Yogyakarta

For my second visit to Indonesia, it feels right that it was Yogyakarta. Bali is almost in a world of its own, with its Hindu majority and temples and influx of tourists. Yogyakarta is an altogether different feel,  as an arts and culture hub of Indonesia, and with UNESCO listed Buddhist and Hindu temples, it calls.

I mean, the city itself is not the attraction. It's the third largest city in Indonesia with a constant hum of motorcycles and it's not exactly an easy place to wander. Some cities, you can walk for miles but this one...I don't find myself wanting to walk all that much, and as Marcus says, when you're in a city full of motorcycles, walking is not a default mode of transportation. Which I find to be true here. Not many walkers around, and as a tall white lady walker, I attract attention. Which is not unfamiliar to me, but I never love it. There aren't many tourists that have found there way here yet, as in a lot of southeast Asia. And I may be even more aware of the attention I attract because Marcus isn't here with me. It's the first time I've taken a solo trip for a long time. I think the last time I traveled solo was when Marcus was doing the base camp hike to Mt. Everest and I basically did yoga for two weeks. 

Anyway, walking around one of the main tourist stretches today, I was approached by four different people in the space of five minutes. It always unnerves me. I ducked into a Starbucks and ordered a cab to escape. Overall, though, I've felt pretty safe here and most people have been extremely kind. In fact, I've experienced a lot of kindness here.

When I first arrived from Singapore, getting through the airport was an experience. 

1. Survive the crush of people trying to push their way off the airplane. Immense gratitude for the decision to purchase a seat in row 2.
2. First stop to the folks checking vaccination certificates.
3. Second stop to pay for the visa on arrival. Have two credit cards fail. Realize you're 100,000 rupiah short of the 500,000 required. Kick yourself for not carrying any US dollars. Get told that there's an ATM outside the airport--but not one there. Get a shrug. Get moved to the side to wait for...what?? For an older couple from the US to take pity on me and swap 400,000 rupiah for $40 USD. Thank them profusely. Try to find them later. Cannot. More gratitude.
4. Third stop to immigration. Get directed to the shortest line for people who just did the VOA. More gratitude.
5. Fourth stop to a corner next to luggage pick up to scan a QR code to do an online customs form submission. Airport wifi that worked three minutes ago now not working. Still not working. More and more minutes of not working. Ask a pair of US dudes how they're doing their submission. Find out that an airport staff person lent them a device to use. Wait in line to use that device. Submit form. Receive my own QR code. Show the lady. 
6. Fifth stop to the customs guy who checks my QR code. A-go.
7. Sixth stop to the luggage x-ray.

An hour later--airport exit success. Get cash out at the bank of five ATMs--yes, that's right five of which they couldn't put one next to the VOA counter. Then finding an airport to the city with the wifi that wasn't working. I ended up sharing a cab into town with a couple from Philly that I ended up talking to all the way through that airport labyrinth. We had a fantastic conversation in the hour and a half it took to get from the airport to town (an unexpectedly long trip!) and agreed to meet up for dinner the following night.

I got dropped off at my guesthouse that is located in the kraton--the Sultan's palace. Yogyakarta is the last place in Indonesia with a sultan, and it's a point of pride. I was surprised that there were homes and businesses inside the palace walls and was excited to book there, at an AirBnB that gets stellar reviews. When I arrived I discovered that my room had no window (my mistake--there wasn't one in the photos!) and it was a little more...draughty...than I expected. Which is all fine and dandy, we can work with that. What I couldn't work with were the outlets which are sort of sunken into the wall, and my all-purpose adaptor wouldn't fit in the hole. So after dropping off my bags, the lovely lady (Martini!) pointed me in the direction of a shop that should have SIM cards and the plug. Plug was perfect. SIM cards not--apparently my iPhone doesn't work with these SIM cards. I tried another SIM card the next day to no avail, so I've been working off different businesses' wifi to get cabs around time. Which are around the same price as a bus ticket, by the way, it's amazing. 

As this is a working trip, I went back to my guesthouse where they have an open air cafe to get down to some work. Which I did, but...it was so. Loud. Like neverending motorcycles loud. And the wifi kept dropping. And then it downpoured (it is the rainy season) and water started splashing everywhere. My laptop was covered in rain spray and the outlet I was plugged into...let's just say I unplugged quickly because it was covered in rain. I did a video call with Marcus to see how loud the noise came across and the look on his face went from "it's not that bad" to one eyebrow up "um, that's not going to be great for your Teams calls." I went into research mode looking for somewhere quiet with good wifi. I did a field visit to a place that looked promising. Then ended up checking out 30 minutes later. 

That whole first day was a series of troubleshooting! And working. That's the workcation life. Everyday starts at 5-5:30am as usual and I work until 1-2pm then head out to see different parts of the city. Day two was jamu making, hands down the best part of this trip. 

Day three was a visit to Borobudur, the UNESCO-listed Buddhist temple. The main reason I chose Yogyakarta as a destination. More research would definitely have been helpful on my part because I may have found out that they closed the temple during Covid and still haven't re-opened. The explanation is that people tend to congregate at the top and they don't want people getting that kind of Covid exposure. But I mean, they had a huge Vesak Day procession this year and that would have been exponentially more people congregated. Anyway, I took the hour and a half drive out there to discover that I could only walk around half of the temple. Ugh. Prambanan will no doubt be the same. 

It's a beautiful temple and I'm sure the stupas on the top and the 504 Buddhas scattered throughout would have been a treasure to see. But even had I been able to walk up it and experience its glory, I would still have come to the conclusion that it pales in comparison to Angkor Wat. I mean, that collection of temples is hard to beat and I wasn't expecting this to. But I did expect more than one temple. To be fair, I did get to visit two other "hidden" temples which took away some of the sting. Though I couldn't go inside those ones either! Ha!!

Temples. Ok. I also have looked at a bit of batik, which it's said originated from Solo which is just 65 km away. I haven't visited any batik studios but have done a tiny bit of shopping. Seems I lean toward stamped batik more than the hand painted batik. There's something that feels very 80's to me about a lot of the batik. The artistry and skill involved in making it is incredible and I enjoy looking through the different batiks, but I find that I don't have the desire to own much of it. There are a lot of brown and earthy colors, which are fairly traditional batik colors. Apparently they're from natural plant dyes, which I love the idea of, but when it comes to wearing it is not super up my alley. With some searching online, I found a store that does some more contemporary batik and enjoyed perusing their store. Then I went to Beringharjo Market, the big, almost emporium of a building full of market stalls. It was massive. So many shops and I went into overwhelm. Talked to two shops. Went into overwhelm. And exited quicker than anticipated. 

That's mostly it, so far. Other things.

• This is the first place I've visited and been in close proximity to the call to prayer. The singing feels haunting since it's always in a minor key. Beautiful. Haunting. And at 4am a little unsettling.
• Despite the lack of foreign tourists, there are quite a few Indonesian tourists. Which feels right. If strange to not be in a western tourist majority. But again. Right. 
• There are buskers at stoplights here, with their friends going around to stopped cars and motorcycles with collection cans. I kind of love that ingenuity and targeting of a captive audience.
• Entrepreneurship is a big deal here. My tour guides are freelance. And also are working on starting other businesses. Creativity and entrepreneurship are a good combination (maybe they're always a combination).
• My arms have broken out in a rash. I'm going to say it's the ginger pulp from my jamu teacher I've been rubbing on them. A heat-giving plant + hot weather are probably not the best combination for my skin. Apparently it's a thing, but maybe it's not a thing for me. 

Tomorrow's my last day. Prambanan and food tour, here I come.