Yogyakarta - Rainy Season, Borobudur and Prambanan Temples

We are back in Indonesia and suddenly back in the rainy season. Yogyakarta welcomes us with cloudy skies and lots of rain, sometimes heavy showers, sometimes drizzle, but it always rains a little bit. After almost two months of mostly blue skies and sunshine, this really brings us down and we actually start to feel a little homesick! But the good news is that Elena is finally healthy again! We were looking forward to Yogyakarta because the guidebook says that this is the cultural capital of Java, with lots of art and beautiful little cafes, a university city with many young people. But when we look for this flair in the city, we don't find anything particularly appealing. Are we just not seeing it? Are we experiencing travel fatigue? The apparent lack of interesting places and tourist infrastructure is exhausting. Sometimes it's difficult to find the right balance between "real life of the locals" and "tourist infrastructure" - if there is too much tourism, it can feel like being in a kind of Disneyland, if there is too little, you might sometimes feel lost. From Yogyakarta, we make two trips to ancient temples, namely to "Borobudur" and to "Prambanan". The Borobudur Temple is famous and supposed to be very impressive, but compared to what we saw in Angkor Wat, this temple doesn't blow us away. Of course, it must be mentioned that it is heavily cloudy and we cannot really enjoy the elevated location of the temple, from which you could see the beautiful nature and, in good weather, the Merapi volcano. What we mainly do at the temple: take countless photos with locals!

We like the Prambanan Temple better, although it was announced as much less spectacular in the guidebook (what a world...who writes guidebooks?). With Elena's new red and white striped T-shirt, we take funny "Where's Waldo" photos and enjoy the amazing temples.

When we want to organize our onward journey to Mount Bromo on the same day, we get a shock when a hotel near the volcano writes the following in the reply email to our reservation request: "We are sorry to inform you that the Bromo area will be closed for Nyepi day from 7th-8th March." - what? Nyepi is the highest Balinese Hindu holiday, so to speak, the Balinese New Year. On this day, the "Day of Silence", Bali comes to a complete standstill, including the closure of the airport and a curfew for all people. But we are not in Bali! We were not aware that there are areas in East Java where Hindu minorities live. Even the hotel staff in Yogyakarta is surprised and disbelieving when we ask them, but it's true. So we wait one more day. In the evening, we visit a Wayang Kulit performance, a Javanese shadow theater that tells stories from Hindu mythology, portrayed by beautifully detailed leather shadow puppets. We arrive at the performance much too early, but we are already let in and pay the very low entrance fee of 1.50 Swiss francs and take a seat in front of the stage, which is set up with many instruments and a screen with two lamps in front of it. So we sit there and wait until suddenly it dawns on us that we are sitting on the wrong side of the stage, and then we change sides, but now we can only see the screen.

Gradually, the musicians and puppeteers come, a total of 18 (!) people, and start their gamelan music. Well, how can I describe this...at first, it sounds like everyone is testing their instruments, or as if a primary school class has been given some xylophones, gongs, and drums and everyone is playing something at random. That's gamelan music - if you can get into it, the music is complex, almost hypnotizing and interesting. Elena can get into it more than Claudio, let's put it that way. Our program sheet describes the story that is being played, but unfortunately, in the first half hour, there is so much Javanese text (which we don't understand) without the figures moving or the music playing along, that we exchange more and more questioning glances with each passing minute. But we are the only audience! When four more people come and sit down in the middle of the performance, we seize the chance, and I feel so sorry for the musicians, and we leave the room through the side/back door. Are we cultural boors (the performance would have lasted two hours)? The next day, we wonder if at least the other spectators stayed until the end (hopefully).

Then at some point, the time in Yogya is over and we are excited to continue our journey by train, because we can finally go to Mount Bromo.