The Adaptation of Java: Yogyakarta drops to 'd'

In case there was any discrepancy, Java is one big rice paddy.


We've made it through our ten day island journey, all without the book that even the occasional taxi driver assumes us to possess. In Indonesia, a backpacker without a Lonely Planet suffers not the severity of one without one in India; though it still bares its teeth in consequence. While little is lost in currency, much is gained in endurance. The most loathsome backpacking routine - searching for accommodation - bites tenfold. Late this afternoon, after wandering with our backpacks for over an hour; we found ourselves shelved on a retail inlay off a three-way intersection in Bogor. I laughed hysterically while attempting to capture the perfect photograph of a machet (traffic jam), watching the circumstance reinvent itself with each signal change. Amused behind the chaos, we were eventually disrupted by thirst. Throwing our mobile life back upon our shoulders, we each threw out a hand and walked the resultant track across the rumbling road. While perhaps the simplest of feats, our frantic shuffling has been replaced with heedless confidence:


As we stood in the street post our Ramadan oriented buffet-at-your-table dinner (charged for what we ate, or what we didn't; I'm not sure) - we somehow acquired four passerbys to direct us to an internet cafe. They discussed, ad-nauseum, where one was and how to get us there. The Polisi representative in the bunch eventually waved down the appropriate bus and shuffled us on our way to 'Mardeka'. We're now here, at "De-Q" internet. This sort of thing continues to baffle me. But despite certain ease, Java has been the perfect assemblage to India. Of course, these are borders we have yet to enter; but I know I've shed at least a few skins of traveler naivete.

While often surprisingly ignored, in the right areas - the train stations, the bus stations, and depending on the city - everywhere all too often; we're flagged again and again. "Mister" seems more common than "misses", though "you like my glasses, man" has has been the most amusing attempt at a western colloquialism. But compared to India, the frequent calls are mild in comparison, and almost never holding a monetary relation. I don't mean to sound hard on India, she's an intricate and convoluted fighter with gems in tow; and this is her allure, her offering.

As for the modernizing Indonesia: she is a country with an exponentially growing gap between generations, with the youth generation plummeting forward alongside her development. She is turning hard. This gap is only accentuated during this month of Ramadan (a muslim holiday where nothing can pass the lips - food, drink, cigarettes - from morning until evening prayer). Sitting on the third floor balcony of an air-con western shopopolis fifteen minutes before the designated time to feast; the deck is splattered with teenagers drinking frappucinos on dates; girl's with hair free from the muslim head scarves sold meagerly on the first floor. Ridiculous melodramas bombard the television and the superficial guitar-pop is perpetuating an adolescent niche. Contemporary advertising challenges the Muslim regard of femininity. High-class cafe's fight against Starbucks, blocks from a river where children frolic naked in a litter saturated river. It's this dichotomy that grounds Asia as it flirts with the ideas of the west.


En route from Bandung to Puncak, we spoke with a local traveling to Bogor to study English. In between tutoring us on our Bahasa, he spoke of having traveling to various country's for the sake of discovery, as well as his plans to visit friends in Australia whom he met while in Bali. Splintering away from the ideals of the Indonesian working class twenty years ago; the concept of world travel is becoming accesible in a way that was previously unfathomable.

Puncak:



Yogya:


I found Yogyakarta (now predominantly Jodjakarata, the contemporary phonetic adaptation) to be the most effervescent of our destinations. Rotating with a carefree air, every part of the streets became a social fairground by night. There were also people skateboarding...in Asia.

As the most prominent tourist point on Java, Yogya is the layover point between the capital of Jakarta and Bali's magnetic pull to the east. It boasts two of Java's most acclaimed historical landmarks - The Prambanan (a group of ancient Hindu temples) and the Borobodur (the largest Buddhist temple in Asia). Yet, it also holds a reticent realization for its defiled tourism.


The Pramabanan Temple:


The Sultan's Palace, once a prominent tourist attraction in the heart of Yogya, is now mostly a disheveled collection of rocks woven through an array of kampungs (villages). It appears as though the earthquake of 2006 hit it hard, and there has been little incentive to rehabilitate its then already deteriorating structure. When my sister visited 15 years ago, its pools and moats were filled with water. Now a lady invites you to crawl behind her house as she sweeps, where you can look at the drained pools by pulling yourself up a wall. The museum is closed, and the foregrounds bare signs for shops that cease to exist.

Remains at the peak of the Sultan's Palace:


For Indonesia, this tourist abandonment is already reversing the economy. Both the government of New Zealand and Canada mark the country as a 'High Risk' travel destination. Backpacker's are scarce, and the streets that once met their demand bare boarded up shops and closed doors. While certain areas of Indonesia are in political strife (Banda Aceh, etc.), the main island of Java is abandoned from fearful disregard. And from what I've seen, oh so wrongfully so.

-Tara