Indonesia, day two

Sunday Morning: It’s only a short drive to the Borobudur temple. We arrive around 11 o’clock, buy our tickets and hire the services of a wonderful guide. He takes us to the temple and first explains that it was built in the 8th century, by the buddhistic dynasty on java (the name of which i could not remember). Uncountable reliefs surround the lower levels of the temple, depicting stories of the holy books of buddhism.

The first level is dedicated to the life of Buddha (have a look at the pictures!) We heard how Buddha was born in a palace in northern India, some 2600 years before our time. Because a fortune-teller predicted Buddhas religious lifestyle, his father kept him enclosed in the palace, hoping he would never get in touch with the outside world. Buddha was married at the age sixteen, but apart from that, nothing interesting happened to him. So when he was thirty, Buddha decided to quit the palace and explore the world around. Seeing sick people, poor people and a monk, Buddha was deeply touched and decided to flee from his father’s palace. On the back of his horse, Buddha rode out into the forests in the middle of the night. Gods protected Buddha and carried the horse, so that its hooves would not wake up the guards.

In the forest, Buddha cut his hair and started meditating to find out what life was all about. Five wise man joined him in his meditating and fasting and became his first deciples. However, Buddha’s mother (who had died shortly after his birth), saw his suffering and descended from the heavens, carrying food and refreshments for Buddha. Thus Buddha broke his fasting to the great disappointment of his disciples.

During the next six years, Buddha’s life consisted mostly of fasting and meditating. He resisted to various temptations which the gods sent him, until one beautiful day, Buddha got enlightened while sitting under a Budi tree…

All this and more we heard from our guide, despite the fact that he wanted to talk little, as he told us, because Ramadan did not allow him to drink before 7pm. It really was an enriching visit.

Since we were very pleased with our guide, we asked him to show us two other temples in the vicinity. He agreed, and we drove to see yet more impressive tokens of buddhist faith, including a monastery which was next to the second temple. Saturated from culture, we continued our journey to the city of Yogyakarta…

It was only a short drive, and thanks to tourist guides and the keen eyes of Alexandre and Jimmy, we quickly found a nice hotel. In the evening, we set out to find a good restaurant. The friendly receptionist of the hotel had drawn three circles on our city map, one of them signifying a restaurant. Ironically, we could not quite figure out which one of them pointed to the restaurant, and after thirty minutes, it became clear that we had walked in the wrong direction. Our group then split: Camille, Alex, Jimmy and Thomas decided to go to a Pizza Hut nearby, while Jill, Quentin, Mel and me entrusted ourselves to two Becak drivers who claimed to know the location of that eating house.

Shortly after, we were in fact standing in front of an indonesian buffet, offering delights such as young Jackfruit, which is white and very tender, entirely different from the fruit we knew. There were also exotic dishes such as bird eggs, and a variety of things we could not name.

The most interesting part of the evening was yet to come. Our small group strolled through Malioboro street, satisfied from the sumptuous meal. After a short while, a man approached us and invited us to an exhibition of batik pictures. Curious, we followed him through the narrow streets of Yogya, off the main tourist road, into a building crowded with art.

Immediately, we were served a cup of tea (this is the custom, we were told), and the proprietary of the gallery explained us with passion how batik is made. A picture goes through multiple phases of coloring; each time, different parts of the picture are covered with wax to prevent the color from affecting them. With each phase, a picture “grows” from light colors to darker ones, until the final image is created.

“Impossible that I’ll buy something,” I thought when entering the gallery. But never say never… after 45 minutes, the four of us left again, happily carrying three batik pictures.

Again, we walked through Malioboro Street. “Look, they have music there! Wanna sit down?” That was Jill’s idea, and one of the greatest of the whole trip. We sat down and sipped beer or coffee, listening to the guitar players who played in that little street cafe. Not much time passed, and a curious student from Indonesia came to our table. Shy, he asked if we minded chatting a little. Of course not! Later, the guitar players came to our table, and we started singing whatever came to our mind. One of the artist could play almost every song we knew, from “Wind of Change” to “Ironic”! It was an amazing time, certainly one of the most memorable evenings of the trip.