My little host sister, Vitra, was so excited at the idea of me going to Yogyakarta (Yogya for short, pronounced “Joge-ja”) and Borobudur, and now I completely understand why.
Yogya is known as Java’s cultural capital, full of traditional Javanese arts and language. The trek there is about 8 (Indonesian) hours by car, so we all piled into the van we hired for the ride at about 9pm on Friday. Surprisingly the driver was on time (right, Margit?) and we hit the road, stopping only for a middle-of-the-night meal of, surprise surprise, rice at 1am. Luckily I slept through most of the drive, including the terrifyingly twisty, downhill drive out of Malang. We arrived around 6am and showered at Dian’s house, one of our AIESEC buddies who was home visiting her parents, and then headed out to find a place to stay for the weekend.
I swear it was 33C and humid at 8am (I now get why Indonesians refer to Malang as being “cold” at around 27C on an average day). We found ourselves a hostel just off of Malioboro, the main shopping street, and then went out to get acquainted with the city. Yogya seems to be a lot more modern than Malang, with so much history to see in the centre. We checked out an old fort-turned-museum commemorating Indonesia kicking out the Dutch, the kraton (the sultan’s palace), and the taman sari, where the sultan and his peeps used to bathe.
Thankfully, the rain clouds rolled in around mid afternoon just when we were all seriously starting to miss the relief of the rain from Malang, so we hopped on the front of a few bike taxis for a ride back to a bar near the hostel for a much-needed beverage to cool down. All of the Western interns went on a bit of a rice strike this weekend so after eating Chinese for dinner, and being saved by the lady who owns the hostel who came to fumigate a giant cockroach in our bathroom, we crawled into bed early in order to be up at 5am to tackle Borobudur and Prambanan temples before the heat and crowds took over.
Borobudur is an ancient Buddhist temple right in the middle of Java. The setting is amazing, with the dark grey stone clashing with the deep green of the trees and volcanoes that surround it. We followed the six levels up, walking clockwise in true Buddhist fashion, checking out the stone carvings and Buddha statues that cover almost every single inch of the walls leading up to the top. Unfortunately the very top was closed for reconstruction but the view from where we were able to go was incredible.
Next stop was Mount Merapi, a volcano that erupted just two and a half months ago (although people still live all over its slopes). Sadly the clouds had rolled in and completely obscured the view of the cone so we couldn’t get an idea of just how destructive-looking it really is. After a quick lunch (I gave in on my rice strike and had nasi goreng, or fried rice) we went to Prambanan, a gorgeous group of Hindu temples. Apparently us bule (“boo-lay”, aka white people) were more interesting than the temples though, since we all posed for about a dozen photos with random Indonesian tourists and groups of school girls doing interviews for class.
We were all hot and tired at this point, and headed back to Yogya for a rest, to enjoy dinner and a beer in this really cool little restaurant in the tiny backstreets among the hostels, and then relax on a cafe terrace across from where we were staying. While we were having dinner and hiding from the rain, I got a text from Vira asking if I was ok and to hide under a table since she heard there was an earthquake in Yogya. Obviously we hadn’t felt or even heard of anything and we later heard that fortunately (or maybe unfortunately, I kind of want to feel an minor earthquake) it was about 30km and only about a 3 point something on the Richter scale.
Our last day in Yogya was a designated shopping day where we bought wonderfully cheap batik (traditional hand dyed cloth with really funky designs) and bargained for leather flip flops for $1.50. After dinner we went back to the hostel to wait for the van to take us back to Malang and found the place completely packed with this really adorable Indonesian family. There were about twenty adults plus kids all there for a week-long reunion and so of course, a photo shoot commenced with us posing with the aunts, kids and grandma. Grandpa was manning the camera so after Grandma posed with Matej, she grabbed the camera and got me to pose with my arm around Grandpa. It was hilarious and everyone was laughing the entire time.
After our fifteen minutes of fame, we headed out on the road back home. The eight hour drive wasn’t bad and we passed the time listening to the driver’s house music, chatting about relationship norms and occasionally fearing for our lives as we passed other vehicles on the tiny highway with giant tour buses passing us. I thought Tunisian driving was chaotic but Indonesians, their motorcycles and tiny curved highways bring a whole new meaning to defensive driving.
We arrived back home around 4am, just as half the city was waking up to pray and get their day started (my entire host family is up by 5 or 6am, so I usually feel like a slacker with my alarm set for 7:30am). I crashed at Cinthya’s with the other interns and slept off the weekend until noon, when we got up and got to work on the project. We’re writing a paper about SMEs here in Malang, which we will use as part of our presentation to gain support from the government for Mr. Yunus and his recycling company.
Yesterday we switched gears and got to work preparing our presentation for the end of the month for Mr. Yunus and potential stakeholders. I had brought over some cinnamon hearts from Canada, classic Valentine’s Day candy, and took them to Cinthya’s place. She always has her little cousins running around, super adorable little girls, and so of course they had to try. They grabbed a handful and put it in their mouth, and then ran around yelling, “Spicy! Spicy!”, fanning their mouths and killing themselves giggling. For a country that eats spicy food for breakfast, I found it hilarious, and the girls turned it into a game to prove to me they could handle the hotness and kept gasping and giggling whenever I’d stick out my tongue and show them how many I could handle at a time. Such cuties.
Yesterday afternoon, Margit and I had a meeting with a university here about potentially giving some guest lectures or at least sharing our experiences with a few classes. I’m not completely sold on the idea since I kind of suck at teaching, let alone to university students, but we’ll see. After that, we headed to the street kids’ school to give them a lesson on entrepreneurship and introduce them to Mr. Yunus. It will be a busy rest of the week but there's definitely a light at the end of the tunnel: a week-long trip to Bali and Lombok (I know you’re all jealous right now but try not to hate me – I hear Winnipeg is near melting at least!). I can’t believe how fast February has gone, and with so much planned in March and especially April, time is going to fly like always.
Yogya is known as Java’s cultural capital, full of traditional Javanese arts and language. The trek there is about 8 (Indonesian) hours by car, so we all piled into the van we hired for the ride at about 9pm on Friday. Surprisingly the driver was on time (right, Margit?) and we hit the road, stopping only for a middle-of-the-night meal of, surprise surprise, rice at 1am. Luckily I slept through most of the drive, including the terrifyingly twisty, downhill drive out of Malang. We arrived around 6am and showered at Dian’s house, one of our AIESEC buddies who was home visiting her parents, and then headed out to find a place to stay for the weekend.
I swear it was 33C and humid at 8am (I now get why Indonesians refer to Malang as being “cold” at around 27C on an average day). We found ourselves a hostel just off of Malioboro, the main shopping street, and then went out to get acquainted with the city. Yogya seems to be a lot more modern than Malang, with so much history to see in the centre. We checked out an old fort-turned-museum commemorating Indonesia kicking out the Dutch, the kraton (the sultan’s palace), and the taman sari, where the sultan and his peeps used to bathe.
Thankfully, the rain clouds rolled in around mid afternoon just when we were all seriously starting to miss the relief of the rain from Malang, so we hopped on the front of a few bike taxis for a ride back to a bar near the hostel for a much-needed beverage to cool down. All of the Western interns went on a bit of a rice strike this weekend so after eating Chinese for dinner, and being saved by the lady who owns the hostel who came to fumigate a giant cockroach in our bathroom, we crawled into bed early in order to be up at 5am to tackle Borobudur and Prambanan temples before the heat and crowds took over.
Borobudur is an ancient Buddhist temple right in the middle of Java. The setting is amazing, with the dark grey stone clashing with the deep green of the trees and volcanoes that surround it. We followed the six levels up, walking clockwise in true Buddhist fashion, checking out the stone carvings and Buddha statues that cover almost every single inch of the walls leading up to the top. Unfortunately the very top was closed for reconstruction but the view from where we were able to go was incredible.
Next stop was Mount Merapi, a volcano that erupted just two and a half months ago (although people still live all over its slopes). Sadly the clouds had rolled in and completely obscured the view of the cone so we couldn’t get an idea of just how destructive-looking it really is. After a quick lunch (I gave in on my rice strike and had nasi goreng, or fried rice) we went to Prambanan, a gorgeous group of Hindu temples. Apparently us bule (“boo-lay”, aka white people) were more interesting than the temples though, since we all posed for about a dozen photos with random Indonesian tourists and groups of school girls doing interviews for class.
We were all hot and tired at this point, and headed back to Yogya for a rest, to enjoy dinner and a beer in this really cool little restaurant in the tiny backstreets among the hostels, and then relax on a cafe terrace across from where we were staying. While we were having dinner and hiding from the rain, I got a text from Vira asking if I was ok and to hide under a table since she heard there was an earthquake in Yogya. Obviously we hadn’t felt or even heard of anything and we later heard that fortunately (or maybe unfortunately, I kind of want to feel an minor earthquake) it was about 30km and only about a 3 point something on the Richter scale.
Our last day in Yogya was a designated shopping day where we bought wonderfully cheap batik (traditional hand dyed cloth with really funky designs) and bargained for leather flip flops for $1.50. After dinner we went back to the hostel to wait for the van to take us back to Malang and found the place completely packed with this really adorable Indonesian family. There were about twenty adults plus kids all there for a week-long reunion and so of course, a photo shoot commenced with us posing with the aunts, kids and grandma. Grandpa was manning the camera so after Grandma posed with Matej, she grabbed the camera and got me to pose with my arm around Grandpa. It was hilarious and everyone was laughing the entire time.
After our fifteen minutes of fame, we headed out on the road back home. The eight hour drive wasn’t bad and we passed the time listening to the driver’s house music, chatting about relationship norms and occasionally fearing for our lives as we passed other vehicles on the tiny highway with giant tour buses passing us. I thought Tunisian driving was chaotic but Indonesians, their motorcycles and tiny curved highways bring a whole new meaning to defensive driving.
We arrived back home around 4am, just as half the city was waking up to pray and get their day started (my entire host family is up by 5 or 6am, so I usually feel like a slacker with my alarm set for 7:30am). I crashed at Cinthya’s with the other interns and slept off the weekend until noon, when we got up and got to work on the project. We’re writing a paper about SMEs here in Malang, which we will use as part of our presentation to gain support from the government for Mr. Yunus and his recycling company.
Yesterday we switched gears and got to work preparing our presentation for the end of the month for Mr. Yunus and potential stakeholders. I had brought over some cinnamon hearts from Canada, classic Valentine’s Day candy, and took them to Cinthya’s place. She always has her little cousins running around, super adorable little girls, and so of course they had to try. They grabbed a handful and put it in their mouth, and then ran around yelling, “Spicy! Spicy!”, fanning their mouths and killing themselves giggling. For a country that eats spicy food for breakfast, I found it hilarious, and the girls turned it into a game to prove to me they could handle the hotness and kept gasping and giggling whenever I’d stick out my tongue and show them how many I could handle at a time. Such cuties.
Yesterday afternoon, Margit and I had a meeting with a university here about potentially giving some guest lectures or at least sharing our experiences with a few classes. I’m not completely sold on the idea since I kind of suck at teaching, let alone to university students, but we’ll see. After that, we headed to the street kids’ school to give them a lesson on entrepreneurship and introduce them to Mr. Yunus. It will be a busy rest of the week but there's definitely a light at the end of the tunnel: a week-long trip to Bali and Lombok (I know you’re all jealous right now but try not to hate me – I hear Winnipeg is near melting at least!). I can’t believe how fast February has gone, and with so much planned in March and especially April, time is going to fly like always.
I am SOOOO jealous...I need to travel...but you are my travelling partner...I have the bug....I need to go somewhere awesome!
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