Prambanan

July 21

8:13am Jakarta time 

We are on our way to Prambanan Temple which is en route to Solo, our next destination. 

Prambanan is a Hindu temple. The highest tower is 47 meters and there are 4 rooms. It is dedicated to Shiva, the main Hindu god but there are temples on either side of it as well that are dedicated to Brahma and Vishnu. These gods are the creator, the protector, and the destroyer. Each god also has a "ride" and  there is a smaller temple dedicated to their animal in front of each of the main temples. There is the eagle for brahma, the bull for shiva, and the swan for Vishnu (I think, I may have mixed up the eagle and swan). 

Also in India, Vishnu is the main god but in Indonesia, Shiva is the main god. Brahma (I think) has 4 heads which represent the 4 directions of knowledge. Panji said that with Hinduism, it is different in all the countries and it is easily adaptable to the people and cultures. The god with the elephant head rides a mouse. This is because he symbolizes wisdom and a mouse is very wise. To ride a mouse you have to be able to control your wisdom. Pretty funny an elephant rides a mouse though :)

Originally, there were 240 temples but they could only find 50% of the stones because people took them to make buildings. Even the Dutch (who colonized Indonesia) took the stones to make sugar factories.

Prambanan was the central temple in the 9th century. There were 2 dynasties (I have no idea how to spell them but its the Hindu and the Buddhist dynasties) at war until the prince of Hinduism was married to the princess of Buddhism. The kingdoms were destroyed due to an earthquake so they moved to East Java. A new dynasty was started here in which both religions/previous dynasties were in synchrony. 

In the 16th century, the Muslims came and the Hindus then relocated to Bali. Panji said this is why Bali is the only place in Indonesia that is about 85% Hindu.

This afternoon when we get to Solo, we are taking a bike ride around the city. It should be really picturesque but well see.

Solo and Yogyakarta used to be one city but they split because of conflict. Solo had a different name, Surakarta but is better known as Solo because it was built on top of a tiny village. There is an express train that connects the 2 cities because a lot of people live in one but work in the other.

Language note:

Karta= city

Pariwisata= many travelers/tourism (its written on the front of all our buses and the backpacker street in Yogyakarta is called this as well but it is a little different. I can't remember exactly what it was.)

Candi= temple 

10:45am Jakarta time 

Prambanan is pretty cool. Some people same it is even more beautiful than Borobodur but I disagree. It was constructed in 856 AD because with the reign of a new king, Hinduism was reborn. 

In the 16th century the temple collapsed during an earthquake and restoration began in 1930. It is still being constructed today.

There are 3 temples that dominate the complex. The main temple has so many names. I don't know all of them or the story behind all of them. But, there is a legend that tells the story of why it is called Roro Jonggrang Temple. Here is the legend: 

A powerful man named Bandung Bondowoso wanted to marry a beautiful princess named Roro Jonggrang (daughter of king Prabu Boko). The princess refused him continually. Finally she said she would marry him if he could build 1000 statues in one night. A group of genies helped Bandung Bondowoso build this and there was only one statue left. The princess began to get nervous and she gathered some women to hit rice pounders and make a bonfire on the east side. This causes the eastern lights to become red. Both of these activities signaled dawn and the genies disappeared. Roro Jonggrang notified Bandung Bondowoso he had failed her request. He ended up discovering her trick and was so angry that he cursed her to be a Dewi Durga statue. This final statue completed the princesses request and brought the statue count to 1000 statues. They say she is the woman in the main temple (not shiva). Again, this is not true. 

On the temple there is also a relief of Ramayana. The engravings are found on the lower balcony of the Shiva and Brahma temple. It starts on the left side of the easy entrance of Shiva and goes clockwise. 

It is all stone so it looks very nice against the blue sky. I don't think I will ever get over how beautiful that image is. Because it is a UNESCO site, I got a student discount. I paid 85,000 instead of 171,000 ($8.50 instead of $17.10). So nice! They made a copy of my isic card again. Strange. 

The relics on the temples are very beautiful. We only had 30 minutes in the complex so it seemed rather rushed. The statues for the eagle and swan are not in the temples because they could not recover them. But, the bull for Shiva is in the temple. Each of the 3 gods are also in their temples. The main temple, the one with shiva in it, had a sign out front that said that it is a relatively stable structure and is only open to the public under the following conditions. There were 5. The best one was you are required to wear a safety helmet. Also, only 50 people are allowed in at a time and you can't spend more than 15 minutes inside. 

The helmet was a green hard hat and it was supposed to adjust to your head size but my head must be really small because no matter how much I tightened it, it still slipped off my head. Katie was with me and the sign freaked her out so she didn't come in. I went alone and took some selfies of my wonderful green hard hat. With the temple in the back, obviously. I didn't see any temple falling down on anyone, but someone did fall down the stairs. So maybe they should be more concerned about adding railings than making you wear hard hats but I am no expert.

We then got in this green long vehicle thing that transported us 800 meters away to Sewu Temple. This is a Buddhist temple built by the Hindu king. His wife was Buddhist. This complex consists of 240 small temples surrounding a main temple. The main temple is a polygon shape, has a diameter of 29 meters and rises to 30 meters. All of the structures are made of andesite. 

It is interesting because there are a number of temples that were reconstructed fully, but there is also a massive amount of stones just laying in piles around the complex. I can't even imagine how they figure out which stone goes were.

I actually thought this temple was more beautiful than Prambanan. It reminded me more of The temples in Cambodia. It was cool because it was just a whole area covered in stone or stone temples whereas Prambanana was just 8 temples. Plus, in Sewu, you could walk through hallways and in the back of the temple the stone was covered in a green moss and it was beautiful. 

The main building is symmetrical which symbolizes the form of the universe's harmony. All the buildings inside the temple have a rock fence and a dwarapala (large rock statue armed with a club). This big stomached guardian also is in the inside hall of Yogyakarta Palace.

We are now on the hour and a half bus ride to Solo. Well have lunch and then do the bike ride! 

12:34am Jakarta time 

We went straight to lunch when we arrived in solo. And everyone got their food except for me. And, it wasn't just a oh you don't have your food let me make it for you, it was a huge ordeal. Panji was practically yelling at them. He came over later and explained to me that they don't do things by looking to see that everyone has food in front of them. Instead, they put things in the system and I guess they missed it. Or thought it was a repeat possibly because Jillienne got the exact same thing (fried noodles with chicken and water). So Panji said they didn't want to make it because it wasn't in their system and he had to argue with them that it should be and that they needed to make another plate. He said it was written out clearly and it was their fault. Written out as in we have to write down our orders. They didn't speak much English. Also, when Panji told them I didn't have my food there was so much yelling in the kitchen. It was interesting. So I got my food after everyone else was done eating. We also tried these chips that were really good. I can't remember what they are called. Cascara maybe? It's the sweet potato root chip. Very good. 

After that we went directly to the bike ride. Which, was fine with me but at the same time I wasn't thrilled because I didn't realize we were going directly there and I needed to use the facilities. So I held my pee for another 3 and a half hours. Yey! 

The guy we rent the bikes from is a small business owner. He started off owning 2 bikes and now he owns 6 and he rents the rest from neighbors. By using him though, we are supporting him to grow a bigger business. It's really nice because g doesn't use large businesses for things like that and instead choose to support the locals. 

I knew the bikes wouldn't be amazing, but wow. Rowie had a bike that made the most ridiculous squeaking sounds I've ever heard. The brakes were so loud.  A lot of the bikes were rusted. Someone had a bike that was completely rusted. Like it didn't even have color to it anymore. I think it was Camilla. A lot of people only had 1 brake that worked, and my seat (along with Camilla's) was about 1/3rd the size of my ass. I have never before wished that I had more fat on my ass. After riding for 3 minutes I knew the 3 hour bike ride would be rough. I could already feel the bruises forming on my ass. At one point I told Marion I was pretty sure that my seat was so small that it only supports my asshole. It was a rather unfortunate situation. I essentially paid $12.50 to go on the most uncomfortable bike ride of my life. But, when in Indonesia... 

The first 20 minutes I was focusing so hard on the pain in my ass that I can't really tell you too much about the scenery. Luckily, I figured out that I could ride on the bike without it hurting as bad if I rode on one ass cheek. So I spent the rest of the 2 and a half hours switching between ass cheeks. 

When I did pay attention to the scenery, it was pretty. Not like biking in Vietnam, but pretty. It was really green because of the rice fields. Palm trees lined the road. We went back and forth between biking on the normal, traffic filled road and biking down small pathways sandwiched between either colorful village houses or open patty fields. 

Literally, on this trip, I have felt almost famous. Everywhere you go people are staring or taking photos or waving and smiling and yelling hello. Children run out of the houses screaming hello hello hello after us and sometimes even run after us. It's strange. 

There was one point we got to a river. Not a river you could just walk across a few stones and make it to the other side either. It was like a proper river. There was a bamboo raft that we loaded our bikes and ourselves onto to cross. It was actually pretty cool. Katie said in Peru they did the same thing but they were on one and their huge coach bus was on another. Crazy shit!!! 

When we got to the other side we had to wait a bit because we had to go across the river in 2 groups. While we were waiting for the other group we were just standing there and as always, a bunch of the people in the village were out of their houses watching us. At one point, a lady came over and approached us. She walked directly up to Katie and slapped her stomach and made a toot sound with her mouth. She backed up a few steps and just stood there. We were all like WTF?!? And were laughing because really, how could you not laugh at that? Katie was wearing a belly shirt. 

When we headed back to the end point, it was around 5pm and there were a fair amount of cars and motorbikes on the road. So that was a run game as well! 

Also, before you think I biked 3 hours, know that the trip was 3 hours but we stopped a million times. We stopped to watch them make molasses. We stopped to watch them are a gong (which was actually way cool and involved fire which is always awesome). We stopped to watch them make rice cakes/chips (?). We stopped to watch them make buffalo hyde. Which was pretty gross. We stopped to watch them make tofu which was cool but also the smells made me feel a little sick. We stopped a lot. And sometimes we stopped for an unnecessary amount of time. 

There was a hill toward the end that we all failed on. You get all the way to the top and think you're there and then you literally can't go any further. I started rolling backward and almost took out some people from the group. I was the first but everyone else did the same thing. Funny.

We got back to the hotel and had 2 hours before we met for dinner. I read my book. Yey! 

For dinner we went to a mall because Panji said it was more sanitary than anywhere else and had the most good choice. I got fungyung hay which I guess is actually Chinese and it was delicious. I loved it. It was essentially a flat omelet with vegetables in it and sweet and sour sauce on top of it. Tasty. 

541km : solo river is the longest river in East Java.

Good day!