The flight to Central Java, Yogyakarta, on Monday afternoon was delayed by rain as seemingly all the flights have been in Indonesia. However on the good side, this time the delay wasn’t severe as we landed ‘only’ about 2 hours late. Still, It was dark by the time we got to the hotel.
On Wednesday morning we got a driver for the day. First up, we went to the world famous Borobudur Temple. This Buddhist temple was constructed between 750 and 850 AD. It was abandoned soon after it was completed and then apparently forgotten until Sir Thomas Ruffles (of Singapore fame) rediscovered it in 1814. He subsequently had the land cleared to see the true scope of this massive and impressive temple. It is the largest temple in the world and its technical skill and art work is impressive in any context.
After Ruffles did the best he could with the manpower and monies available in the early 1800s, it was the Dutch who attempted to restore the artwork and buildings in the early 1900s. It was discovered at that time that the hill the temple sits was actually man made and has been collapsing ever since the temple was completed. Unfortunately, the Dutch effort to shore up the building wasn’t very successful and to boot, their idea of coloring some of the artwork with gold paint was a complete flop. It turns out that the paint cannot be removed from the porous volcanic stone used in the building. So now, the paint has mitigated to neighboring stones, making the the gold color appear as smears across the carvings. UNESCO spent over $25 million from 1973-1983 taking apart most of the building and shoring it up properly. They replaced structural stones but only cleaned and restored the artwork as they didn’t attempt replace anything that was missing.
The Borobudur is made up of approximately 2 million stones. It was conceived as a Buddhist vision of the cosmos in stone, starting at the base in the everyday world and spiraling up to nirvana/heaven. The stone carvings on the base shows a world dominated by carvings and desires but many of these carvings are now covered up due to the new structural shoring neede at the base. There are carvings at each level but those in nirvana are limited to figured inside the bell-like structures. The thought here is that they really couldn't portray nirvana as it was utter perfection.
After we toured Borobudur, we headed up to the sight of the 2010 volcanic eruption at Mount Merapi. In 2010, eruptions began here in late October 2010 that lasted into November growing more violent as time passed. Seismic activity around the volcano increased from mid-September onwards, culminating in repeated outbursts of lava and ashes. Large eruption columns formed, causing numerous pyroclastic flows down the heavily populated slopes of the volcano. Merapi's eruption was said by authorities to be the largest since the 1870s.
Over 350,000 people were evacuated from the affected area. However, many remained behind or returned to their homes while the eruptions were continuing. 353 people were killed during the eruptions, many as a result of pyroclastic flows. The ash plumes from the volcano also caused major disruption to aviation across Java.
To get into the area affected, we had to hire a jeep and driver. The pictures below show the valley where the hot lava flowed destroying everything in its path. The other photos are from a small museum there showing some of the destroyed household items as well as photos taken during the occurrence.
On Wednesday, we toured the Kraton in Yogyakarta. The Kraton is the cultural and political heart of the sultan’s palace in Yogyakarta. Yes, the sultan is still very much a key figure here in Central Java. In fact, ‘his’ city is walled and is home to about 25K people. It has its own markets, schools and small industries. The innermost part of the compound dates back to 1755 and features Javanese architecture - whatever that is.
After the Kraton, we walked over to the Taman Sari. These ruins were once a park of palaces,pools, and waterways for the sultan and his entourage built in 1755 with the help of a Portuguese architect. But due to the Java War and the 1865 earthquake not much remains except for the restored bathing pool.
We had an early evening flight back to Jakarta and guess what? It was actually on time even though most of other flights that day were delayed due to the seemingly daily afternoon rain.
Over the next few days we saw many sights around the Jakarta metro area. I should mention that traffic here is ridiculous with motorbikes going every which way obeying no rules at all. But there are traffic jams everywhere even on the tolls roads where motorbikes are forbidden. However we still managed to see a good many things. There is a great botanical garden, Kebun Raya, in Bogor. Too bad they had few signs and none in English.
Then there is the huge mosque, Istiqlal Mosque in downtown Jakarta. It is the third largest in the world - the larger ones are in the Middle East. The size of this mosque can be demonstrated by the fact they had 100K people there for the closing of Ramadan last year. Both the pillars and the roof seen in the pic are all made of stainless steel. The roof looks like copper simply due to th colored lights. On our tour, I discovered that the large towers by mosques are simply the loudspeaker(s) where they play the prerecorded chants that preceded each of the 5 daily pray times. No wonder those chants are so darn loud!
Before they had loudspeakers for prerecorded chants, pray time was announced by beating on a large drum like this.
The National Cathedral is located right across the street from Istiqlal Mosque. It is large but is dwarfed by the size of the mosque.
We also visited several museums. Of course, the Museum Nasional was impressive with all the stone images and other treasures from across the country.
But more surprising was the Museum Bank Indonesia. This museum is dedicated to the history of banking in Indonesia and is housed in the former National Bank building. This was a very impressive museum as obviously a lot of money was spent here for all the fine exhibits. It was first class all around but, even so, I doubt these gold bricks are real!
We also went to the Jakarta City Museum. It wasn’t overly impressive but is housed in the old Dutch building right on the city square of Batavia (Old Jakarta).
Then there is maybe the most recognizable monument in Indonesia, that is the MONAS, the National Monument of Indonesia in downtown Jakarta. It was completed in 1975 and is 132 meters high with an elevator to the observation deck. Italian marble is the building material with 35 kg of gold leaf adorning the sculpted flame on top.
We also drove up the mountain to a tea plantation and a much milder climate.
On our travels we stopped in a town known for their dairy for lunch. The dairy owns this nice restaurant with scenic stream and lush landscape.
Now, I am preparing to fly back home tomorrow, Wednesday - leaving shortly after 6 AM. I have two connections on the trip, one in Tokyo and the other in Chicago. If all go according to plan, I should be home Wednesday night.
To sum up my trip to Indonesia, it has been both fun and a learning experience. Still, I will be very glad back to get back in the good old USA. After all, we don’t have to battle traffic like this nor suffer through constant heat and humidity in the 90 degree and 90% range.
