It’s an early early morning. The alarm sounds at 3:30 and we need to be in the lobby at 4:00 to start the drive to Borobudur temple to watch the sunrise. It’s located northwest of the city about an hour away by car. From experience it’s better to figure out what you’re bringing and wearing the night before to avoid morning fog brain mistakes.
Were advised by the guide to bring a sweater. I’m skeptical because the night time temperature hasn’t dropped below 20 degrees. I only brought a light fleece, so that’s what I strap to my camera bag.
We pass through city streets that are relatively empty, very different from the frenetic traffic that happens during the day. The guide tells us about a food market that happens daily from 2:00am to 9:00am for those wanting to avoid traffic and the heat of the day.
When we arrive at Borobudur Temple there are hundreds of people doing the same thing as us. Large and small tour buses, and passenger vehicles are all bringing in tourists and guides. The drop off is relatively efficiently handled by a small army of uniformed staff who are directing vehicles through the drop off area and then onward to parking locations. We enter a modern recently constructed building and pass through security gate where our bags were manually scanned in a cursory manner. Our guide goes to purchase our tickets. We present our tickets at the gate and we’re each issued a flashlight to take on our walk to the temple itself.
We follow the line of flashlights to the temple itself and up the uneven stone steps to the highest level. There are many people already waiting on the various terrace levels jockeying for the best position possible to view the sunrise. At this point I am grateful for the crowd training I have received over the years via Vancouver Chinatown shopping with my mother. I navigate through the crowd and find a clear viewing spot on the stairs near the top terrace level and wait for the sun to show.
The sunrise itself turns out to be anti-climatic. There is a haze over Mt Sumbing, one of the dominant volcanos visible from Borobudur. I think you’re supposed to capture a picture the sun beginning to peek out from behind Mt Sumbing, together with some architectural feature of the temple in the foreground. That couldn’t happen because of the haze obscuring the mountain. I left my spot and we toured the temple terraces. The morning sunrise excursion is not the ideal time to get postcard shots of the temple without random tourists in your pictures. I find out later that Borobudur is Indonesia’s single most visited attraction.
Borobudur is a 9th century Buddhist temple. It’s the largest Buddhist temple in the world with 9 stacked platforms and topped by a central dome. There are 72 stupas surrounding the central dome each of which contains a seated Buddha. There are an additional 500 Buddhas statues and 2670 relief panels in the stone walls. It’s been a UNESCO World Heritage site for over 40 years, it’s hard to get a feel for the sheer size of this place via the pictures, but I can assure you it’s big.
Some of the relief panels in the lower section of this corner were covered up because they were thought to be too improper to the modest Islamic followers.
Our guide, gives us a detailed description of the temple. A group of students spot Judith and come and practice their English.
As we walk down the path from the temple back to the main gate, Judith hears elephants. We stop and watch 3 of them playing in a large pool. We can see two more in the building behind the pool and it doesn’t take long to realize they are chained. We leave shortly after.
We come back to the entry building and return our flashlight, have a complementary light snack and pick up our complementary scarf. I know it’s all bundled into the cost...
We drive into the countryside to go to our next destination. The route takes us up narrow roads into the mountains and we stop at a lookout point to look back at Borobudur temple. But it’s hazy and we’re unable to find it. You’d think that something that gargantuan would be easy to spot, but it’s apparently not. Not even with google maps to help me. It’s the first time that the guide has been there so she’s unsure where to look. Bummer. We climb back down to the vehicle and wind our way back down the narrow road.
Part way down we are blocked by a small truck that has unloaded its cargo of sand at the roadside and unable to start it’s engine. It’s parked diagonally across the narrow road with the hill on one side and the cliff on the other side. Only motorbikes that don’t have cargo that increase their width can make it through on the cliff side. The other side of the road is blocked by a hill. We pull up and park on the hill side of the road alongside the truck. The truck driver tries to start the engine but the battery is very dead.
We wait around for a while. That’s our driver in the red shirt. I think about testing my BCAA membership because nothing seemed to be happening. But suddenly, about 4 men show up on a couple of motorbikes. They get on the backside of the truck and push it forward. It couldn’t have been more than two or three feet as they were pushing it uphill. The surprise ending was when the truck driver released the brake and as it rolled backward he popped the clutch which started the engine. Brilliant. I hadn’t seen that done since Steve had his Volkswagen Beetle circa 1975 and there was a period where the clutch method was often required to get the car started.
Onto the village of Candirejo. We climb aboard our ride to take us around the village. It’s a small cart that’s drawn by a pony.
The cart seems to have designed for small children as l didn’t have enough leg room for my 5 foot 3 inch frame. We stopped at a few farms to learn about production.
On one farm the main crops we saw were papaya and cassava. There was a large stand of very impressively tall bamboo that was also being grown as a cash crop. Bamboo takes 4 years before its large enough to be harvested. The farm is bordered on one side by a river. We see sand for the village being gathered from the sand bank on the other side of the river, placed on a small barge and pushed across by swimmers.
We stop at another farm where they made cassava chips. The cassava is a root vegetable. The root is peeled and then grated. The grated cassava is then pressed twice to extract the liquid which is then dried until it forms a powder that we know as tapioca starch. The starch is cooked with liquid to form a thick dough which is then extruded through a mill that makes several thick strands (like thick spaghetti). The strands are bunched together during the extrusion process to form a rectangular shape and cut off to form a brick about 6 inches in length. A strand is then pulled from the brick and the ends are squeezed together to make a loop. The loops are placed on large trays to dry in the sun.
Once dry they are fried and placed into bags which sell for 20,000 rupiahs (about $2 CDN). We make a few of the loops and I buy a bag of chips to eat. They are good.
The cassava chip making shop was very interesting to Judith as a kitten came into the room. The owner offered it to Judith to take home.
We stop at a building that contains some traditional Indonesian instruments. Gamelan music comprises of an ensemble of tuned percussion instruments made of metal such as bronze copper or tin. These instruments included
- Metallophones that have a single line of metal bars,
- Bonang, metal pots with lids that are tuned
- Kempul gongs
The instrument plates, pots and gongs have numbers or letters drawn in chalk on the plates/pots/gong, so that all the tones on the Instrument are numbered. We get a lesson on how to read the music tablature chart and play through a couple of songs. That was great fun.
There was a man making a broom, carefully stripping off the spine from branches. We watch until Robbie finds some leaves to feed goats and Judith’s attention is immediately transferred.
After the horse drawn cart ride we We stop and have lunch with our local guide Robbie. There was a shared plate with some finger food. It had little packet of tempe wrapped and a couple of other snacks to eat. It turns out that was just the appetizer — it could have been enough for lunch. The main part of the meal rolls out, a traditional meal, shared plates style. Fish, beef satay with rice and some cooked vegetables. There is fruit for desert. We asked Robbie about the history of the horse cart rides. This was developed many years ago to draw tourists into the village. I guess it’s worked on us.
After lunch we see a couple more 9th century Buddhist temples. Pawon and Mendat Temples are both large sites very close to each other. One or two of the buildings at these sites have been restored representing about 2% of the sites. There’s an amazing amount of work to be completed. The stones are piled together but the pieces aren’t necessarily all there. For many decades before the historical significance was recognized and then subsequently protected, the stones would be taken by people to use for foundations for their homes. Unesco, which provides funding for restoration and preservation requires that more than 75% of the rebuild has to be original. On some of the rebuilt temple buildings, that hasn’t been the case because so many blocks are missing. New blocks have a white dot on an exposed face, to indicate it is a new stone.
After lunch we go back to the hotel. We’re doing a food tour for dinner. Power nap.
Our driver takes us a few blocks away from our hotel. The first thing we try is charcoal coffee, kopi joss, made by dunking a hot chunk of charcoal in it. We watch the coffee poured into a small glass and then he put in two red hot chunks of charcoal. The coffee spurts and steams a lot and when it cools down a bit, I use the spoon to taste a bit. You can taste the charcoal. I think the theory goes that the charcoal will take away any acidity in the coffee. I take out the charcoal chunks. Judith has a sip to taste citing caffeine content as an excuse — I end up finishing the rest of it.
We tried several different items including:
- Bajigur - a sweet hot coconut drink. I thought that was yummy
- Es tape hijau - A snack made of fermented green glutinous rice. Sounds taster than the description.
- Ronde - Rice balls filled with ground peanuts.
- Wedang Bleduk - a cold drink made with ginger, cinnamon, cloves, rock sugar, condensed milk
The final thing we did was to go over to Alun-Alun Selatan, a central square in the heart of the city. The square has become a place for people to gather in the evening to enjoy one of the strangest things we got to experience. The square was lit up by dozens of outlandish looking pedal cars called Odong-Odongs. The are brightly lit up by led lights and range from two to 4 seater models and are predominantly VW Beatles or VW vans. There were also other models, but VWs were by far the most popular. The vehicles were hollowed out to reduce as much weight as possible and then a pedal system added for propulsion. The cars have large speaker systems and you can select anything available on the internet or use your own sound via Bluetooth capability.
We rented a VW van. The pedal cars aren’t fast and the pedalling is surprisingly hard. We did finish going around the square in ours but neither one of us wanted to do it again.
It was a crazy end to a wickedly long day. It’s a regular wake up day tomorrow.
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