Yogjakarta, Java, Indonesia

A holiday weekend meant a chance to get out of Singapore for a short vacation. The destination was Yogjakarta, Indonesia. This is a place I've wanted to see for a few years and recently it's become much easier to reach since one of the budget airlines started up a direct flight to and from Singapore. In 2006 there was a large earthquake causing damage to many of the buildings and historic temples- it also coincided with massive mud slides and an eruption of Mt. Merapi nearby.... direct flights from Singapore were stopped making the trip a little more involved and difficult to see over a weekend. There's a lot of interesting places to see in Java- from cities, historic sites and temples, and volcanoes. The main reason people travel to Yogja is for the Buddhist and Hindo temples of borobudur and Prambanan. The damage from the earthquake at Prambanan was still evident as about half of it was still closed off and under repair.

Horse and carriage is still commonly used for transportation around Yogja, alongside cars, bikes, and scooters

Wile walking around the city we came across a group of kids customizing their bikes on the street- these were like low-rider bikes I'd see in San Diego- you never know what you'll come across in Indonesia


We had a better view of Mt. Merapi from the city.... after driving all the way up the view point we found it completely clouded in and raining with no view to the peak at all. You should see a giant volcano where the cloud is



Borobudur - A Buddhist temple build somewhere around 750AD and used for many centuries. It was eventually abandoned then rediscovered in the early 1800's by Raffles during his posting in Java. Souvenir hunters looted the temples for artifacts - many of the Buddha heads have been stolen- for years until a effort was launched under UNESCO in the late 1970's restoring it to it's current form.






The holiday weekend happened to Vesak, a Buddhist holiday celebrating the birth, enlightenment and passing of Buddha. As Borobudur still functions as a Buddhist temple, there is a massive pilgrimage there over the holiday. We decided to see the temple the day after the holiday as over 10,000 people are usually expected to visit during the festival.

Prambanan, a Hindu temple from the similar time period around 800AD- it's also a UNESCO site and had been extensively restored by the mid 1900's only to be seriously damaged again during the 2006 earthquake. Even though about half of the complex is still closed for repair it is an impressive site none-the-less.

Lombok, Indonesia

Finally I'm getting around to posting some pictures from my trip to Lombok, Indonesia I took back in May. The trip started off great but on the second day I came down with some kind of fever or flu and felt horrible until the last day of the trip so I spent most of the time in bed sleeping and with no appetite... After the 4 days I think I lost at least 10 pounds and looked pretty bad. Thankfully I've gained it all back and am once again my handsome self (in my own opinion)! Also, getting soaked in a rain shower and falling into a waterfall probably not only contributed to me falling ill but it also meant that my cell phone and camera weren't working for most of the trip- So most of these pictures are from the island of Lombok on the first day. We also took a boat out to Gili Tranwangan for two nights but didn't get to enjoy any of the snorkeling or scuba diving which I had hoped to. From the boat ride over or even looking out into the surf you could tell how clear the water was. Another of my friends just returned from Bali and the Gili Islands and told me the snorkeling was great and they even saw some groups of giant sea turtles - he grabbed on to one and rode it underwater so he claims. But anyway, the first day of the trip was awesome and we rented a car to drive around the island. Some of the roads on Lombok are not that great and many are really bad. There's also a lot of horse drawn carts on the roads... as well as other animals. On the Gili islands there are no cars at all so besides walking the options are either horse drawn cart or bicycle.


Once out of the city parts of the island, Lombok is full of rice fileds. Mountains rise up quickly from the sea moving towards the inner island and many of the fields are terraced on these slopes as well. In the middle of the island is Mt. Rinjani, at 12,000+ foot volcanic mountain- the second tallest in Indonesia however with the constant clouds surrounding the upper peaks of the island we never even got a good look at it.



While driving out around the island we got hungry and stopped in to what looked like a roadside cafe. We decided to eat outside on the raised eating platforms which are not the most comfortable things you'll ever sit on but the shade from the thatched roof and ventilation though the floor keeps you pretty cool.
looking over the menu we wern't really sure what to order. We saw chickens walking around the ground under us and we saw Ayam Sambal on the menu (should be chicken with sambal or spicy sauce) so that seems like a safe bet Well, we were kind of right, it was chicken but we weren't quite expecting what they brought out for us. One baby chicken for each of us, cleaned and deep fried intact and whole, claws included, and served on some raw vegetables... with VERY spicy sambal on the side. There really wasn't much meat on those little birds at all and we were still kind of hungy after eating them (the before and after pictures don't look so different really, so we tried to just fill up on the rice.

And then the rain started while we were hiking up to see a waterfall...and with no umbrella anything to keep the rain off is better than nothing- Fal tries to use a banana leaf- but in the end it was useless and we were soaked.


This is pretty much what I felt like the whole time on Gili Trawangan (and I swear it wasn't from that beer... )

You can see some other pictures of Lombok and Gili Trawangan from my friend Fal's site http://singbrewer.blogspot.com/2008/05/lombok-indonesia.html
and his flikr site : trawangan Lombok

Java Wedding

I’ve been back from the West Java wedding for a few weeks now and I’m still trying to digest the experience. It was blur of transport on crowded roads, disappointingly mild tasting durian, ant infested rambutan, lost passports, fried foods, dimly lit markets, kreteck cigarettes, alternating bouts of boredom and the excitement of trying to find something not boring to pass the time, bintang beer, returned passports, Cuban rum, American Whisky, wedding singers, hello misterrrrr, batik shirts, head scarves, Javanese dancers, broken English, confusion and broken bahasa Indonesia.

The transport from Jakarta to Cianjur was unexpectedly easy. It seemed that hiring a car and driver for 550,000rp would be unimaginable for locals but split between the 3 of us it seemed quite reasonably-especially since the alterative was a 5-6 hour bus ride. The road from Jakarta to Cianjur passes though some pretty sharp hills and very quickly we were in some of the thickest fog/mist I’ve seen in a while and I was actually cold for the first time since being in Asia (outside of aircon). The hills were covered in tea plantations.

Cianjur is boring…I think more so if you’re white and non-Muslim. Maybe it’s a blast if you’re an Islamic fundamentalist but somehow I still doubt that. We definitely didn’t blend in and I don’t think we saw any other buleh from the time of leaving Jakarta until returning but the locals really didn’t seem to notice or care we were there. Back in Jakarta I felt like we got more looks and stares. One of the ways we passed the time was walking around the town and through some of the markets… typical wet markets with fruits, vegetables and meats all out in the heat together but these markets had a few firsts for me as well. 1) fresh fish- held in a small tray with about 3 inches of recirculating water so the could stay alive but not really swim anywhere 2) small arms- hand guns and rifles right there next to the chili padi and butchered chicken, most guns looked pretty old 3)some guy peeing into a plastic bottle- I have no idea why and don’t want to even venture a guess as to why.

Cianjur has a Hypermart and believe me this is a big deal - a modern supermarket and assorted goods store where we found beer which became the other way to we passed the evenings. Since no bars were to be found in the town we sat on our room porches with several beers and the duty free liquor we brought though from Singapore.

The wedding was Sunday morning, early. 9am early. But actually since Indonesian rubber time was in effect it got started more like 9:30am. It was in a smaller village about half hours ride out of Cianjur at the bride’s family compound. It began when the officials from the mosque arrived, sat down in the living room and started the ceremony. I didn’t know what to expect since this was my first Muslim wedding but it seemed like a simple ceremony. Most in bahasa Indonesia but some key points read by the groom in English: “promise to provide for you… blah blah… if I sometimes leave you for 3 years or more or if I beat you or if I don’t talk to you or ignore you for more than 2 months you can go complain to the council and I will pay you 10,000rp (1USD) per day blah blah”… just the standard wedding stuff. And that was it. Everyone stands up, greets the new couple and has some food. The entertainment was out I the courtyard- traditional musical troupe, singers and dancers. As the only buleh there we very interesting to the entertainment who were looking to maybe get some fresh talent up on stage. Through the broken English we heard mosty consisting of things like “Misterrrr, dancing” and “buleh, hahahaha” I knew they wanted us to come up on stage to dance and I could feel a consensus growing to force up onto the stage. Finally, someone that spoke English went up on stage and started working the crowd up in bahasa Indonesia, getting them to cheer us on stage. Then he would switch to English for our 'benifit' not wanting to exclude us. … It was only done in English to eliminate our excuses of not understanding the request since we found one like 2 other people there that spoke English. So we went on stage. And they cheered and they laughed. And we danced with the Javanese dancers who were pretty hot. And we danced and they danced better. Then we danced more Javanese dance and we did it as poorly as the crowd expected (or hoped) and we did not disappoint there expectations at all … and man that band played the longest song and it seemed like we were up there for like 7 minutes. A simple 2 minute song would be fine to give everyone a good laugh. At least the kids laughed. I think the older ones hated us. But we gave them what the wanted and it ended up being kind of fun. Things didn’t seem like they could get much better for us after that so we took off shortly afterwards. The rest of the day consisted of walking around Cianjur, eating diner at a food stall, and tying to find something to do. It ended with us just sitting on the porches again.

The last day we went back to Jakarta to meet up with one of our friend’s friend who had moved there a while ago. Jakarta is huge. 15+ million people and the whole city is basically sprawl with limited infrastructure so traffic gets horrible. There are some very moderns area, buildings and malls but literally block away it drops off into slums. I bought a nice new batik shirt.

I'll add in the pictures later...

wedding bells are ringing

...no not mine of course...

I'm heading to cianjur, Java tomorrow for 4 days with some friends, or somewhere near there since I don't now the exact destination. It's going to be a several hour ride out of Jakarta* to the destination but should be worth it so see an 'authentic' Javanese wedding; at least I hope it’s going to authentic. It’s going to be a Muslim wedding at the very least- that much I’m assured since our friend has recently converted to Islam so the marriage could take place. And once you go Islam ... you can’t go back (converting to it what - that's to say).

*assuming we can make it out from the airport since not over a week ago it seemed the only way into and out of the Jakarta airport was on raft due to the recent flooding in Jakarta. I’m sure it’s all fine by now though!

Bali Pictures

Okay, it's been a week already so here are some of the better pictures from Bali and the last intended update from the trip. Most are taken in and around Ubud as this was the only city we stayed in. However, we did manage fun side trips a few of the days. Ron, the guy running the studio had arranged a day cruise for us which was a lot of fun. Not knowing what exactly to expect, we quickly found it was a cruise to nowhere, also known as a "booze cruise". But how could we complain as we sailed back and forth between Sanur where the boat was anchored and the islands off the SE of Bali (Nusa Pendia, Nusa Ceningan and Nusa Lemgbongan) drinking and eating bar b que. Back and forth then back and forth again but how many times I cannot say since the main itinerary seemed to be only drinking and getting tan.

On other days we arranged more strenuous activity to amuse ourselves before heading to the glass studio. We took a bike tour from one of the volcano tops, along some back roads and though some small villages. The kids went wild when they'd spot white people on bikes riding down the road and they'd line up, sticking out their hands wanting to get slapped "five." I'll say, when you slapped one of those little kids' extended hands five you wouldn't believe how they'd spin around like a top and howl with delight! At least I hope they were exaggerating to show their excitement and that we weren't actually spinning those kids around and hurting them- they did seem to enjoy it and would try to slap every rider five. It's amazing that even on Bali, easily the top tourist destination in Indonesia by numbers alone, once you get maybe 10 miles out from even a small city like Ubud you're a major attraction and source of entertainment just because you're white and on a bike...or maybe it's just that you look so out of place and sticking out you become a source of amusement. I'm sure this is much more common in other parts of Indonesia less visited by tourists. Last year I was on a remote part of Bintan Island- many people just go to Bintan for the giant resorts facing to Singapore- and we would get stopped just because we were white! Stopped not because they were terrorists trying to kidnap, harm, or blow us up us as the outstanding travel advisory for US citizens in Indonesia may suggest, and not stopped because they were corrupt police trying to get bribes from us but stopped just because they wanted to take a picture with us! What a strange feeling.

The only other major activity was a white water rafting trip. This was actually a pretty short ride as the water was moving fast but the rapids were no more than class 2 which is pretty mild. There were some unexpected dangers though. In the briefing before the ride the guide told us there would be several low bamboo bridges we would have to duck under to avoid. I didn't know how serious he was until we came to the first one and we really did (seriously) have to lay all the way back in the raft to avoid hitting our heads and even so it seemed like there was only a few inches of clearance. In reality maybe it was more like 6 inches but that seems pretty close. So what if you don't duck? I guess you get knocked out. As some people say- "Asia's full on" and personal responsibility is really stressed, mostly out of default in that people aren't going to care if you do something stupid and hurt yourself and there isn't another lawyer around every corner like in the U.S. to sue someone if you do hurt your self (no offense, John!). It's the same thing with the sidewalks around Ubud. Randomly the middle of the sidewalk will be opened up to the water drains below- maybe a two foot drop. You just have to pay attention when you're walking around.
That's about it. The other days were pretty relaxed, hanging out in Ubud and relaxing. So finally, some pictures:

A shrine right outside my hotel room/villa

view of the rice paddy dividing the hotel grounds

spend'n G's: it's easy when the exchange rate is just under 10,000 to 1USD

some of the wildlife wandering around town...

Some of the many rice paddies around the island

Ron's back yard is nice

We did not eat this pig... but someone will. Bali is not a Muslim island like the rest of Indonesia. It's Hindo but with special Indo Hindo rules which let them eat all kinds of things some Indian Hindos couldn't

a giant garuda

Quite a few pictures. It's a lot to look at. But I think it's easier than posting them all on a seperate website...

Bali is nice. I want to go back some day.

ubud cups

more pictures of the cups I made at the studio in Bali. We were working at the Horizon Glassworks studio near Ubud, Bali, Indonesia. These aren't that great but some of them are okay and they're a lot better than I thought after not blowing glass for just over a year. The first few days in the studio weren't that great as I was getting used to working with glass again in a new shop but after that I (and the others, too) did a lot better and had fun. The studio was hot but not as hot as I thought it would be for a glass studio almost on the equator. Plus it rained a few times while we were working so we walk out to cool off in the rain when we got too hot.

When working in the hot shop, expecially in the humid tropics, it's important to keep hydrated. Beer is a good choice. We went though a lot. Of course drink water too!