regional governors. Unlike many colonial powers who justified their occupation by spreading their religion, the Dutch were completely motivated by money and found the existing kingdoms extremely useful for governing the Dutch East Indies. The Republic of Indonesia, which was formed in the mid-twentieth century, continued the practice of allowing each region plenty of latitude for how they chose to govern. The Special Region of Yogyakarta is one of the 38 provinces of the Republic of Indonesia, but it is governed by a sovereign monarchy, The Sultanate of Yogyakarta.

The major attractions in Yogyakarta are Borobudur and Prambanan, enormous Buddhist and Hindu temples built during the Shailendra Dynasty around the 8th century. The Shailendra Dynasty also ruled Cambodia around the same time, so it's possible that the construction of Angkor was inspired by the temple complexes in Yogyakarta.

While Bali has a majority Hindu population, Java's population is mostly Muslim. I had such a horrible experience in Morocco that I found myself getting mildly anxious when I saw many hijabs worn in the airport. This is a brand new bias that I'm working to overcome, and my experience in Yogyakarta has helped a lot. Just like in Bali, the people here are easy going and usually smiling. It's impossible to develop the same paranoia I felt in Morocco that anyone who's friendly is trying to scam me.

On my first night in town, I walked around Malioboro Street, a lively row of shopping malls and restaurants near the several universities in Yogyakarta. The population is extremely young in Indonesia, and there were big groups of teenagers and college students hanging out in the area. All of their faces would light up when they saw a foreigner, and frequently one of the kids would work up the courage to ask for a photo. There were also smaller groups of college students who had an assignment to interview English speakers, so I stopped five or six times to record an interview.

Borobudur

The next day I woke up at 3 am to join a sunrise tour of Borobudur. I had missed out on the sunrise experience at Angkor, so I was excited to make up for it here. Unfortunately Borobudur doesn't open until 8:30 am, so the tour wasn't exactly as advertised. We got to see a pretty sunrise, but it was from a nearby mountain viewpoint, not from the temple.

We were allowed to walk around the temple campus of Borobudur before the tours started, so I was able to witness a few hundred Buddhists in dharma practice.

Only a small portion of the crowds around the temple grounds paid the higher admission price to enter the temple, and the group that entered was almost exclusively foreigners. The $45 ticket included special sandals (which we were told are required to limit the damage to the temple floor) and one tour guide for every group of 15 or 20 people. They did a great job of cadencing the tours so that no area was ever annoyingly overcrowded.

The temple is composed of ten levels representing seven stages of enlightenment, which must be a teaching of Mahayana Buddhism because I've only heard Theravada dhamma talks that reference four stages of enlightenment. Also, to get really pedantic, I use phrases like "dharma" and "nirvana" when talking about Mahayana, but I use the phrases "dhamma" and "nivana" when talking about Theravada. They're exactly the same thing, but for some reason the Theravada tradition doesn't like Rs. They should have called it "The-avada."

Each level features bas-relief that depicts the stages of enlightenment, from desire all the way up to nirvana, with less representational and more abstract artwork as the levels increase.

The upper levels contain many stupas with a Buddha statue inside. I really enjoyed the view of the mountains from these levels.

And a few of the stupas have been cut open so that visitors can more clearly see one of the Buddha statues inside of each.

My favorite little detail, though, was the lions. There aren't any lions in Indonesia, so the artists had to guess what lions might look like.

Prambanan

Since Borobudur is the largest Buddhist temple in the world, I expected Prambanan, a Hindu temple built by the same Shailendra Dynasty during the same century, to be much smaller and less impressive. Prambanan is actually a much larger complex of temples, though, and most of the travelers I met in Yogyakarta actually preferred Prambanan. I guess it stands to reason that Buddhists have less to prove with a grandiose temple. In that regard, Borobudur is a bit of an anachronism.

When the tour van dropped us off, he told us to meet him at the exit gate two and a half hours later. I was sure that this would be entirely too much time and that I'd probably spend most of it drinking a coconut and waiting for the rest of the tour group to finish. There was actually so much to see that two and a half hours was cutting it close.

It was interesting to view ancient wonders of Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms in a country that's now mostly Muslim. There are prayer rooms ("musholas") scattered around the temple campus so that Muslims can stop what they're doing and answer the call to prayer wherever they happen to be. One would think a temple might already provide sufficient infrastructure for praying, but the musholas were as common as toilets.

The whole park is large enough that they rent bicycles to ride around look at each of the temples. This was a perfect way to do it because some of the more minor temples didn't require thorough inspection. Riding a bike along the path of the temples was the perfect way to see them.

General Election

I passed a building in Bali that had a bunch of red flags with a picture of a bull. I remember thinking that it must be a tapas restaurant or something, but I saw the flag again in Yogyakarta and had to reconsider that theory. I also saw a lot of billboards that I assumed were for insurance agents and personal injury attorneys or something like that. Eventually I noticed the same bull on one of the billboards and made the connection that it must represent a political party.

Sure enough, the flags and billboards are all for political candidates. They all have a number prominently featured on the flags and billboards, too, and the number corresponds to the number Indonesian voters mark on their ballots.

There will be a general election held in 2024. If I understand correctly, the terms aren't staggered. Everyone is up for election at the same time and they could potentially elect an entirely new government every five years. Incumbents are favored, but it's a risky enough business that their political parties put a big effort into gaining ground.

The Kraton

On my last day in town I explored the neighborhood built around the former palace of the Yogyakarta Sultanate. (I'm still a little foggy on where the sultan lives now.) The palace was a little underwhelming compared to the UNESCO World Heritage Sites I had been exploring, but it was still pretty.

Taman Sari (part of The Kraton) is a water palace that was designed to be flooded in different areas. It's challenging to imagine what that would have looked like, but I got some idea from seeing the bathing quarters.

Today people live and work in the The Kraton, and the mix of old castle architecture and modern homes, murals, and artwork is very pretty.

On my way back to the hostel I tuktuk driver relaxing in his passenger seat who offered to give me a ride. I had rented a scooter and didn't need transport, but I was in a goofy mood and told the driver I would drive. He agreed immediately but jumped up out of the passenger seat and headed toward the driver's seat. I assumed he didn't understand, so I pointed to the seat and told him "No, you sit. I drive." He joylessly said "okay, okay" but continued to move toward the driver's seat. I figured my joke just wasn't landing, but he handed me a helmet and showed me how to change the gears. When I realized he was actually going to let me drive the tuktuk I stared at him for a moment with astonishment. He finally laughed. He hadn't misunderstood me at all. He's just the kind of guy who responds absurd requests with "yes, and" energy.

I drove the tuktuk for a few blocks around the palace and created quite a spectacle. People had been stopping to ask me for a photo when I was just walking around, but the sight of a bule (white foreigner) driving a tuktuk stopped traffic.

Next stop: Jakarta. I'm actually in Singapore now but it's been tough to keep up with the blog this past week. I got behind in Bali and things have been pretty action packed since then.