Jogja Jaunts

After Prambanan, Martha and I did some sightseeing around Jogjakarta proper. 

First, at the grocery store by our hotel, Martha marveled at the durian, king of fruits, stinkiest of stinky, spikey as all get out:

Then we hopped (well, squeezed, really) into a becak, Jogja's transportation mode of choice.  These bicycle rickshaws are all over Jogja (many of them parked, drive napping/lounging), used by locals and tourists alike.  Liz, Meghan and I had wanted to try them when we were in Jogja last, but three American butts is just too much for the becak...  two was pushing it (and pushing it is what our driver had to do occasionally on the inclines!):

We requested to be taken to one spot I had read about on the internet where you can take a batik-making lesson, and after some confusing back-and-forth in a garbled Bahasa Indonesia/English mix, we ended up at this place, which was not our intended destination (thanks, Indonesia, for making things confusing by having multiple streets with the same name), but worked out just fine!

We got to see the whole batik-making process, from tracing the design, to stamping the border design, to hand drawn batik (batik tulis, like Martha and I tried in Jakarta) and cap batik (where the wax is stamped onto the fabric using intricate copper stamps or cap), dyeing, hand-painting with dye, re-waxing and re-dyeing, and finally drying:

Tracing the design (for the batik tulis):

Prepping the fabric and stamping the wax borders:

It seemed that there was a division of labor along gender lines, at least at this factory, which the men doing the stamping and dyeing, while the women did the hand work, including applying wax with the canting and hand applying dye to certain sections of the design:

Here are the dudes doing the dyeing... red was the color of the hour:

Wax removal:

Blue-dyed batik drying in the rafters:

Here we are, trying out the cap process...  first the borders.  Dip the cap/stamp in the hot, hot wax:

Then carefully stamp the fabric, lining up the design in key places so it looks continuous:

My turn:

Next we applied the main design, a large square-ish stamp:

Re-dip in the wax between each stamping:

Post-waxing, pre-dyeing: 

And post-dye!:

After our batik cap adventure, we hit the road for some more sightseeing and a whole lotta batik shopping on Jalan Malioboro... here are some scenes from the road, via becak:

The walls of the keraton, the sultan's palace... lots of becak and motorbikes:

Martha posing with her batik stash... she brought an entire suitcase just for batik and filled it:

Bat Poop and Ballet: The Prambanan Experience

After rising with the sun at Borobudur, Martha and I headed to Prambanan (which you might remember from my travels with Meghan and Liz-  check out that link for more background on the temples and some of the local stories about their construction), a series of Hindu temples built around the same time period, for the sunset.

Here's me and Martha, sporting the layered look, in front of the main temples at Prambanan:

Martha in front of one of the complex's hundreds of small temples:

Some of Prambanan's cool carvings:

Martha and I got to rock some hard hats in order to enter the main temple, which was closed to the public when I went last year with Meghan and Liz due to structural issues stemming from recent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.  Now it's open, but only to a limited number of people and you have to wear the hard hats for safety.   

The main temple is dedicated to Shiva, the destroyer, and is encircled by carvings depicting the Ramayana, the Hindu epic.  Below is the Shiva statue inside the temple.  She's looking quite, um, arm-y:

Here's Rama, hunting the golden deer:

Me and Martha on the steep and uneven steps up the temple.  These steps, and all of the uneven, unstable, handrail-less steps and sidewalks across Indonesia, were the bane of her existence:

Tiny Martha, big Shiva temple:

After checking out the main temples at Prambanan, we rode around to a few other temples in the area, including the Buddhist Plaosan temple complex, set in the middle of the rice paddies:

This group is comprised of 2 main temples surrounded by hundreds of shrines, statues and stupas, many of which are currently just piles of rubble.  Inside the temples are three rooms, each with two Bodhisattva statues,(below).  I only noticed the statues by using my camera's flash, because, much to my dismay, these temples were also pitch black and full of bats that had just woken up (since it was dusk).  Creepy and very Indiana Jones-y feeling to be in there by myself (Martha opted not to climb the steep and uneven stairs, see above):

She did, however, pose for some shots in front of the many (headless) Buddha statues on the temple grounds:

Here we are with guardians of the temple, the Dvarapala, fearsome giants with a mace as a weapon:

After we were done with the temples, we had quick dinner and then headed back to Prambanan, specifically to the massive outdoor theater, the Tri Murti, for the Ramayana dance show (when I went with Meghan and Liz we also saw the dance performed, but at the indoor theater).  Lucky for us, some of the dancers were available for photo opps pre-show.  Martha was able to put some of her signature awkward hand poses into action!:

There was a small group of gamelan performers ushering us into the theater with some hot jams:

Ah, the beautiful temple at night:

The outdoor theater spectacle was pretty amazing...  with the temples as the backdrop, the full gamelan accompaniment, and over 200 dancers?  Pretty impressive.  My only complaint: the bats circling overhead.  Normally I wouldn't find them to be an issue, but that particular night I got pooped on by said bats not once, but twice.  Is bat poop considered good luck?