Yogyakarta

July 18

I just posted the Bkk post which is showing up in June.

Yogyakarta pronunciation: Jogjakarta (Jo as in joy)

4:24am Jakarta time 

Well I've been up for about an hour now. Alarm went off at 3:30, ate some toast with butter and boarded the bus. 

Unlike India, there are almost absolutely no people on the streets right now. There are some shops either opening or closing. I'm not totally sure. I know for Ramadan it's about the time when they can't eat anymore until this evening. Other than that, it's completely dark so I can't see too much.

This morning Jillienne pointed out how we only have 10 more days on this trip. That means total I only have 23 days left. Not sure how I feel about that. I am at this point realizing Australia is going to e freezing and I'm not totally prepared for that weather yet. My wardrobe isn't really either. My travel agent said its usually 50-60 degrees but from what I've heard other people say it sounds like it will be much colder. I really hope not. August is the end of their winter so hopefully it'll be pretty mild. It will also be really interesting to get on a scale again. I haven't had a scale the entire trip, except for in Hanoi but I don't know how accurate it was. I definitely am not noticeably thinner, at least for me, but I do feel like I have maybe lost a little bit of weight. 

We have a 2 hour drive to where we are going to take the train to Yogya. The train is about 7 hours! Our itinerary says it is scenic. Hopefully!

6:39am Jakarta time 

We boarded the train. The station kinda surprised me. It's really posh and nice looking. In between each train track there was green grass and plants. Then instead of concrete on the ground of the station, there are actual tiles. It's also super clean. Definitely not anything like India. Ha. But I think the station is even nicer than the stations in Thailand and Vietnam. The train is pretty nice as well. The seats are large and cushiony and they recline. There are plugs on the train too (although the only train we didn't have outlets was the last sleeper train in Thailand. But here there is an outlet for each person which it hasn't been like that on any of the other trains. Yey 7 hours of being on a train! 

9:26am Jakarta time

The train is really cold. It's really good Panji told us to grab jackets for our day packs because I definitely need it. 

It is definitely a scenic train trip. There are constant rice fields and or green forest to look at. We keep going in and out of towns and the houses are very colorful and bright. It's really beautiful. Well see if it continues but Indonesia may beat out Laos for me on the front of being surprised by how beautiful it is. 10 more days before I can make that call though.

We waited for a long time for the train to move out of the station. We also had to stop at one point. Marion said there was a guy with a hammer walking around looking at the train, so maybe something was wrong with it? 

While we were stopped, a man was walking along the outside of the train with a sign that said post cards and had a bunch of them on the sign. He was looking for people to wave at him or make some indication that they wanted to buy a post card. The people in my group thought it was the funniest thing. David said, "a whole new way of advertising!" I don't know if I've written about it before but I wanted to because it has happened in some of the other countries as well. 

So it's rainy season and low season in Thailand, but in Indonesia it is dry season and also high season. So at least I don't have to worry about rain as much as I thought I was going to have to. 

I haven't slept yet since we got up in Cianjur. I know Panji said that tonight we will have an early dinner and an early night since we've gotten up so early. I'm not sure if well do anything when we get there or if it will just be chill time. We have 3 days in Yogyakarta. There is a temple there and some jewelry, cooking, and batik classes we can take. We can only take 2 of the classes which bums me out since I would like to take all of them. I'm hoping someone will take the cooking class and will be willing to share the recipes with me. I have already done cooking classes so I want to do something new, even though I absolutely love Indonesian food thus far. We're also going to be able to see a traditional dance performance.

I'm assuming at some point I will sleep on the train. We still have a while to go and Panji said he usually adds at least 30 minutes to the arrival time on the ticket. Well see though since every time I've been told our train is normally late, it's been on time. 

1:26 pm Jakarta time

Oh my gosh! I'm so wrestles! I slept for an hour or so I think already. Hopefully we haven't stopped too much and we still still arrive in Yogyakarta by 2:30 or 3pm!

4:08pm Jakarta time 

Yogyakarta is such a cute little town! There is so much traffic though! Apparently 25,000 people live here and it really seems small. So... Yeah. 

We only arrived 15 minutes late by the train so that wasn't too bad. I am so glad to be off of that though. Oy! 

We also got to put laundry in so thank god for that! Finally! The last time we got to do laundry was Cameron Highlands and that was BEFORE the trek so we couldn't wash those clothes we wore on the trek. It's only 10,000 rupiah per kilo so that's good. About $1 per kilo. Even if it were expensive I don't think I would have cared at this point. I'm so excited to have clean clothes. Luckily, my clothes don't smell horrible but when you only have 4 shirts and 2 pants... Well, enough said.

We have this afternoon to relax and we are meeting for dinner at 6pm. Panji is going to take us to the backpacker street so that should be cool. And cheap. 

I counted today and in the past 4 days I went from having 1.9 million to 1.3 million. I think that means I've only spent about $60. I started with about $200. But, I know I will spend a lot of money in Yogyakarta because there are a lot of activities here. I'll spend about $100 on activities alone. But I don't care. Indonesia is pretty cheap otherwise so it's not a big deal. 

After dinner were going to go to a dance performance so that should be cool.

11:28pm Jakarta time 

Well. Dinner was great. Dance performance, not so much. For dinner I had Nasi Bakar which is chicken in coconut milk with rice wrapped in a banana leaf. It has so much flavor, it was really tasty! It also came with morning glory which I love, as well as tofu and these soy bean cake things... Tempe I think is what they're called. I enjoyed all of it. And, I had carmalaized pineapple with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for dessert as well as a chocolate banana milkshake which wasn't as good as the shake at jomas which ultimately led to disappointment. I got all this for 75,000 rupiah ($7.50)! 

Panji asked me if I was sick of rice yet. Sometimes I am, sometimes I'm not. Honestly, I never choose to eat rice and I don't think I will have rice for a while when I get home. But I guess we'll see...

We finished dinner around 7:45pm and we had to jump into the local rickshaws (I don't remember the name) and be carted to the dance performance. It is called the Ramayana Ballet. It is a beautiful love story. 

Here is the sheet they gave us about the story. I tried to summarize it but I can't concentrate enough to be able to figure out all the differences of the names and people. It's long but it is the story and then I don't have to worry about keeping the paper.

In Krendayana forest, the King of Alengka, Rahwana, asks Kalamaricha, one of his soldiers to change himself into a Golden Deer and has him go seduce Rama, Sinta, and Laksmana.

In the other part if the same forest, Rama, Sinta, and Laksmana are enjoying the freshness of the bright weather by gathering flowers and watching beautiful animals living in the forest. Suddenly an animal with golden fur appears. Sinta is attracted and she wants to possess the animal. Rama, Sinta, Laksmana try to catch it but the beautiful animal is very difficult to touch, then the Golden Deer runs away.

After Rama leaves his wife, Sinta as if hears the sound of an injured man, she asks Laksmana to look for his brother but he refuses because he knows it is not Rama's voice but the Golden Deer's that imitates the voice of Rama.

Since her order is disobeyed, Sinta accuses Laksmana of wishing her after the death of Rama. Hearing this, Laksmana becomes very sad, he swears that he will not marry any woman in his whole life.

As a sign of his oath he cuts off his genital. Sinta is astonished and very sorry. Finally Laksmana goes to meet Rama. Before he leaves his sister-in-law alone, Laksmana makes a magical circle surrounding Sinta, nobody can go into the circle and he also tells her not to get out if the circle until the arrival of Rama and Laksmana.

Unexpectedly, Rahwana comes down from the sky. He is very glad to notice Sinta without any guard. He wants to kidnap her as soon as possible and takes her to Alengka Kingdom.

Unfortunately, he cannot approach her because of the magical circle although he has exerted all of his super natural power. Then Rahwana changes his appearance into a very old man who looks very thirsty and comes near Sinta.

On seeing this Sinta cannot stand helping the poor old man. Without realizing the danger, she stretches one of her arms out of the circle in order to give the old man something to drink. The old man who actually is Rahwana takes Sinta's hand out of the circle quickly and takes her away.

In the sky, they meet Jatayu, the king of birds, who wants to save the Princess but Jatayu is defeated and falls onto the ground. Before Jatayu dies, he tells Rama that Sinta is kidnapped by Rahwana.

On the way to Alengka, Rama and Laksmana bump across with the white monkey, Hanoman, who is ordered by Sugriwa to find someone to help him to fight Subali in order to get Goa Kiskenda back.

Rama does not mind and succeeds in killing Subali, and then he is crowned to be the king of monkey in Pancawati Kingdom. As a king, Rama orders Hanoman to go to Alengka to see the condition of Sinta. 

In Alengka, after giving Rama's ring to Sinta, and as an answer Sinta sends her hairpin ornament to Rama, Hanoman wants to know the strength of Rahwana's Kingdom, soon afterwards he destroys the Arga-Coka garden. 

Knowing this, Rahwana becomes very angry and commands his men to burn the white creature but Hanoman does not die because of his super natural power. He takes with him some burning wood and flies in the sky and drops them throughout the buildings. 

When the battle between Rama's monkey soldiers and Rahwana's giant soldiers takes place, Hindrajit asks Kimbakarna for help but he cannot win the fight even is defeated by Rama. Hindrajit wants to support his uncle unfortunately Laksmana is able to finish the fight. Hindrajit runs away reporting the situation to King Rahwana in the palace.

Rahwana goes to fight Rama but at last he is defeated and killed.

Hanoman fetches Queen Sinta who is very happy to meet her beloved husband. However, Rama rejects her for he suspects about his wife's purity and asks Sinta to hav a holy bath by jumping into the burning fire.

Sinta calmly jumps into the holy fire since in her mind she feels that she is totally pure. 

The god of fire, Brahma, comes down from the heaven and puts the fire out. He tells Rama that Sinta is really pure. Both Sinta and Rama pay attribute with their hands folded before their foreheads to Brahma. Lastly they return to Pancawati Kingdom happily.

Some of this is probably written strangely or sounds strange but I basically copied it from the sheet and just didn't know how to fix some of it.

It was cool at first. It was just too long to sit there. Unlike in Cambodia where it's a bunch of small dance performances, it was kind of like a ballet. It was an hour and a half long, no breaks. The dancing wasn't super exciting either. It was a lot more acting and controlled movements than actual dancing. 

It is a love story in the Hindu culture and there are about 30 dancers as well as a musician playing gamelan traditional orchestra. The dancers were singing at points and I didn't realize for a while that it was them and not the people sitting in the same area with the band. The singing was also more prayer sounding to me than actual singing.

The costumes were still intense and well done. Both the girls and guys were covered in gems and glittery stones and gold pieces and brightly colored fabrics. When I was bored I just kept thinking about how ridiculous the movements are they do. They must be so strong to be able to make all those precise movements and they make them so slowly. It's crazy. 

It was definitely too long though. And, of course, my camera died 15 minutes before the end. But that's okay. I still got good video and photos from the first hour and 15 minutes. There was a really little kid on stage in costume and everything but he couldn't do everything and looked lost a lot. He kinda just ran around and he was so cute. There were a lot of animals (humans in costumes) in the dance performance and there was singing and live music being played. Again, it was cool but it woul have been awesome if it wouldn't have been as long. 

Upon arrival we got a free drink called Wedang Secang. It was kind of like gluwine, but not as strong and mostly cinnamon flavoring. Our ticket with the drink and ride to and from the theater cost 250,000 rupiah ($25). Not bad!

That was the day. Sleep time!