Java - The Road to Yogyakarta

Leaving Malang, we were aiming for Yogyakarta in a week’s time.
Our first destination was Blitar, around 48 miles southwest.

Escaping the city, we weaved through small alleyways and cut-through, just wide enough for our bikes’ handlebars. These often brought us out into residential backstreets with the odd small shop. People went about their business and we received frequent hellos, along with a few bemused looks.
Joining one of the main roads south, we encountered many ‘traffic directors’ that they have here in Java. These maestros conduct traffic at road junctions. They can be identified by the blow of their whistle and precarious position, standing between the turning traffic, halting vehicles in one direction and beckoning another’s to proceed.
To negotiate this is often confusing. Not knowing when to stop, or go and interpret the simultaneous quick arm gestures, baton pointing, and whistle blowing, All road users seem to adhere to the law of
this virtuoso and we often received a smile or thumbs up from him as we passed by.

I have warmed to Java and I like the Javanese.
Indonesian people in general have this uncanny ability to seem facially the most grumpy, and also the happiest of people.
Along this part of the journey we have had many encounters and have been met with expressions I would interpret as curiosity, suspicion, bemusement, surprise and ambivalence.
Amanda and I have found that the toughest nut can be cracked and we have taken pleasure in this small game between us of eliciting a snails. We have smiled at many people. A smile costs nothing and this deposit of happiness often resulted in the return investment of a grin, or “hallo” from a person, even those who start out with the most earnest of frowns.
This exchange of smiles turned a mostly short, unspoken and fleeting encounter into a joy, leaving us feeling much better about the world.
I have experienced the frequent greeting mostly from kids, of “halo mister”.
I have never been called just ‘mister’ before. I suppose I look old enough to them to be a ‘mister’.

Turning down rural lanes, we went through fields and fields of rice, then followed a sort of towpath by a river channel for a while. Its brown fast flowing water fed many smaller tributary channels that ran off to feed the fields and irrigate the crops.
In this tranquil part of the ride, we saw the everyday of Javanese life - people working knee deep in mud, crouching and tucked in between rows of chilli plants, gathering ears of corn which lay in piles by the side of the road.

Reaching Blitar, we checked into a hotel. An old building of faded grandeur, with an entrance archway covered with hanging foliage. It felt like something out of a novel with its white walls and dark teak wood furniture.
We were offered afternoon tea, to be taken at 4pm! This completed the image that we had somehow slipped into the parallel cinematic world of a Merchant Ivory film, only lacking in a period costume and talking in the clipped speech of the upper class.
Relaxing underneath a roof fan, we sipped tea, ate glutinous rice treats, fried banana and some nuts. The staff were warm and friendly.

The sky darkened outside and the air became thick and heavy and clouds swelled, pregnant with rain. I sat and watched a heavy downpour ensue, turning the street in front of the hotel into a river. Cars ploughed furrows of water as they zipped along, their drivers seemingly unconcerned about moderating their speed, or stopping distance to the vehicle in front.
The ‘rainwear fashion’ of motorcycle riders varied. Some wore plastic bag type anoraks and trousers in lurid colours, covering the full body. Others rocked the poncho look, which flapped about like Batman’s cape. Some wore a jacket backwards and a few didn’t bother with protection at all, just using one hand, held above the eyes to shade the rain from their eyes .
Meanwhile, Amanda looked around the hotel museum of artefacts, paintings and historical photographs. Some showed the Indonesian delegation, and the negotiations between them and the Dutch leading to gradual freedom from colonial rule, although this was protracted and not without conflict.
We found out that Blitar is the resting place of Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno. A revolutionary and activist, he became its leader when Indonesia gained its full independence from Dutch rule. His mausoleum is just outside town.

Amanda was poorly the following day with very bad food poisoning and spent much of the day in bed. One of constants on our trip has been food. It keeps the engine running and is also something to look forward to. Amanda didn’t want to eat, for fear it would not stay down - so she was a bit miserable and also lacking in energy. The kind hotel staff made her a cup of hot lemongrass tea which did help settle her tum a bit and the kindness cheered her up.

Amanda felt a bit better the following day and so we hit the road to Tulungagung (which is as hard to say as it is to spell). A larger town than we expected, we arrived and on a busy Saturday. Many market stalls lined the streets and the smell of cooking food permeated the air. As dusk fell we went out to find somewhere to eat. The call to prayer drifted in and out between the noise of the cars and the horn that announced the regular trains passing through the centre of town. We managed to find a place that served pizza and a welcome break to our mainly rice and noodle diet and also a safe bet as Amanda’s constitution was still gradually recovering.
The town of Ponorogo was to be tomorrow’s destination and was 52 miles away, up and over a large hill. We wanted a sharp start in the morning so it was early to bed for us.

A very hot morning turned into a hotter afternoon. One big steady climb was tough in the heat and we stopped often under the shade of trees to take in water. The reward for some hard pedalling were the views of densely forested hills, lush, green and tropical.
Arriving at our digs in Ponorogo we were greeted by an eager security guard who instructed us where we had to park our bikes. This willingness to help was kind but taxing after a days cycle when we just wanted to unload and check in. Every move and faff we undertook was watched closely by him as he hovered about. It was like being examined for some kind of practical bike unloading certificate. This had become a theme where our bicycle parking becomes a spectator sport for others.
It was pouring down in the evening, so we ate dinner in the hotel ‘restaurant’. We were the only customers in the place and the cooks only clientele. Loud jaunty music played over the speakers, maybe to create some ambience - solely for our benefit, or to get rid of us faster, so they could knock off!

Next day we left late morning knowing it was a short 20 mile day to reach our next port of call, Puwantoro. We both enjoyed the cycle through small villages and rice paddies. The villages had traditional houses with red tiled roofs - we saw large kilns offset from the road where the tiles were made.
As the day went on, the darkening grey of the sky made it feel gloomy. The clouds piled up and wind strengthened. A sign we had become all too familiar with - the onset of coming heavy rain. Almost at the top of the climb, Amanda spied an Indomaret, a convenience store with a covered frontage. Time to stop for an ice lolly, to help cool us down. A wise decision it turned out to be! For the next hour, the heavens truly opened and sheets of rain came down in windy squalls that danced along the main road.
We sheltered until it faded to light drizzle and then set off again, the air now slightly fresher and temperature cooler.
We reached the top of the hill and arrived into Purwantoro. The home stay was in a back street and was bigger than we expected and more like a small hotel. The reality was much nicer than the pictures online, which made it look a bit grim.
Our room appeared quite new and was extremely comfortable. The room had no window, which seems to be quite common thing in SE Asia.

At breakfast, we were provided with a traditional dish of rice served in a large leaf, called Nasi Pecel, accompanied by a traditional Javanese cracker (peanut rempeyek).
The rempeyek is made from a spiced batter mixed with peanuts and then deep-fried and looks like a large thick crisp.
We chatted to Aldi, the brother of the owner of this family run guesthouse. He was staying over for a while and was helping out. A lovely friendly guy and warm host, he told us he was heading off to a job on a cruise ship in the Caribbean soon and would be away for 6 months. He was looking forward to it despite mentioning that he wouldn’t get any days off during this time. His downtime would consist only of free time after the end of his shift. We grabbed a photo of us all and said our farewells, happy that we had decided to stay in this little gem of a place.

The cycle to Wonogiri was a tough one as our westerly direction took us across the foothills of Gunung Jokolangan. The hills ran in ridges down from the mountain and the road crossed these. This meant that the road undulated a lot and the constant up and down was tiring. We saw cashew trees along the way and trays of harvested cashew nuts, left to dry in the sun. There were tarps laid out on the ground and they bulged with harvested ears of corn, bright orange in colour.

We arrived at Wonogiri tired. After checking in and doing the usual faffing, we retired to our room and ate noodles and tuna, in a sort of bedroom picnic. We went onto the large veranda on the floor below and watched the distant lightening as dusk fell. The air was close and the cacophony of insect sounds intensified to remind us that we were in tropical climes.

Arriving in Prambanan, we ended up staying for three nights, to allow us to visit the nearby temple and to spend some time planning.
The following day we visited the Prambanan Temple complex.

It is the largest Hindu temple site in Indonesia, and is dedicated to deities Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the preserver and Shiva, the destroyer. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and its temples and shrines are set out in a specific layout. The three large main central shrines, each honour one of the main deities, and each contained many carved stone reliefs. Restoration started by the Dutch in the 1930’s and continued to the 1980’s, halted in between by the Second World War.
The main temple compound is surrounded by hundreds of smaller temples, only two of which have been restored to their original state (the whole site was damaged after a significant earthquake in 2006).
The rest remain as piles of stone rubble - a never ending jigsaw puzzle for the conservation team dedicated to rebuilding and preserving this stunning 9th Century temple.
It amazed us how much has been done to maintain and restore the complex. There must be millions of pieces of stone, each one interlocking and belonging in its own place. A lifetimes work to sort and then place, to eventually return the complex close to its original form.

Amanda went up into the temple compound and I lingered outside looking at the pyramids of jumbled stones that were once the surrounding 240 mini temples.
After 20mins or so, Amanda appeared and told
me that she was overwhelmed, not by the temple but with the attention she had encountered.
It transpired that she had gained a small entourage of schoolchildren who wanted photographs and who followed her around like devotees! They were delighted when she asked them for a selfie!
I discovered too that the temple was busy. Mainly with school trips, consisting of large groups of boys and girls, wearing colour coded attire, maybe identifying their school group and accompanied by their teachers and parent helpers.
Wandering around I too became aware of being followed. Children lurked before politely approaching me, then asking for a photo. Nervous and giggling, one of them usually mustered the courage to request “photo please”, “selfie”, “can I take a picture”.
Even after about the twentieth time it was quite endearing and it happened to us a lot during our visit.
Our 15 minutes of fame over. We walked around the temples and inside them to look at the relief carvings set into the walls. They depicted the stories of the Hindu epics and can be followed, left to right, clockwise around the temple - the direction that pilgrims would follow when they visit.
We drifted through the peaceful grounds and over to the other temples, Candi Lumbung and Candi Sewu.
Much quieter than the main area, it was nice to be without a fan club, at least for a while.
We enjoyed our stay in our Prambanan. Next stop, the city of Yogyakarta!Leggi altro