Yogjakarta the temples of central Java
INDONESIA | Saturday, 5 July 2008 | Views [89]
Years ago we spent so much time on the islands between Timor and Lombok that we had no time left for this part of Indonesia so this is the first time we have ever explored central Java.
Not surprisingly we have chosen to base ourselves in Yogyakarta, but this city has surprised us, managing to retain its grasp of traditional Javanese culture to an extent that is perhaps surprising in 2008. Despite 24/7 shops and swarms of motorbikes, the city is alive with as many Becak (Cyclo's) that are everywhere and still actively used by the local population (unlike Vietnam where the only people who still use them are tourists!) We reckon that many of the Becak drivers must be itinerant workers as they all seem to sleep under a thin blanket in their vehicle by the side of the road. At about $0.50 per kilometer, they aren't actually as efficient as a plain old taxi, but, as with Vietnam, you lose something of the character of the place when these services are no more.
For what is predominantly a Muslim city (Java being largely Muslim), Yogjakarta seems to have a pretty relaxed atmosphere: I really don't know enough to say how many other Muslim places in the world you'd be able to see young couples walking along the main street hand in hand or sat by the side of the dusty road either talking or even a hug or two.
Despite the hotel security being pretty tight, with every vehicle and taxi that enters the grounds being searched, on the surface at least, there appears to be little religious tension with any foreigners and almost everyone seems to be both easygoing and friendly with genuine smiles everywhere.
Maybe this is to do with the Indonesian Rupiah losing over 80% of it's value during the 1997 Asian financial crisis or maybe it is to do with a red-hot Australian dollar that almost equals the US dollar, but generally I'd have to say it is a little poorer than I'd remembered or anticipated.
I don't know what the Becak drivers would earn but I bet it isn't more than $5.00 a day and these guys have a tough job whatever country you are in. Walking down to the markets yesterday evening, there was a row of mobile phone vendors perched on the wide sidewalk lit by flouroescent lamps. Their service was text messages: 40 rupiahs per message. When there's 8700 to the dollar, that's less than half-a-cent to send a message, and the fact that almost everyone here apparently has a mobile but there is still a market for such a service, it puts some people's income into relative perspective.
Perhaps the primary reason we actually came was to see both Prambanan and Borobudur temples, something we have been meaning to do for at least a decade. But unlike great Buddhist temples in say Thailand or Burma, where they are part of the religious culture of the country, here in a predomiantly Muslim island, they seem to have been turned into little more than a cultural theme park with coach loads of Javanase swarming and climbing all over the monuments.
Being here in a local school holidays doesn't help either, as we were accosted by hoards of 17 year old school girls who had been brought here by their teachers with the express purpose of practising their English on hapless foreigners. Riu and Kai were indescribably popular targets and it did allow us the opportunity to discover a little about their youth culture: their fathers were largely farmers, they learn English and Arabic at school, they only started learning English two years ago, and a month's school fees were 50,000 rupiah (which they thought was very cheap, but I wonder what their fathers thought!)
Tags: yogjakarta, java, prambanan, borobudur, temples, becak
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