Culture and crafts

Jakarta is the bustling, busy capital of Java and Indonesia as a whole; Yogykarta is it's quiter, more cultured sibling in central Java. We'd heard it far surpassed it's bigger brother for almost everything and it didn't disappoint.

We arrived after a 6 hour train journey along the Javan coast through rice paddy after rice paddy after rice paddy. Hot and tired we made our way to the backpacker area to find somewhere to crash and relax. The lonely Plant recommended a good few homestays with favourably cheap price-bandings. Sadly we were beaten to all of them and ended up crashing in a posh hotel with not-posh prices; so in that respect we did very well, even if lacking in ambience compared. There was, however, a pool with a waterfall in it. result.

even my father - packaging master - would have had to admit was quite impressive

The first day we got ourselves a Becak (cyclo taxi thing) to take us down to Kota; the sultans palace, the water palace and the bird market. We'd agreed on paying 10,000 but when it came to paying we only had a 20,00 note and no change. Feeling generous we just gave him the full 20 and left him with a massive smile on his face; we knew then we'd made a friend and sure enough we saw him every moment we left our hotel for 3 days smiling and waving.

The sultans palace sounds incredible; it isn't. I'm a cynic, granted, but a palace is a big deal in any country and should be viewed as such. Sadly for us this palace was almost entirely closed except for several glorified gazebos and very, very creepy mannekins in traditional Javan royal clothing. Our guide was wicked though and was very informative and chatty considering he came free with our 50p entrance fee. HE told us the water palace didnt open til 12 so we could wander down Malioboro and look at all the stalls and shops selling batiks of all shapes and sizes, among other things.

We spent an age in various batik workshops, perusing stalls and buying presents on the pretence that it was going to be the only time in our trip when buying presents was going to be so easy and rewarding. Sadly we got a little carried away and ended up with things that were never going to fit into our backpacks, no matter how well we rolled and folded our clothes. Realising we needed to sort this problem out asap we got our favourite becak guy to take us down to the post office to send a package home. Once there our stuff was whisked out of our hands to a stall where the stall holders set about the sort of elbourate packaging that get's 5-star reviews on ebay and even my father - packaging master - would have had to admit was quite impressive. They stitched up the box into a tarpaulin style material upon which I wrote my address. Air mail was inordinately expensive by any standards so we opted for land and boat; estimated arrival date November 1st - presents are presents even if they do rock up a month or three late.

After killing time buying things we made our way down to the Water Palace. This was where the Sultan would go to bathe in his private pool, shared only with the wife of his choice (one Sultan had 48 wives). As seems to be the case with Indonesian information it is often a little tight on details. The Water Palace isn't open to public ever. But, because you can weave through the outside and climb a wall to look down on it, to them it counts as open. It was pretty impressive; two large pools with chess shaped posts coming up out of the water to provide the hot spring water which fed it- one pool for the wives and one for the daughters. Between the wives pool and the most ornate pool - the sultans pool - there was a large terracotta tower from which the Sultan could select which wife would to share his bath with him that day. Seems it was alright being a Sultan.

When we were there we managed to chat to our guide a little bit about the cultural significance of Yogyakarta. It is the smallest state, aside from Jakarta, and is self-governed by the Sultan who is elected is the regional governer. This, from what we gathered, was a huge part of the arrangements which were made upon independance from the Dutch; that Yogyakarta could remain it's own state with the Sultan in power. It's, in a sense, like the Vatican City being it's own country within a much much larger country, but obviously not quite as complex as that. Either way it was very interesting to find all this out.

From the Water Palace it was just a short walk to the bird market. I have very mixed feelings about this. It was a small covered market packed to the rafters with birds and animals for sale. There were pigeons, owls, chickens, doves, baby chicks died bright colours and a hundred other birds, as well as monkeys, lizards, puppies and kittens. As i'm sure you can imagine the conditions in which they lived were not good. Most were cramped up in cages and tanks with barely room to move and those you could read emotions on were clearly distressed. On the one hand it was a cultural sight and amazing to be up close to so many species, but on the other hand it was horrible to see so many animals treated so badly. Or maybe not even badly just not as well as they deserve. Like I said; mixed feelings.

Whilst in Yogykarta (pronounced Jogjakarta and abbreviated to Jogja) we met the two oxfordians once more in a bar and spend a good deal of time relaxing with them. We also shelled out a lot of money to a tourist guy who sorted us out with all our travel and accomodation and breakfasts for the next 3 days at a slight discount. The first of these days of travel was to the Buddhist stupa of Borabodur.