Bad Religion
Trip Start
Oct 17, 2009
1
2
19
Trip End
Ongoing
Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia
Sunday, October 25, 2009
We left Kuta on Sunday afternoon, drove in to Denpasar city bus terminal, and boarded a bus to Yogyakarta. It was a decent bus, a coach really, with plenty of leg room, air conditioning, curtains, and even a TV. Cost us 215 thousand rupiah($25), which is a little steep but well worth the splurge when you see the regular buses. We drove around Denpasar for a while and eventually started heading north-west for the port of Gilimanuk.
We soon learned that our bus driver enjoyed listening to an array of American emo bands, a pretty impressive stereo system was installed in the bus, and we had been seated strategically underneath one of the booming speakers. It seems that it doesn't matter if it is a bus or a motorcycle being driven in Indonesia, the stakes do not change and the driver must drive with as much vigour, using as much as the road as possible and overtake as many people as he can. Our bus driver proved to be a master of such tactics, swerving deftly from one side of the road to the other, a cigarette in one hand, his i-pod in the other, his eyes fixed firmly on the TV screen above his head, all the while My Chemical Romance squealing in our ears.
We were relieved to say the least when we finally got to the port, boarded the ferry to Java, and got to get out and stretch our legs.
A rather uneventful trip across the strait and we boarded our bus again for the second leg of the trip. It was dark by now so our fellow passengers curled up and started snoring, the music got turned down and we careened onward into the night. About 10pm the music came on once again, a friendly wake up call for our dinner pit stop at a roadhouse in the middle of nowhere. After a quick meal of curried chicken, tofu and rice, we all piled back in and hit the road again. It turns out that the drivers ability to drive with the accelerator firmly planted saved us several hours, and at 5am we were unceremoniously dumped at Yogyakarta bus terminal.
As the cloud of dust settled we realised we were surrounded once again by taxi drivers and guys selling sunglasses, we quickly negotiated a fare and were whisked away down the quiet streets of the waking city. After insisting to our taxi driver that we could not accept his offer to take us to a hotel of his friends we arrived at our next place of residence, the Duta guest house, and promptly set about having a shower and getting ready to explore the city.
Tired and worn out from a restless sleep, we gave in to the call of one of the local becak drivers (a bike with a seat in front of it for passengers), and let him pedal us around the city for the day for 30 000($3.50). He turned out being quite a useful guide, and started by taking us in to the town centre to see the sultans palace, which I have to say looks just like the palace in that old movie 'the king and I'. After wandering the grounds for a while and marvelling at the sultans pots, pans, and cutlery on display we went back to our driver who was waiting patiently and went on our way.
Yogyakarta seems to be harbouring a great deal of artistic talent. From the traditional, to the modern, and even down to the street level there is a myriad of artistic creations to marvel at. The city has some awesome displays of graffiti prowess, in particular the styles of cartoon characters painted around the place which looked awesome. It's a pity we arrived when we did as there was an annual art exhibition of local and interstate talent a month prior, A quick browse on the net showed there was a lot of good stuff we missed. Our guide showed us that traditional art is still alive and kicking, taking us to see puppet makers at work, who gave us a demonstration of some genuinely spooky shadow puppets, Java style. He also took us to see some of the local art galleries where we saw some great examples of the traditional painting styles around here, they use a weird technique of applying layers of paint and wax to a canvas which produce some great kandinsky-esque effects.
The next day we went off exploring temples, the first of which was Borobudur. Arriving just as the gates opened we were able to get some great views of the temple and surrounding volcanoes before the crowds arrived. Tagged as the worlds biggest Buddhist stupa, it didn't disappoint with loads of different reliefs carved into each level, each depicting different levels of enlightenment. By the time it came for us to leave we no longer felt enlightened as bus loads of local school kids had arrived and we had become the tourist attraction for the day.
Our second stop was another Buddhist temple nearby, which looked pretty average after being at Borobudur but had a pretty big Buddha sitting inside, which made the other travellers rather excited. A third temple stop at Prambanan, on the other side of town proved to break the proverbial camels back, we were quite fed up with standing around looking at old buildings in the midday sun. It was quite a shame because these were Hindu temples, pretty impressive in size and design, but enough was enough and after a quick lap of the grounds we promptly jumped in the van for home.
I booked our onward ticket to Jakarta that afternoon. Danielle couldn't be bothered going for the walk to the train station so while she slept at the hotel I ran up to the station to order our tickets for the next morning. It was sorted out in no time, and the next morning we arrived at Yogjakarta train station with our business class tickets in hand, ready for the 8 hour train ride to Jakarta.
Our train lurched away and we settled down for the long trip ahead of us. There are three classes of trains that I knew of we could catch, the first one being for the general public, affectionately known by the locals as chicken class (because of the amount of chickens being transported in the carriages). The second was bisnis class, a step up from a regular train but by no means luxurious, and the third being eksekutif class, which was the top of the range. We had booked in bisnis class which was great as we had plenty of space, it wasn't packed out, and it was only costing 110 000 rupiah (12bucks). The first hour or so passed uneventfully, with the train rattling it's way across Java, stopping at stations every now and then to pick up a few more passengers.
It all turned pear shaped for Danielle around 2 hours into it, the trains carriages were steadily filling with people each time the train stopped, and it was becoming more and more apparent that without air conditioning our little window wasn't going to keep us cool for long. Around lunchtime we stopped at a station and a multitude of hawkers got on the train, what had been a relatively quiet trip thusfar quickly turned into a maelstrom of people with fried rice trying to outsell each other. The aisles were absolutely packed with people carrying urns of coffee, baskets of eggs, pots full of spring rolls, you name it, they had it.
I found the whole thing rather amusing and bought a pack of smokes here, a can of coke there, but Danielle had the jack of it and started pouting. So for the majority of the time I left her to her misery while I sat out in the entrance to the carriage, which was much cooler as we kept the doors open, and shared cigarettes with the locals. Every so often the train would stop for a legthy period, and wait for another train to speed past, I didn't have the balls to tell Danielle that it was the eksekutif class trains that were flying past us .
As we travelled westward over Java things were turning more and more muslim. More and more blokes were wearing head turban things, and more women were wearing the head scarfs. And right around 4pm that afternoon I had the scariest moment of my life thusfar. Things had quitened down a little as most of the hawkers had jumped onto other trains, and I was sitting quietly by myself in the carriage while danielle had gone out for a cigarette. A small man dressed in muslim attire, head thing, coat, and carrying a big bag over his shoulder, walked down the carriage and stopped next to the only white person on the train, me. He turned his back to me and adressed the carriage with a megaphone he had turned up full volume.
In my mind it was not hard for me to imagine that there was a bomb sitting in his bag, and he was reciting scriptures for the last time before he blew the train to pieces. I was scared stiff, I was certain I was about to die. After a minute or two of talking he tucked his megaphone into the big bag on his shoulder and shuffled on to the next carriage, oblivious to the man that had been sitting behind him in the foetal position, crying like a little girl. Of course I had failed to realise that muslims have their call to prayer right about that time, and he was just doing his thing. My small mindedness had ultimately left me feeling like an absolute idiot, Danielle came back to our seat to find me ashen faced and stuttering and after relating the events to her, I was the one sulking and she was the one laughing.
We arrived in Jakarta about 6 or 7pm that evening, running a couple of hours behind schedule, but very much alive and well. The rest is another story so I'll leave it there for the moment...
Days since last shaved: 13
Morale: Moderate
Distance Travelled: 7 086 km
Over and out, from Jakarta, Indonesia.
Comments
Take care you two, sounds like a fabulous adventure!! But keep your wits about you and don't become too comfortable with your surrounds. xxxx
that is gold.... poor lil johnny :P