Photo Link:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/57YW8hzeKBsygPwVA
After my jungle trek and one night in Medan, I flew over to Yogyakarta, which is in Central Java. Java is the most populated island in the world (even more than Great Britain or Japan’s largest island, which includes most of its’ big cities like Tokyo and Osaka), and while Jogja was quite pleasant in terms of size, Jakarta to the west is a big factor why. But this density meant that there was excellent train connections to get around the island (Indonesia as a whole has shockingly good infrastructure. Top-notch airports, good train and bus connections, very impressed in general). It was a three hour flight from Medan to Jogja, and I basically got to my hostel, ate dinner, and slept.
My first day, I did a ~half day trip (about 7ish hours in total from leaving to returning) to the Hindu temple complex of Prambanan. Honestly, the temple was fine and even pretty cool, but I have absolutely seen better in India and (obviously) Cambodia. The temple design was certainly pretty unique, as it was for all 3 main gods – Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma, as opposed to just one of them. It was like 1200 years old, and each temple was a giant tower with typical “southeast asian” motifs (for lack of a better word), especially with the eyes of the figures on the wall carvings and the dragon-like creature that was on the archway tops. And at the same time, there were clear parallels with Tamil and south Asian temples, especially with the dancing poses of the figures and the headgear they were all wearing. I think the biggest disappointment for me was that all 3 temples were closed for protective purposes, so you could only walk around them. But I guess this does make sense..there were TONS of domestic tourists. Java as a whole had tons and tons of domestic tourists, from Prambanan to Borobodur to Jogja itself. The satellite temples around Prambanan were more of the same…pretty cool but I’ve definitely seen better all across India in terms of small temples. There was a mix of Buddhist and Hindu here, and all were roughly the same 1200 year old age (which, to be fair, is older than the vast majority of temples I have seen in India, really outside of Kanchipuram and Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu and the Ellora Caves in Maharashtra, all of which are awesome, especially the main Shiva cave temple in Ellora which is still the single most impressive religious monument I have ever seen). I think the highlight of the Prambanan temple complex for me was a couple of the Buddhist satellite temples where there was this funky and cool giant fat dude demon statue who was guarding the entrances, bearing an impressive mustache.
The day after, I took a day trip to the other main temple and what is probably Java’s biggest draw, the 1200 year old Buddhist temple of Borobodur. Probably slightly more impressive than Prambanan, but still, I had a similar reaction. I think the temples of Java to me are closest to the 1000-ish year old temples I saw in the east Indian state of Odisha a few years back…undeniably interesting but ultimately, given the stupid number of temples I have seen, nothing noteworthy. Like how I am often underwhelmed by many impressive natural sights given all of my traveling, the same is unfortunately true for other things like temples and (especially) cities. Like Prambanan, Borobodur was closed so you could only walk in a circle around the giant complex, and even moreso than Prambanan, it was absolutely stuffed to the gills with local tourists. Honestly, it’s amazing to see domestic tourism so strong…in many countries (really outside of India, my 2 weeks in China, and hiking trails in the US, I think literally every other country I’ve been to), the *vast* majority of tourists are foreigners. So it is cool that locals are taking an interest in their cultural heritage and history.
One nifty thing that my dad pointed out from the pictures I sent of Borobodur, was that the Buddhas here have curly hair. This, we thought, was due to the Gandharan influence (in modern day Pakistan/Afghanistan border area, basically the current Pashtun heartland funnily enough) which in turn stems from the Greek influence of Alexander the Great’s invasions. Honestly that was the one really cool thing to me about the Roman stuff I’ve seen and especially Greece…just how old everything is. Really only bits of Iraq and a lot of Egypt top it in terms of age. But it is cool to see the impacts of global trade in a time before our ultra-globalization of today…the Gandharan influence made its’ way down through India before eventually going over to Java. One potentially cool related thing here…Buddhist and Hindu temples here are called Candi, which is pronounced “chahn-dee”, much like the sanskrit word Shanti. I wonder if there’s a link there. Much like how in Cambodia the temples are called Prasat which is similar to the word prasadam, which means “holy” food that you eat served from the temple. But yea, it honestly is quite remarkable how ancient Buddhist architecture from the most different of places – the Tibetan Plateau in Ladakh and Spiti in far northern India, Sanchi Stupa in central India, the Ajanta Caves in western India, Afghanistan, mainland southeast Asia, now Java – all have remarkable consistencies with their architecture and motifs. Everything consistently looks the same, from the stupas to the Buddhas to the stories that are carved in on the wall panels. Now obviously there are still some regional differences here, especially for the Tibetan stuff and some of the more modern vanilla SE asian stuff (like the giant pagoda in Myanmar, which is, despite me calling it vanilla, amazing). But if you contrast ancient Buddhist architecture with Islam (the mosques of Ottoman Turkey vs the Persian influenced mosques of Uzbekistan and Iraq and Afghanistan to the mosques of Mughal India vs the distinctly southeast asian mosque I saw in Jogja…Indonesia is far and away predominantly Muslim), Hinduism (temple architecture in south India vs north India vs Bali, which is totally unlike anything in India), or Christianity (Catholic vs Orthodox), I feel like Buddhism is, to my untrained eye, the most architecturally consistent one.
Jogja is known as having the best food scene in Indonesia, so I did a street food tour one night while there. I think that overall, I preferred the best of Sumatran food to the best of Jogja and Javanese food because the food in Sumatra is a good bit spicier. But just from sheer variety I would say Jogja and Java takes the cake…it was impossible to get bored of the food variety here. Both Sumatra and Jojga/Java blow Bali out of the water when it comes to food, to be honest. One dish that is very specific to Jogja is called Nasi Gudeg, which is basically a pulled jackfruit dish served with cowskin, egg, and tofu. Like everything in Jogja, the food is sweet due to being cooked with palm sugar, and yet there is a distinct burn to it as well. They really do sweet and spicy together very, very well. It’s a great and filing breakfast dish, and it’s cool to see that pulled jackfruit has been used as a food for god knows how long in places like here and Sri Lanka and Kerala (in southwest India) way before haute western chefs imported this idea to replace meat in some of their veggie dishes. The consistency really is like pulled chicken it is quite remarkable, especially when you consider that raw jackfruit tastes like, well, a fruit.
Other food highlights here include eating a skewered chicken head (delicious, sweet because of, of course, being cooked in palm sugar), lekker (Indonesia used to be a dutch colony, hence the use of the dutch word lekker. Basically a crepe-like dish, very light and tasty), and the sambal sauce that is used ubiquitously (basically a chili paste, super spicy and I LOVE it). The use of tapioca is awesome – it’s one of my favorite textures of any food. There were also a couple of Java specific foods that were wonderful. The highlight for me was a dish called Jajan Pasar, which is basically these rice cakes stuffed with palm sugar and coated in shredded coconut flakes. Honestly some of the best snack food I’ve ever eaten, I love this stuff. And also this weird sweet drink called Wedang Ronde, which is basically a very sweet ginger tea served in a soup bowl, and filled with chunks of bread, rice balls, and peanuts (trust me it works). I didn’t drink it because I don’t drink coffee, but another Jogja specific thing is called Kopi Jos, kopi being coffee and jos being the noise that is made when they dump a lump of hot charcoal into the coffee. I think I will start doing more street food tours in cities that are known for street food (looking at you, Japan) in the half-year+ I have left of travel, since this was a great experience. Overall, while Jogja is not the best food city I have been to, I think it is hands down the best cheap food city I have ever been to. Literally every meal can be had for well under 2 USD, it’s all delicious, and you will be full. Indonesia as a whole has been wonderful food-wise, but Jogja definitely the best of the country.
Continuing the theme of food…my hostel in Jogja served an excellent free breakfast every day. Maybe not to the level of my hostel in Oaxaca or in Aquaba, Jordan, in terms of breakfast quality, but absolutely next best after those two. We were always served great local fruits along with an Indonesian dish, from lychees to dragonfruit to starfruit. The hostel as a whole was super nice and easily one of the better hostels I have ever stayed in, a converted manor into a small boutique hostel. Speaking of converted manors, Jogja is filled with these quaint streets of colonial houses. It’s aesthetically a pretty city, if a bit overrated in terms of cultural sightseeing (I’ll get to that soon). And it is also a very clean city…literally as clean as some of the cleanest spots of Europe. I’m definitely pleasantly in shock with how nice it was there.
One other food thing…satay is also huge in Indonesia, which, along with many other culinary similarities, is something they share in common with Malaysia. In fact, the Indonesian and Malaysian languages are very similar to each other – a dude in my Jogja hostel was from KL and “only” knew Malay but was able to speak with all the locals here.
The main things to see in Jogja are a bunch of royal palaces. I guess to preface, I am not a palace person. The best royal residencies are ones that incorporate religious architecture for me, so like in Uzbekistan, Turkey, Cairo, Delhi, (all Islamic), or Rajasthan and Mysore (both influenced by Mughal Islam) and Sevilla (influenced by Moorish Islam). I guess it would be more accurate to say that I like royal Islamic architecture. Otherwise, I have found royal residencies to be forgettable, whether it is Versailles and Cheononceaux in France or the Bangkok stuff, to now this. But yea, these were nice and picturesque, but ultimately whatever for me. There was also a Dutch fort with an informative display about the Indonesian war for independence directly after WW2. Cool enough, but I guess I am not suuuuper into Indonesian and Dutch history so it didn’t resonate with me as much as a similar history museum might have in Central Asia/Middle East/India/Germany/Russia/etc. might have. But yea, I’ve mentioned this before but when I am interested in a region’s history I am like fully gung-ho, but otherwise I am ambivalent.
I honestly think the highlight of Jogja (and Java) for me was this one night I was at a local public park. In the square road surrounding the park were all these shells of old cars that were FULLY lit up and decorated, like they were straight out of Burning Man. You could rent a car with a few people and then pedal them around the road for a lap or more (the insides were just pedals and a steering wheel to turn the car). The funniest part was actually that real cars also drive on this road, so they were frequently stuck in traffic behind all of us slow pedal car users. But yea, this was straight out of the playa so I guess it makes sense that it was a personal highlight.
Speaking of Burning Man. On my final night in Jogja I went on a Bumble date with this girl, and we went to some noise-core festival/set in a converted manor house that is now an event space. I am always a fan of leaving my comfort zone, and this was absolutely that. Just a bunch of crazy loud dissonant sounds with people yelling into the mics. Although I generally try not to judge, beforehand I probably would have succumbed and said that it sounded dumb. But honestly, it was weirdly meditative…just sit down, shut your eyes, and take in all the noise. It *really* reminded me of like a techno/dark version of The Beatles’ Revolution #9. And much like Revolution #9, it just seemed so “modern-art” to me. I don’t know, it was absolutely a weirdly enjoyable experience and I lowkey would probably be interested in going to another one of these in NYC (if Columbia gives me good aid) or Berlin (if Columbia doesn’t give good aid) once I un-retire. And speaking of Beatles…I think the closest “pop” parallel I could point to for this sort of noise-music would be the first minute or so of Miley Cyrus’ wonderful, wonderful cover of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. But the reason I started this paragraph with “speaking of Burning Man” was because one of my big takeaways from that is to always push myself and put myself in new situations, and this absolutely was that. Jogja as a whole was a surprisingly hip city, tons of culture in terms of bars, art, music, etc. scene.
I also took a daytrip to the city of Surakarta, or Solo, which was a relatively quick and very cheap train ride from Jogja. Solo was eh at best. Like a worse version of Jogja to be honest. Nice enough for a day trip that cost just over 2 USD for a roundtrip by the excellent rail system (1 hr each way), but it was the same palace vibe of Jogja but not as photogenic. But the streets were definitely a bit quainter – far fewer domestic tourists here than Jogja – and there was sort of a ruined colonial vibe to the city, maybe like parts of Indian cities like Calcutta, Mumbai, and Chennai. But not quite as nice as those three in my opinion.
After Jogja, I took an 8 hour train east to the small city of Probolinggo. Stayed there for a night and then used it as a base for the next day to visit the Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park. We left at the ungodly hour of 2am to drive and get to a small sunrise hike, so of course the view was *100%* fogged and we couldn’t see a thing. However, we were able to see stuff once we went lower and approached these small volcanoes. Honestly it was decently cool, but I have absolutely seen way cooler natural sights while traveling. Like the rest of Java, it was stuffed to the gills with local tourists (and this is off-season! Jan is rainy season in Indonesia and I have been crazy lucky, it hasn’t impacted me at all). The highlight here was a small hike up to the rim of a crater where there was sulfurous steam bellowing from below. Pretty cool sight to be honest.
After this day trip to the park, I went back to Probolinggo and caught a 4 hour train to the eastern tip of the island of Java, to the small city of Banyuwangi. I would be taking the ferry from here to Bali the next afternoon, and then fly from Bali to Komodo for a week to scuba dive and see komodo dragons and also just hang out. Banyuwangi is also typically used as a base to do the pre-sunrise hike down to the crater of Mount Ijen, where you can see blue flames, but this was unfortunately closed due to a small eruption in the end of 2022, and the local authorities had not deemed it safe yet.
So after getting to Bali, I stayed near the airport in Kuta, actually at the very same hostel where I stayed in after leaving Bali for NY in March 2020 when the whole world collectively lost its’ mind. Overall, Java was decent, but definitely more a place that you visit if you are already in the area as opposed to going out of your way for (despite how good Jogja’s food scene was). I think it was pretty cool to see the diversity of Indonesia…Sumatra, Java, and Bali all have distinctly different cultures, with different languages, physical appearances, and in Bali’s case, religion (Bali is Hindu, rest of Indonesia is Muslim, though Sumatra has a big Christian presence). The diversity of the country makes sense given the sheer size…from the western tip to the eastern tip, Indonesia is longer than the continental US. And it was cool to see the Indian and (especially) Chinese influence on Indonesia, from the cuisine to historic religions and customs to architecture to the physical appearance of people. Indonesia so far has definitely been very distinct culturally, yet still quintessentially southeast Asian (the lush greenery, colonial architecture, scooters, street food, etc.).