Today we have a normal wake time. It’s going to be the last breakfast we have at this lovely hotel, I’m going to miss having breakfast in such a beautiful setting.
We meet the guide and driver at 9:00 proceed to the countryside to take a 15km bike ride through farm country at Mt Merapi. On the way, we pass by a couple of crops that we hadn’t see before - sugar cane, tobacco and dry land fish farms.
The bike tour takes off near a fish market, presumably stocked with the fish from the various farms we’ve seen on the way here. I don’t know all the types of fish but carp seems to be one of them. Here the fish are stored live in pens with movable weirs so that the size of the pens can be easily adjusted. Several people come in to purchase fish. The purchased fish are caught by hand and placed in plastic bags. Water from the pen is added once the requisite number of fish for the bag is reached.
I need to go use a toilet before we proceed on the hour and half long bike trip. There isn’t any selection in this case; my only choice is a squat toilet. I’ll do pretty much anything to avoid this apparatus. I make Judith go first and she reports back that’s it’s a 4 on our bathroom rating scale. Over the years our travels have taken us to places where the public toilets have varied greatly in type (seated or squat) and cleanliness. Upon arriving at a spot to use the toilet facilities, the most desperate of us will use the facility presented and provide a rating on a scale of 1 to 10 on the toilet in question which allows the other to make a decision to proceed or gamble until the next stop. My threshold is 6 — anything below isn’t for me. I don’t think I’m overly picky nor am I alone in wanting a clean seated toilet. The highest rating for a squat toilet is 5, so Judith’s report tells me it’s pretty clean. Having no options, I use it. I’m not happy about it but at least it’s clean.
The bike equipment we ride on are recognized brands. I’m on a bike by Specialized so I won’t be able to use equipment as an excuse if my biking experience isn’t as successful as I hope. It’s mostly downhill so I just need the brakes to work. We suit up and we’re off. Riding with us is our regular guide, Justine, our local guide who knows the route, and just to be sure, there is a support vehicle that’s following us around. We’re covered in case anything happens except being able to use western style toilets.
The ride goes along country lanes passing little towns and lots of agrarian activities. The ride is just supposed to be just cycling but our guides manage a couple of unplanned excursions onto the farms. We pass a group harvesting rice. It’s a small group and we stop and are invited to enter into their paddy to have a look. I think that visiting these farms creates an interesting diversion to their day. They are proud of what they do and our feeble attempts at doing some of their skilled farm tasks results in a lot of fun for them. Today was no exception. The rice is being separated from the stalks manually. From a large bundle of cut rice stalks, the workers scoop up enough stalks to comfortably hold in two hands and start beating the heads on a rock or short log. I pick up my bundle and begin thrashing. You have to have a good grip on the bunch because there is a tendency for individual stalks to slip out.
The workers are of course, particularly interested in Judith and watch with great interest when she takes a turn at it. I can tell they’re having a conversation about her looks. It usually prompts them to question our guide as to where we’re from.
We find out that the object is not to remove every kernel as there is diminishing returns to how much you thrash and how many kernels fall off. Of course they find it amusing that we try to remove every kernel.
We ride through a village and come across a house that has a truck in front of it. In the back of the truck is a person operating a machine and I quickly recognize that he’s milling rice.
We stop to look at the process. As it comes out of the machine the rice and outer husk is ejected together. In the next process, it is sifted to separate the rice grains and the chaff.
Below: Rice with chaff as it exited the machine
The family that owned the rice being milled were outside in the front of the house supervising the milling. I asked if I could take their picture and they agreed. They were excited to take our picture so somewhere they have a picture of all of them plus two random strangers from Canada who stopped to see their rice being milled. They wanted to have a picture with just Judith and the daughter but she didn’t cooperate with the older women’s plan.
The next stop is a poultry farm. The chickens are located on the upper level of a building constructed on stilts. The business is run by a young couple who are growing about 1,000 hens. Despite the fact that the chickens are being raise for consumption, the conditions appear humane. There is plenty of room for the hens to move around, lots of ventilation, water and feed.
Finally we come to a crossroad and some children are standing there staring at us as we go by. They are curious so I ask if we can visit the school. Our guide asks permission from the headmaster and he gives his consent if we don’t take long. The children are curious and surround us. I wanted to record the event so we ended up taking this picture before we left.
We pass by the ruins of the Buddhist Plaosan Temple built in the mid 9th century. We learn we well visit it after our ride.
The rest of the ride is easy as it’s predominantly downhill. The bike ride through the rural countryside is over sooner than expected. We have passed over bridges, always need of resurfacing, crossed through small villages, rode past lush tropical farms and saw a slice of life that doesn’t exist where we live. We got to talk with many people along the way who were just going about their normal day. I liked this ride a lot.
After biking we go and explore Ploasan Complex. It’s another unbelievably large temple complex, actually consisting of two locations that are now separated by a section of the local village. Restoration work continues but there’s about 174 structures comprising this site and only 4 look to be restored. And like all the other sites, many stones are missing, likely part of someone’s house foundation. The temples have been damaged by many earthquakes over the centuries.
We drive to our lunch location: the Rama Shinto Garden Resto. It’s a large catering facility for events such as weddings and other celebrations. We have a spectacular view of another Unesco heritage site. Prambanan is the largest Hindu temple built in (you guessed it) the 9th century. It was built as the response to the large Buddhist temples being built around that time such as Borobudur. We later find that the three main temples visible in our view across the river are dedicated to Shiva, Visnu and Brahma.
We got real vegetables with this meal that weren’t over cooked. I finished them all off and head out to explore Prambanan.
Our local guide for Prambanan is very good. There are the three main temples and three smaller temples in a row behind the main temples. These are dedicated to Nandi (bull) Guruda (bird) and Hamsa (hand). Two other temples are between these two rows at the sides of the grounds.
We explore the 3 main temples in detail. They aren’t meant to have hoards of tourists and their guides climbing the steep and narrow stairs and passages but we managed to do this without hurting ourselves. It’s an interesting temple. After the official tour was over, we walked through sections that hadn’t yet been restored. There were acres of neat piles of stones surrounding the complex. Of the 240 structures on the grounds, only 18 are completed. Although the main buildings have been restored, there’s still lots to go.
We board a motorized trolley that takes us past other temples on the site. Some are small, comprising of a single building, others are multi building sites. It’s amazing how much temple building when on in this period and how all the sites were abandoned and subsequently destroyed by successive earthquakes.
After the temple tours we take one last side trip before returning home. We’re off to investigate a store that sells kopi luwak otherwise known as civet coffee. This coffee includes part-digested coffee beans eaten and defecated by civet cats. The beans are partly digested as they pass through the civet digestive system. The fecal matter is collected and the partially digested beans are separated out and cleaned. The beans are then processed to remove the outer shell and then roasted to make some of the world’s most expensive coffees.
Apparently, the process of going through the civet’s system improves the coffee because of the civet’s selection of the coffee cherries and through the altering of the composition of the coffee bean via their digestive system. Whatever the case it’s just weird that someone thought this was something to try in the first place.
There are some exhibits about the process. First are some civets in cages. While the company representative assures us that their coffee is sources equitably as the civets on their plantation run freely, it’s hard to know the truth. We end up feeding them bananas, a fruit that they love. They are vicious animals (cousin to raccoons) and I made sure my fingers were well back from their quick movements and sharp teeth.
The rep shows us civet pooped beans. The ones in the picture haven’t been cleaned.
Next we’re shown the clean beans. There about 6 people at the rear, taking the outer casing off each been and putting the coffee bean into containers. The final step is roasting which is done in small batches. We sit down at the rear and work to remove the outer casing from the bean. I learn there are male and female beans. The male bean is smaller and more round than female beans. The whole coffee beans you get from the store are female beans; there’s just way more of them on any given plant. They sort the shelled beans into female and male beans.
I decide to try out the coffee thinking it can’t kill me if it’s been through a roasting process. I order a cup. While waiting, the rep comes over show the YouTube clip of Jack Nicholson’s character in the Bucket List drinking kopi luwak. Eventually a small cup is served up. I sip it until it’s finished. I can’t really see what the fuss is about.
We return back to the hotel. We need to get our luggage ready to be passed over to our driver who is driving to Jombang. We’re going there by train because it’s two hours less. Giving him our luggage let’s us travel without the hassle of lugging large suitcases on and off the train. We pack and bring our bags to the driver at the agreed upon time of 6:00.
Shortly after there’s a knock at our door and our guide Justine is there with some take out she thought we should try. It ended up being just the thing because it had been a long day and we were tired. We had already discussed eating this earlier in the day and she was very considerate to buy some and bring it over. It was fish sticks but I will admit it was better than any other stick I’ve had. There were two sauces. I tried them both and recommended to Judith to avoid one of them at all costs as it had a lot of heat in it. That was the one I ate. I like hot sauces that are flavourful. My favourite sauce is Sriracha; this sauce was pretty tasty too and had way more heat.
The messy aftermath of our takeout dinner.
After dinner we got ourselves ready for tomorrow. We’re leaving at 6:00 to catch the train.
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