History of Yogyakarta:
While Jakarta is the nations capital, Yogyakarta is its soul. It is here where you will find the roots of the Javanese peoples, and the remenants of their rich culture. Here in Yogya, you will hear a different language spoken on the streets. The Javanese language is one of the most widely spoken languages and it also lent much of its structure to Bahasa Indonesian. I always enjoyed flexing my new language abilities, and this time I got to learn bits of a completely new language.
Yogya is run by a sultan, from the central palace (kraton) and to this day maintains this royal status. Its neighboring Solo has its own royal family as well, and this rivalry between the two has gone on for hundreds of years.
If it is art and batik you are looking for, you are in the right place in Yogya.
The experience
I am ashamed to say that I decided against taking the train to Yogyakarta from Jakarta. While it was much cheaper, it also took soooo much longer and truth be told the trains are pretty sketchy. So I gave into my spoiled western needs for comfort and bought a plane ticket instead. I know I know, I'm killing our environment... I promise I'll buy carbon credits to offset it when I have a legit job.
Fitting with the style of the entire trip (Lets go back to day one, where I boarded a plane to the other side of the planet with no plans for accommodations and no idea where to go!) I got off the plane in the middle of the night, on one of the busiest periods of the year. It took sooooo long to find a hostel. The first night I ended up sharing a single bed. The next night I struck the jackpot and found an amazing hostel with amazing people and EVEN BETTER BANANA PANCAKES! (from this day on, every single morning I had banana pancakes)
So what to do in Yogya?
ussually,
- buy batik paintings (more on this later)
- check out the kraton (palace)
- museums
- markets
I definitely didn't follow that. Decided against the kraton as it was super busy, expensive and I heard from fellow hostel travelers it really wasn't worth it. Apparently its not well kept and rather bland and crumbling. I skipped the museums too. I wanted to see the city alive as it was, and so I went on numerous strolls through the markets, streets and alleys. Met amazing local people and had great food.
It was nearing Ramadan and this meant festivities were taking place for one final hurrah! before the fasting month. Right on time. I'm going hiking and trekking, and theres going to be no food to be found. Luckily, I only ran in to trouble once with this. (refer to Kawah Ijen, two blogs from now)
We went out to the bars, listening to reggae and rock and everything in between. A highlight of my Yogya stay was the street festival. The entire city gathered on the main street and just jammed out. It was a free for all. If you wanted to go sing, you could. You can't even imagine the amount of fun I was having. Wildest night.
The next highlight was a direct result of me staying off the beaten path. I decided to wander out of the tourist area and actually ended up in the residential quarters of the royal palace. I saw a man approach me and I knew he was going to ask me to leave. I didn't even know how I got in there. Turns out he was very welcoming with perfect English. He was a former tour guide for the kraton and was very excited when I told him I was Canadian. He ran to his house, and grabbed a book all about Canada. We went through the pictures and I told him all about them.
He asked me if I had any plans and I told him I'm not much of a planner, and that I was just strolling. He offered to take me on a tour and also offered to take us to his friends Batik Painting store, called Batik Cemeti. This is where I hit the jackpot once again.
From the previous encounters with people hassling me to buy their batik paintings, I got a general idea of how much they wanted. It ussually hovered around the 800,000RP ($85) range. I knew I was being ripped off. At the store this man took me too, he showed me the paintings in progress, and offered me similar quality paintings for a TENTH of the price. I walked away with 3 amazing paintings for a total of $25. If you are ever in Yogya, look for Batik Cemeti! Ask around and do not buy paintings from street offers!
Here are some pictures of the amazing experience at Batik Cemeti. You see the woman applying the wax, which is then dipped into dye, and those areas left unwaxed get painted. Then this process is repeated for each seperate colour. Its a painstakingly long process. In another picture you see the man who took me on the tour showing me the organic dyes.
I was so thankful and so excited to meet this man, that I offered to take him out for dinner. We walked to his favourite Satay Ayam place and conversed.
Yogya was so much fun, but it is the stepping stone to Java's most remarkable sites. Here is where you can buy a tour package to visit Prambanan and Borobodur (amazing temples) and Mount Bromo and Kawah Ijen (volcanoes)
So I bought my tour package, and was off to climb ancient temples and active volcanoes! Thats coming in the next blog =)
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