Getting there is half the fun

Indonesia Photos part 2: Yogyakarta

I have just way too many pictures to post, but I thought I would post some of my favorite ones anyway. So hear we go...

This is my bathroom in Yogyakarta. You might be wondering why the hell I am posting this? Well I thought I would post it to give you an idea of the toilets in Indonesia. The tub-like-thing on the left is called a Mandi and that's where all of your water comes from. I was lucky to have a shower hose and a Western-like toilet. Most of the time you have to scoop the water out of the mandi and pour it over yourself for a shower. And most of the toilets are just holes in the ground and you're not allowed any toilet paper ever, you have to use the water from the mandi and your left hand to clean up! The floor acts as the wash basin and the sink, so everything ends up on the floor.


There's not a whole lot to say about this one except that this is the main "backpacker street" of Yogyakarta. Where everyone is and where everything happens. At night street hawkers set up carts and tables at the side of the road where you can buy fried noodles and other poorly cooked food.


This is the water palace of Yogyakarta. The picture is taken from a tower in which the Sultan would sit and watch pre-chosen girls frolicking in the pool below. Each girl is numbered and when he is satisfied he may choose one of them by number to be his wife! He already has 27 wives!


Yogyakarta is supposedly famous for its batik paintings, some shown here. Batik is basically elaborately painted cloth. Most of the stull in Yogyakarta is over priced for the tourists and batik scams run abound. I didn't bring enough money with me to afford the $15US prices!


It was really fun to watch this group of people train pigeons to fly around and come back. They would attach a whistle to the bird so that when it flys overhead it sounds like a missle is about to hit you. The first time this happened to me I ducked to the ground, much to the amusement of the locals. Here they are tossing the birds to one another, which is supposed to train them. If the birds don't fly back right away they would grab other birds in their fists and wave them around violently. To me this looked rather painful to the birds and would certainly not convince me to fly back if I were a bird!


Here we have the massive Borobudur temple. It is the largest Buddhist monument on earth and is not really a temple at all but a giant stupa for praying. It was built in the 8th century, but shortly abbandoned for Islam. It then lay buried under volcanic ash and jungle until the 19th century! I joined a tour that took us there to watch the sunrise, but we arrived a little late. Still it was "awe-inspiring" to see something so magnificent.


There are 92 stupas like these all over the temple. Each one has a statue of buddha with a different symbolic hand position inside. After resoration a few were left uncovered to display the statue.


After Borobudur the tour took us to Prambanan Hindu Temple. Similar to Borobudur it was built around the 9th century and quickly abandoned. And one last fact: it's the largest Hindu temple in Indonesia! Now on with the picures:


Near to Prambanan is the Sewu Hindu temple. It is close but close enough, so I got a ride on the back of a friendly Indonesian's motorbike to get there. I was the only person there so it was cool to walk through the piles of ruins around the temple.

Posted by Evan at 9:43 PM