Well January has flown by. It’s been a combination of fantastic, great, good, lumayan and terrible. Tensions have been running high as the stress and upset of people returning home has hit. The month started of great with an air of festivity; a bunch of anak ACICIS and new friends seeing in the New Year at the beach in Seminyak. It was really something special standing on the beach in the warm tropical rain seeing in the New Year with friends from all over the world. Unfortunately, this also marked a bittersweet end. The end of ACICIS Semester 31 and the returning home of my fellow ACICIS students. Everyone was going home either in January or February and it marked a change to the Jogja I know and love.
After returning home from Bali I said goodbye to several of my friends and then I myself went home for ten days (plus two nights staying at the airport and a quick night stop over in Bali). Going home was so strange. After six months abroad the whole experience was surreal and really strange. My ten days at home were far from relaxing and visiting Albany with to 80+ year olds one who was sick really didn’t help. I think I experienced reverse culture shock in a big way. Why there are definitely parts of Australia I miss (namely my friends and family) I feel that life in Australia is too sanitary and stagnant. I felt like no-one truly understood what I’d gone through and found that my friends and family were still in the same place they were 6 months ago. I don’t know exactly how to express how I felt in Australia and I’m sure it’s only because in the last 6 months I’ve done so much.
Needless to say I was glad to get back to Jogja after 10 days of craziness and hectic-ness (not that it's been relaxing since). After a night stopover in Bali and picking up Koko who was coming to Jogja there was a sigh of relief when I finally touched down. As it was Steph and Katrina's last week in Jogja we decided to do what we hadn't done during the semester which turned out to be a lot. So after returning on Tuesday, it was a quick swap of clothes, repack of my backpack and straight off to Solo for the night. Solo, like the books says, is a sleepy version of Jogja. Being only an hour train ride away it had many of the same characteristics as Jogja but there was just something not quite right. Maybe it just seemed to quiet but I've definately become a Jogja Snob. We went to Kraton, the Antique Market and to the mall (because it was raining) to watch a movie - some crazy Indonesian horror movie about who knows what :(. This was all fine but nothing to special, though we did manage to find some nice vegetarian food at Warung Baru.
The next day was another jam packed day of sightseeing as we headed to Gunung Lawu and to Candi Ceto and Candi Sukuh (some Hindu temples near the mountain). We then headed to a regional tourist haunt, Sarangan, on the advise from our driver, where we got accosted by hawkers trying to sell their wares to us bules. As foreigners living in Indonesia this is a regular annoyance we’ve become accustomed to. Next it was to the UNESCO Museum where the Java Man was found. This museum although UNESCO listed wasn’t particularly well curated and due to extensive renovations we only could see two displace rooms and only replicas of relics found. At five we took the train back to Jogja, went home and showered and then headed to Coffee Break to plan our assault on Dieng Plateau the next day.
Getting up at 5.15 the next day was a struggle; after three particularly early mornings dragging myself out of bed was the last thing I wanted to do. We then drove the particularly windy roads to Wonosobo where we ate Mie Ongklok, the areas specialty dish. We then continued on our path to Dieng Plateau – up the mountains and through the beautiful scenery. Dieng Plateau is amazing although due to the kawah sikidang (hot sulfur crater) the smell is rather pungent. Our first stop at Dieng Plateau was Arjuna Temple Complex, where we got accosted by a middle school for about a million photos (sometimes I hate being white). The temples were interesting to look at but in the end nothing particularly special. I think being hounded by a bunch of middle school girls, followed by their teachers and then the school girls again put a damper on our spirits. Next it was to the pungent kawah sikidang – it stunk so much but it was worth seeing. The hot bubbling sulfur in the crater makes you appreciate nature so much more. The fact that nature can produce such things is amazing and makes you realise that humans really are only a small fraction of what exists in nature. We followed this by a trip to the beautiful Telaga Pengilon. By this point we were all a bit exhausted, the weather was getting worse so we decide it was time to pull the pin and go home.
We started the three hour drive home which was hampered only by the hour long traffic jam at a village that had been destroyed by cold lava at the base of Gunung Merapi. This sight has now become a tourist sight which seems rather insensitive as many of the people here have lost their houses, businesses and thus their livelihoods. Boulders taller than me and wider than my height had been swept down the mountain in a mud-slide wiping out anything in its path. It’s rather unimaginable and there we were right in the middle of it.
After getting back, mandi and having a bit of a rest we headed off to Coffee Break to watch Katrina, Yasmin and the rest of the Jogaroos perform and promote their album they recorded a few months ago. After hearing the recorded versions of the songs and several live renditions where equipment has gone wrong (microphones not working, not being turned on loud enough or the guitar being too loud) it was fantastic to finally see a performance where everyone could be heard and that sounded fantastic. Katrina’s sometimes excessive commentary (you know I love you Kat) added more festivity to the occasion. I called it fairly early that night as I was fairly tired and went home to sleep as we were taking Koko to Prambanan the following day.
The elusive Prambanan (elusive in the sense I’ve been in Jogja for over 6 months now and every time I’ve had the time to go there something else has come up) happened on the Friday before Katrina and Steph left. As Katrina has been there 3 times already she provided us her free tour guide service and guided us through these ancient Hindu temples. They truly are amazing pieces of architecture and it’s unfortunate that every time there’s a big earthquake in Jogja (which happens fairly often) Prambanan is damaged. Having some background on the building it was great to finally explore these temples and see why they have become a UNESCO listed sight.
After Prambanan we went to Ratu Boko, the ruins of another temple area about a 15 minute complementary car ride away. Whilst the landscape was certainly beautiful here, we were all so tired and hungry it would have been best to leave it for another day. So we jumped on a bus back to Amplaz then took a taxi to Pondok Cabe and enjoyed a deliciously spicy vegetarian lunch. YUM! We then continued down to Malioboro, back to Katrina’s kos and then back down south to ViaVia where we were meant to have dinner (it was a bit of a disaster with too many people coming but it all worked out in the end J). It marked the end of Steph and Katrina’s 6 month journey in Indonesia and I already miss them terribly after less than a week.
The adventures we shared, the good times and the bad, the highs and the lows and Merapi we will all always remember. It’s been a pleasure getting to know you.
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