Batik, Trekking and Bedbugs

Yogyakarta remains one of the most beautiful and interesting places I've been to.  There are so many things that make and made it just that.

Our first task was to do a Batik course (of course).  In, what was, my usual style, I tried to reinvent the approach that could or should be taken and I tried to do a piece based on the cover of the book that I had been reading and that which made a particular impression on me.  Batik-making is difficult enough at the best of times - a trial of wax-dripping in the right quantities and dying and re-dying.  My reinvention didn't go particularly well and I quickly gave up.  E returned time and again in the quest for perfection and did rather well, although the levels of disappointment and dissatisfaction were not testament to that.

There were two notable and extraordinary sights to see.  Prambanan and Borobadour.  Both crawling with tourists but large enough to accommodate two more in search of a unique or spiritual experience.  The latter was my favourite, dotted throughout with buddhas, some encased in stone-carved 'cages'.  There was a way in which you were supposed to walk around it, in a direction and with a number of times that brought, I assume, good luck.  The whole thing is supposed to resemble a mandala.  We climbed to the top and imagined what it must be like at sunrise.

Accommodation and food were plentiful in town - although the first of the former had to be abandoned due to bedbugs.  But even that is a rite of passage for a backpacker.

For some reason that escapes me we decided to take a day out of town to a place called Dieng.  The journey was particularly notable in that the minibus that we 'took' (minibuses passed as buses in this part of the world) became more and more full - five people in the front seat alone - to the point of bursting - before the driver would consider departing.  As a result (or for some other life-threatening reason) the floor of the bus got unbearably hot later in the journey - to the point where you couldn't put your feet on it.  Reaching Dieng we found ourselves in a cool plateau - rice paddies and rolling hills.  The only place in town to stay was inhabited by some rather snooty Germans and we rather swiftly realised our mistake - this was a place for hillwalking and suchlike - not for 'hanging out'.  A couple of walks that we did, indeed, do were short and abridged thanks to the rolling mist coming down the mountain in a manner that was beautiful but a little forboding.  So - back to Yogya it was.

Merapi - the volcano - had recently erupted - the temperature was higher than usual, smoking was billowing and people were, of course, taking pictures.  People had died.