The days have flown by in a whirl of activities not often leaving time to reflect and communicate all we've done and seen since last sitting down at a keyboard. Let's see what's been going on these lakst several days, shall we?
Over thee days and along the way we have stopped in several villages to witness local handicraft and small scale home industry workers producing salty snacks and rice chips, various types of cloth turbans worn by different ethnic groups, hundreds of brightly painted clay bowls ordered for a wedding feast as well as full-scale workshop turning out truely beautiful batik cloth of the highest quality.
One related observations: much of the economic activity we have observed overall from our tour but, on our village walks or mountain hikes represents independent, small scale entrepreneurs selling out of very tiny spaces to what appears to be a local market of longtime consumers.
Even in urban areas sidewalks are in terrible condition, if they exist at all. We encounter relatively few pedestrians anywhere -- motorcycles are, by far, the preferred mode of transportation. The exceptions are manmouth multiplex complexes housing apartments, well stocked malls and all the other amenities allowing escape into a much more "international modernity".
Lots of other activities have marked our itinerary over the past few days, including a hike along the slopes of Mt. Merapi, devastated by a volcanic eruption in 2010 but slowly recovering, at least environmentally. We spent some time in Kaliaem with a seventy-four-yea-old woman who has adamantly refused to even considering leaving her long time home; later we met with some military vets in their late eighties and nineties who recalled for us their wars for independence against the Dutch and the Japanese as well as times spent repelling cross-border excursions from Malaysia and Borneo.
For Lee the high point of our entire tour took place Friday morning with our several hour visit to Borobudur, the world's largest Budhist temple. Built atop a hill rising above the surrounding landscape, it's squat appearance replicates the Buddist conception of the universe over a series of three levels rising to the ultimate one of NIRVANA. Each level is lined with passageways depicting in stone relief, first, the nature of our human existence as we know it; secondly, those who have been able to control some of their desires but remain bound to existence; and thirdly, those who have mastered their desires and entered paradise.
The life of the historical Buddha is also highlighted along the way as are stories and myths associated with hundreds of his other manifestations in various human and animal forms. Images of the Buddha are found in every nook and cranny; hardly a surface has been overlooked in the attempt to contain all of life's complexities in one single cosmological portrait. A pretty fantastic accomplishment for those building the site in the 12th century, wouldn't you say?
Our flight to Bali the next day took us into an entirely different world, one full of color and tropical flowers and smiling, open hearted people. Best of all, we visited a neighborhood Balinese Dance School where the headmaster and his wife are trying singlehandedly to keep alive local traditional dance forms by providing low cost weekly lessons to neighborhood kids. The "big kids" we're off to attend a dance competition of some sort, so we had "to make due" with some delightful nine and ten year old substitutes. We even got to sit in with the gamelan band and try our hands at some Balinese music making!
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