FROM A DREAM OF DANCE INTO THE VALLEY OF DEATH

Here is a set of images from THE SUDI DANCE SCHOOL in UBUD from yesterday's dance recital, somwething of an upbeat alternative to what follows.

A several hour drive out into the country along sparsely traveled, newly blacktopped highways brought us to a spectacular view of a caldera inside of which loomed an active volcanic cone and a large pristine lake.  The caldera housed a number of active villages whose inhabitant's primary occupation involved quarrying basalt rocks frequently used as foundation stones and/or volcanic ash used as fertilizer.  Our goal, however, was an isolated village on the far side of the lake reached by first descending deep into the caldera and then zipping across the lake via motorboat.

We met the village headman upon arrival, were guided around the village (including a brief conversation with the current resident of the oldest house in the village, above) and through the local temple before reboarding our small skiffs for a short ride to the local cemetery.  A giant and VERY old tree stands guard here over a set of ten graves.  The bodies therein are merely wrapped in thin burial shrouds and left to rot naturally.

Any new body brought to the site releases the oldest body there, the bones of the deceased then being dispersed around the general area beneath the enormous sheltering tree.  Each corpse is accompanied by all their earthly goods pied up around them.  Sheltering umbrellas and random coins often are scattered about as well.  Age old ritual customs still alive even in early twenty-first century Bali - unusual, unique and quite amazing!

KUBURAN TERUNYAN

YOGYAKARTA DAYS

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.

YOGYAKARTA RURAL HANDICRAFTS

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?

BOROBUDUR'S BEST

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!

 

 

AN ARCHEOLOGICAL SITE, A COUNTRYSIDE LUNCH AND SOME VISITS WITH JAVANESE CRAFTSMAKERS

Historical context in Indonesia is never easily mastered.  Traders came early, from multilateral direction - India, China, Western Europe and Japan, Africa.  They found already in place a vast variety of independent, largely self-sufficient indigenous groups already possessing well developed cultural, social and religious ways.  Intermixing naturally occurs over the centuries and many a political entity came and went in these long reaches of time as well.

Early Monday morning we visited a physical remanent of one such early Javanese kingdom recently subject to archeological exploration. The site was of a ninth century Hindu temple honoring Shiva and his associated entourage, Parvati (Shiva's spouse), Durga (a Verdic sage) and Ganesha (Shiva's son), together with three smaller shrines housing their three trusty steeds, the bull, the swan and the Garuda.

The site proved a easily assimilated entry point into the multilayered complexity of Hindu mythology, construction materials and techniques and architectural styles likely to encountered elsewhere in Java and around the rest of Indonesia

[Having become increasingly flustered with my various attempts at effectively intergrating images into these blog posts, I have decided to insert a single "teaser" image followe by a link to a small set of related images that, when clicked, enlarge to render details more fully.  Thanks your patience with all this experimentation.]

The Hindu Temple Complex at Candi Sambisari, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Countrystyle Lunch on a Veranda Overlooking Yogyakarata Rice Fields

We experienced Prombanan Temple under a light summer shower during the early afternoon, but that proved no deterrent to our appreciation of this truely awesome 10th century Hindu temple complex.  The sultan controlling this part of the Indonesian archipelago also extended his control into parts of the modern Souteast Asian mainland and thereby influenced the architectural look of Ankor Wat.

The hight of the central structures, the intricate and complex carvings, he narrative retelling of the whole of the Ramayana epic in hand carved stone bad reliefs were all stunning to behold.  Other, essentially untouched piles of rubble nearby attest to the magnitude of the mighty reconstruction process that lies ahead.

Prambanan Temple, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

A BUSY DAY IN JAKARTA

One's initial impressions of Jakarta is of a VERY large city (some 16 million inhabitants, thereabouts) with very little intrinsic charm, a city of business and commerce with little to hold the attention of leisure travelers, a city dotted with new skyscrapers but lacking essential amenities (such as sidewalks and decent public transportation).  No one walks anywhere; motorcycles are everywhere; all the cars are new and clean and Japanese and predominantly minivans rather than sedans.

We spent our first day "on tour with OAT" adding depth and understanding to those first impressions. The city came alive as a result (although unlikely to stir any significant relocation thoughts among us).

Istiqial Mosque was first on our agenda.  Designed by Frederick Silaban in a highly symbolic "internationist" style, "Independence Mosque" was completed in 1978.  The largest mosque in Southeast Asia, it can serve 200,000 adherients simultaneously on its five interior worship level and the huge surrounding outdoor terraces.  Right across the street is the city's largest Catholic cathedral.

The architecture is stark and regal and striking in its simplicity as illustrated in this Jakarta Mosque 2016 Google Photos album [click on the album title to bring up the images; click an album image to enlarge it, then sweep towards the left to view the others].

Our local guide includes in her mixed heritage a good many Chinese ancestors.  For our second adventure of the day we walked through an urban Chinese neighborhood where her family once lived, the site of several days of anti-Chinese rioting in 1998 that left lots of death and destruction in its wake.  We visited a market area and then a typical temple complex where we met the local neighborhood government leader with whom we carried on an extended discussion of the riots and their consequences,

JAKARTA CHINATOWN 2016

We next rode three wheeler jitneys to Fatahillah Square, the center of Dutch Colonial control beginning in the seventeenth century.  After lunch at the famed Cafe Batavia and a brief stroll around the square and to the nearby railroad station, we hopped back aboard our bus and drove through the heart of contemporary Jakarta's newest upscale neighborhoods, providing quite a contrast to the run-down sections of town in which we had spent much of the morning.

JAKARTA, INDONESIA 2016

An elegant dinner in an equally elegant restaurant full of exotic Indonesian collectibles rounded out the day, in the end leaving us all with a positive impression of a cosmopolitan, diverse and vibrant city. 

Tomorrow we fly off to Yogyakarta in Central Java for more adventures.

OFF TO SEE THE PUPPETS

The highlight of our first foray out into the Jakarta heat took us to the Wayang Museum of Indonesian (and world) puppetRey, housed in a converted Dutch colonial era church in the Old Town area of the city.

We "just happened" to run into a middle-aged man standing at the ticket counter, "Aldy" by name, who turned out to be a fourth generation Indonesian puppeteer and puppet master himself and whose family collections provided many of the artifacts on display.  He was happy to act as our guide to the exhibit and later, together with several others who joined us along the route, invited us to his nearby workshop where he both performed a short puppet show and demonstrated the processes involved in creating a two-dimensional shadow puppet.

Lee, having done his TripAdvisor homework, knew this kind of serendipity was a possibility and knew, too, that Aldy's presence was sure to turn the entire experience from "mediocre" to "fantastic" - which it, in fact, did!

Here are some images of our delightful host and both the three dimensional Indonesian puppets seen directly by the audience and the shadow puppets whose images are projected from behind a screen between the puppeteer and his viewers that he introduced us to during our museum and workshop visits.

AN ALTERNATE GOOGLE PHOTO ALBUM OF THE SAME IMAGES, WAYANG PUPPET MUSEUM, JAKARTA, CAN BE FOUND BY CLICKING ON THE UNDERLINED TITLE.

Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

FAR AWAY BUT CLOSE AT HAND

A restful day, indeed.  Breakfast at Buzz in the hotel lobby, the only Westerners (but for one other) in the place, then a swim (perfect water temperature) in the roof deck pool, followed by a second breakfast in the Executive Lounge, lots of reading and a nap --- all before noon!

The remainder of the day went along much the same, although we did step outside the lobby doors for a look-see for a brief few minutes in the midday heat.  After a very light supper and a glass of white wine, we watched a bit of television in our room before Heidi fell fast asleep around 9:00 PM local time.

Decades ago all this (non)activity would have taken placa accompanied by a concurrent process of cross-cultural adjustment -- strange food, new language, unfamiliar environment, different customs.

In today's globalized setting, however, we still found ourselves tied to 'home" although half a world away.  Wi-Fi brought easy and fast Internet connections to the Plain Dealer, New York Times and Facebook.  We could access email accounts and check in on other favorite web sites.

Along the way we did read through the paper version of the local Jakarta daily newspaper and browsed some Indonesian English language magazines; but, overall, we're still more in touch with events in Ohio and the USA in general than we are with local affairs.  Even the TV show we watched, an episode of The Amazing Race, kept us firmly rooted in our American life.

Years ago letters home took ten days minimum to reach their destination.   Time and Newsweek arrived once a week to keep us abrest of what was happening elsewhere in the world.  Local television was unknown altogether; BBC World broadcasts provided our only link to current events.  Our "world" shrank accordingly, reduced to focusing on and mastering the intricacies of local "daily life" as best we could.

Our contemporary lifestyle, on the other hand, requires a level of multitasking not present back then.  Somehow we seem tied to being two places (minimum) at once even when one of those places is a world away.

Equally true: the world is much more "of a piece" now than half a century ago.  Everyone we encounter in our hotel, staff and fellow guests alike, speaks English, be they Indonesian, Malaysian or Korean.  Signs throughout the hotel are posted in English as well, the lingua franca of contemporary commerce.  Local shops deal in familiar namebrand goods; billboards advertise the latest Galaxy 7 smartphone and American films are ubiquitous.  Not much in the way of cultural adjustment seems called for given the circumstances.

In the final analysis, having traveled under both sets of circumstances, Heidi and Lee, while content with the current state of affairs, are equally happy to have had all those earlier experiences of a less connected, less homogenous world those many decades ago.  Travel was a REAL adventure back then, believe us!

JAKARTA ON AN EARLY SATURDAY MORNING