Borobudur and Prambanan

**The first tragic story of the trip... I lost my memory card. I'm 90% positive it is sitting my memory card reader attached to a computer on the small island of Gilli Trawangan. The island itself has no post office and every tourist information center i visit doesn't have contact information for the internet cafes. Luckily KC, Georgia and her sister were with me for the entire time I had the card so they are slowly providing photos of the locations. If you notice a stark decrease in photo quality... you now know why. I am currently sitting in Singapore Airport waiting for my flight to Sri Lanka to start boarding, a good time to do some catching up. Back to Java...**

We woke up at 5:00am in order to watch the sunrise over Borobudur (A world heritage site... count one off my list Simon). This morning was also my first experience with a hotel not having hot water... the things we take for granted in the US. Another interesting thing about the bathrooms is how they are typically arranged. Instead of having a bathroom with a distinct shower, toilet and sink, everything is cramped into one space. I like to think of it as having a really really big shower, with a toilet in the corner. For those of you you can't stand wet bathroom floors, Indonesia is not your ideal destination. Anyway, after a brisk shower I was wide awake. It took us a little longer than planned to get ready so we headed off a bit late. Our guide was determined to get us to the temple in time for the sunrise so he tore through the streets of Jogjakarta and arrived at the temple before sunrise (and before the crowds). Unfortunately, it was quite overcast and so we didn't get to watch the sunrise. The atmosphere did allow for an eerie, almost mystic (pun intended?) experience.



The site was constructed in the ninth century and the place is massive. I got the following picture from Wikipedia just so you can see the size:

No one really knows how it was constructed, but it is truly a incredible feat. It was abandoned in the 14th century for unknown reasons and remained unknown until 1812 when Sir Stamford Raffles discovered it (if you've been to Singapore, this name is everywhere). The monument contains hundred of these domes, each one contains a life size sculpture of Buddha.

Around the outside walls are detailed narrative carvings which tell the stories of Buddha. I found a wall which had no carvings at all and I wanted to add a small story to it. I found an ancient tool used for the precise carvings and made my mark.


I don't know much else about the temple as I was quickly escorted off soon after the flash went off from this shot. As we left we were ambushed my school kids. This site and many others are popular destinations for Indonesian field trips, but not because of the monuments. The teachers plan these outings in order for the children to practice their English with foreigners. I didn't mind having short conversations with a few of them and actually some of them ended up being our free guides. I'll admit, if you're too friendly, you can expect to have 20+ conversations so if you find yourself in this situation just repeat this and it should cover all their questions:

"My name is Oliver. I am from California. I have never been to Indonesia before. I have been here for a few days. I am a student. Yes I have seen the temple. Your English is great."

And they LOVE to take pictures with you. Sometimes it seems that the whole conversation is front to get a photo op. In either case, you kind of feel like a celebrity so it's win win.



The next holy site we visited is called Prambanan (another world heritage site, count 2!). It is equally as impressive, but instead of having buddhist roots, it is a hindu temple. It was constructed in 850 CE and deserted soon after for unknown reasons (see a pattern?). The temples today are not the original ones which stood over a thousand years ago. A few massive earthquakes have hit since then and what stands today is an incredibly accurate reconstruction using the original stones. Authentic or not, the temples are incredible. The largest temple is nearly 50m high and even today looks like an architectural masterpiece.
There are three main temples. The largest one is dedicated to Shiva and the small ones on either side are dedicated to Vishnu and Brahma. Each temple contains a statute of the figure it was built for inside. At one time you were allowed to venture into each temple, but at the time we went they were all off limits.

After a few hours of "ooooing" and "aahhhing" we hopped back in our guide's car and drove back to Jogjakarta. There was one last stop, at a "unversity run" batik art gallery. Batik is a traditional Indonesian art form in which a piece of cloth is drawn on using melted wax. Once the desired design is created, the cloth is dipped into a dye and everything except the wax is stained. The artist then draws more with hot wax, dips it into a new dye and repeats over and over until a beautiful painting is formed. Little did we know that these art pieces can be easily duplicated and identical paintings are sold all over Jogjakarta in small galleries (and EVERYONE on the street will tout about them). At that time we bought into the idea that these were student paintings and that the money was going towards funding the school. Unfortunately, this is not the case. I bought a piece ($15) and later found the EXACT same one at a different gallery (for 3 times the price... so at least i paid less). Fake or not, the style has a beautiful result. Plus, since the painting is stained cloth, you can fold it, wash it, iron it...etc and it will not be harmed. At least according to them... Would they lie about that as well?

Never Ending Asia...

...is the motto of Jogjakarta and I'll be completely honest, I haven't the slightest idea what it means. We took a 8 hour train ride from Jakarta to Jogjakarta in an executive class cabin which was quite nice. The train was air conditioned, had ample leg room and my chair reclined to nearly horizontal (unfortunately the button was stuck down for all 8 hours so I had no choice). We had initially planned on taking an overnight train to this town, but due to the circumstances mentioned before we had to take a day train. It turned out to be an awesome experience. The train hummed along at roughly 50 MPH through ghettos, rice patties, hills, fields and everything in between. I really got a wonderful preview of the areas of Indonesia less frequently visited. I took a ton of 10 second clips throughout the voyage and once I am back in Singapore with my laptop I'll put them together and upload it.

We arrived in Jogjakarta at around 4pm. The weather had been pleasantly sunny through out the ride, but began to drizzle as we pulled up to the station. Within minutes the drizzle turned into rain, then a down pour and finally it appeared Poseidon himself had unleashed the Indian Ocean upon us. I've never seen it rain so hard before, here is a short clip...




It lasted about 30 minutes and then the sun came out again... apparently that's the trend aroudn here. We "happened" to bump into a friendly local who helped us get oriented with the town (I say town in comparison to Jakarta, but Jogja still has a population of 800,000). He "conveniently" happen to work for a tourism company. We never questioned why he was just hanging out at a train station... He showed us to a nice hotel which just so happened to be next to his office. The place was clean and at $10 a night, the price was right.

We dropped off our stuff, took a quick shower and hit the town for a bit to eat. Jogja has a main strip full of sidewalk venders, knockoff name brand stores and art galleries selling "authentic" batik art (more about the art later). We found a small restaurant which overlooked the main drag and ordered.


I went with a traditional Indonesian dish known as Mie Gorang which is essentially fried noodles with chicken and two fried eggs on top... delicious. KC thought the fried chicken sounded nice and went with that. Now, in America when you order fried chicken you expect to receive pieces of chicken which have been maticulously removed, cleaned, lightly battered and then fried. This is not the case in Indonesia. It's hard to tell what they do, but i'm willing to say they follow this cooking protocol:

1. Raise chicken
2. Remove feathers
3. Fry

See for yourself:

(Yes, head an beak still intact.)

Despite the presentation, the chicken was quite good and that fact that it cost $3.00 made it even more mouthwatering. We headed back to the hotel, but stopped off a small bar right out front. It seemed to be a popular backpackers joint and had a excellent cover band which played American pop and rock songs with amazingly accuracy. They were followed by a Bob Marley cover band which was also quite good. The audience turned from westerners to Rastafarian locals. Five or Six Bintangs later we hit the sack. We would be waking up at 5:00am to watch the sunrise over Borobudur, one of the (if not THE) largest buddhist monuments in the world.

We're not in Kansas anymore

**Quick note: My appologies for leaving this blog so empty. As I mentioned before the internet has been slow at every location thus far and spending extra time away from exploring is no fun. But have no fear! I am on a small island off the coast of Lombok called Gilli Trawangan. I am spending the rest of my time here. The island has no cars, no motorcycles, no ATMs and no police... but the internet is blazing fast. Go figure. I'll catch everyone up with what as happened so far over the next few days. Now, back to the blog.**

I knew there would come a moment during my travel when all of a sudden it would hit me... I'm on the other side of the world. Singapore is incredibly western and spending two nights there is more than enough time to "get it." The country is expensive (due mainly to the weak dollar) and the culture is hard to uncover. It was no culture shock. We flew from Singapore to Jakarta, Indonesia on a small air line known as Lion Air (motto: We make people fly). We landed in Jakarta in the afternoon and had plans to go straight to the central train station and take an overnight train to Jogjakarta (central Java). Here is the warm welcome in Indonesia (insert picture). We we're in for a rude awakening.

Jakarta is the capital and largest city in Indonesia. It has a population of 9,000,000 and resembles Los Angeles... without any money. The place was an absolute dump. The streets were jam packed with cars and motorcycles and people populated every square foot. I've never seen poverty quite like this before. The distance from the airport to the train station was probably only 20km, but took over an hour. We arrived at the train station (Gambir station) and I foolishly figured it would be as straight forward as BART. The place was a zoo. The line to the ticket window was 100+ people long, it was hot, my back pack was heavy and every minute a voice would come booming over the loud speaking ranting something in Indonesian. We were the only westerners in the entire station and nothing was in English (to be expected). I had researched the schedule before hand and had a good idea of which train we wanted. We were one person away from the front of the line when an officer approached us. In broken English he explained that all the trains were sold out tonight.... oops.

Luckily a local women noticed our "Duh, what that hell is going on..." look on our faces and helped us out. She was bilingual and was a huge help. Through her we managed to book tickets for the following morning in an executive class cabin to Jogjakarta (180,000 rupiah = $20). Now all we had to do was find a hotel...

Walking the streets of Jakarta at night didn't seem like the best idea, so we hired a taxi and ask their opinion on where to stay (btw, Every indonesian is a part time sales man and tourist information center. They always have an "uncle" who happens to offer the services we need. In this case, his uncle owned a hotel.) The hotel seemed nice at first. Near the station, large lobby, clean and with a friendly staff. The luxuries ended there... we had to sleep with the lights on as it keeps the cockroaches at bay. At $10 per person/night, the price was right. The next morning we headed back to the train station with tickets in hand and smiles on our faces.

Singapore - Day 1 with pictures

Remembered my memory card this time so here are some photos. I was worried that assimilating to a different culture would be difficult, but i think I am getting along quite nicely. Here you can see i've learned the ways of Singapore water fountains:

I headed to Chinatown to sample some of the local cuisine. The streets are lined with small restaurants and food vendors. I searched out one which was popular with the locals... it was called Mak Po (I don't think this would fly in America). Naturally I was a little skeptical about introducing foreign foods into my body so I went with something safe:

That's right, good ol' Frog with Two Special. I wanted to sample the Live Frog and Pig Liver also, but that would have been glutenous of me. Pictures of the meal are on my friend's camera so those will have to wait also. We split an appitizer called Fried Banana and Shrimp in Dragon's Beard which was delicious (much more so than the the Two Special).

The night safari was pretty cool. The Singapore zoo is apparently one of the best in the world and the night safari consists of a tram driving around the area of the zoo where all the nocturnal animals are kept. You can also get off the tram from time to time and walk down specific paths to view the animals much closer. We saw lions, tigers, elephants... etc. All very close up and impressive. Unfortunately, they do not allow flash photography (yeah I don't know why either) and therefore most of my picture didn't come out, but here is a slightly blurry picture of a tiger. He (she?) was laying against the window of his/her cage. This picture was taken from less than a foot away:

That's all for now, today i'm leaving Singapore and flying south to Jakarta, Java (Indonesia). This is where the trip gets interesting...

Singapore - Day 1

A hoy! I have arrived in Singapore and let me tell you, this place really excites all your senses. For one, it feels like you are walking through a sauna... no matter what time of day it is. Luckily all the buildings are heavily air condidtions. I arrived wearing jeans, a t-shirt and a heavy backpacking backpack. By the time I walked from the subway station to my hostel I was soaking wet, although it hadn't rained. Everywhere you walk you get powerful waffs of various cuisines. This country is a cultural mecca center and you can find food from all corners of the world. Singapore is also quire impressive visually. The buildings are massive and the lights shine bright at night. It reminds me of Las Vegas or Los Angeles, but with less sleaze.

My hostel is situated in a district known as Little India and I swear it is hotter than the rest of the city. I think it's the reason all the Indians congrigated here. On one side of the hostel I have a seedy Thai massage parlor with a very pushy sales man constantly outside and on the other side I have a mosque with a dozen women outside waiting for their husbands. It's an interesting mix of institutions...

Unfortunately I forgot to bring my memory card reader to the internet cafe, so there will be no pictures today. I'll try to post a few tomorrow before I head back to the Airport. I head south tomorrow for Indonesia.

One last bit of news, I received my details of my placement in Sri Lanka. I will be living the town of Galle which is situated 100km south of Colombo on the southwest coast. I will be working at a teaching hospital close by and living with a local family. That's all for now, I'm off to see the night safari at the Singapore Zoo. Apparently it's a must for tourists.