The last week-and-a-half has been a very full and busy time compared to much of the last twenty-two weeks, so I'll just tell you about some of the things I've been up to. Grr, Australia's just scored a try :( And from 70 metres out, too. And I thought it was the All Blacks who were the counter-attack masters, looks like the Wallabies are good at it too.
Prambanan, 18th-19th November
I rented a push bike from someone on the little path I was staying on in Yogyakarta and made my way to Prambanan, a plain with lots of 8th and 9th century Hindu and Buddhist temples. I could have taken the 18km fume-choked duel-carriageway that goes straight there but seeing as I had a few hours of sunlight left I decided to take the longer but quieter route along a canal. The scenery was typically Javanese - rice fields in the foreground, volcanos in the background - and really once you've seen one piece of Javanese countryside you've seen it all. Just before turnin
g back onto the duel-carriageway I reached a small village and stopped for a while to watch a primary school football tournament, much to their delight. At Prambanan I checked myself into a simple losmen (homestay), had some nasi goreng (fried rice) and a sprite for tea and made my way to a theatre at the back of the main temple complex where there was going to be a classical Javanese ballet performance of the Ramayama. The Ramayama - one of the great Hindu epics - is a very long and complicated story about life, the universe and everything, so I wasn't convinced that they would be able to tell the whole story in only a two-hour long ballet. Indeed, it was only really the skeleton of the story that they told but the overall performance was excellent: fluid dancing, colourful costumes and great gamelan accompaniment. In the summer months they do a longer four-night outdoor performance over the weekend of the full moon with the main temple luring over behind the stage but now that it's the rainy season they take it indoors which means you're a lot closer to the action.The next day I had my requested 5 am knock on the door and started on my way to explore some of the smaller temples around the plain that hardly anyone goes to, partly because you can only really get to them by bike and partly because most people just come for the main Candi Prambanan. But, being me, I wanted to see these out-of-the-way candis. The first one I got to, Candi Sajiwan, was a Buddhist temple decorated with reliefs concerning education and the base and staircase were decorated with animal fables. It was, however, covered in wooden scaffolding. But being Indonesia and not caring about Health and Safety signs there was nothing to tell me not to climb it, so I climbed it fo
r a good look down at the ruined mini-temples all around. Every candi had these mini-temples surrounding them and they were all in ruins but it was sometimes difficult to tell whether that was a cause of time or because of the devistating earthquake that hit the area in May 2006, killing 5,782 people. Then I went to a couple more candis, passing plenty of early morning workers in the rice paddies along the way and with the constant view of the smoking Mt. Merapi in the distance - although it was a lot closer than it looked. Mt. Merapi is Indonesia's most active volcano and the fourth most active in the world. I may go and climb it next week but what with the paths being slippery at this time of year and infested with poisonous snakes and spiders I might decide to give it a miss.It was time for some breakfast... but there wasn't much choice. In fact, at the little roadside shop I'd stopped at to buy some water there wasn't any choice. So I settled for the only thing they had to eat: peanuts fried in batter! Now, Indonesian cuisine is very grease-heavy by anyone's standards but this really did take the biscuit. Actually, it was quite a lot like a biscuit. Oh, but it have a few strips of seaweed for flavour, so maybe that makes it a little more
healthy... Anyway, I was going to need the energy because I had a steep hill in front of me to climb to get to the next candi. After about 50m I realised it was going to be impossible to cycle up so I pushed the bike the whole way and was looking forward to racing back down the other way! It was worth the effort though because this temple - Candi Ijo - had something special about it. I'm not sure what, it was just the atmosphere. There was one main candi and three medium-sized candis with ruined mini-candis beyond. Obviously I was the only visitor there but there were plenty of others around - a few gardeners weeding the lawn, a few stone masons repairing the stone wall surrounding the complex and someone sweeping away the dust they created. And here, just like on all the other temples, there were intricate carvings all over the walls and even a very cute statue of a cow in one of the smaller candis.After some time I went back to the losmen for lunch and
then to the main temple complex just across the road. After passing the hordes of people trying to sell me souvenirs for something I hadn't seen yet at a ridiculous price I was inside the grounds. The first thing you see is a board showing 'before and after' pictures from the time of the 2006 earthquake: the 'before' ones show the complex in all its majesty, while the 'after's show collapsed walls, fallen spires, disjointed blocks of stone and rubble lying all around. Given the magnitude of the quake it's fortunate that it didn't completely collaps, but it did unfortunately mean that only two of the candis were open to walk into (here they did care a little about Health and Safefy!) and one of the largest ones in the centre was covered in ugly red scaffolding. The boards also told of how they were going to repair the damage, which is going to take a long long time.It's going to be hard to explain everything about Prambanan so I'll just go over it quickly and then if you're interested you can look it up on wiki! Basically there were six main temples in the centre square. The big ones at the back are dedicated to Brahma the Creator, Shiva the Destroyer (the biggest one) and Vishnu the keeper. The smaller ones in front are dedicated
to their vehicles, or vahana - the bull Nandi for Shiva, the gander Angsa for Brahma, and Vishnu's Eagle Garuda. Garuda is also the national symbol for Indonesia, like the Red Dragon in Wales so you see it everywhere. Around this central square of large temples - the main one, Shiva's, is 47 metres tall - was a wall and beyond that there were 224 mini candis, by now all rubble. These mini temples form square rings around the centre square, the different rings symbolising the different stages of the Hinds and 'Trees of World Harmony' surrounded by birds and all sorts of other animals.u cosmos, with the main candi's, specifically Shiva, being at the centre, highest level of the universe. As is always the case, the temples were covered in intricate relief carvings on their walls. The carvings on the Shiva and Brahma temples illustrate the Ramayama story while the one on the Vishnu temple tells the story of Lord Krishna. There were lots of other reliefs and stone carvings dotted around - dogs and mythical creatures to protect the enteranceAfter walking around this Prambanan complex I wondered off to the museum on the grounds which had some interesting items they'd excavated and also a film about the
candi's history, which was more about bashing the 'unharmonious' modern world than anything else! Then I made my way about 1km North to the final temple for the day - Candi Sewu. This Buddhist temple, along with the others on the plain, actually predates Candi Prambanan; It was build in the 8th century but the Buddhist kingdom was defeated by a Hindu king who built the Hindu temples in the 9th century. But he left the Buddhist temples intact as a mark of respect. Again, its 200 mini temples are now all in ruin and the Buddhas who used to sit in them are now all headless at the very least. The most impressive thing about this temple though is the two giant guardian statues on either side of the enterance, both fat, fierce and weilding a club. You see mini reproductions of these all over Indonesia - at the enterance of large houses and restaurants, etc. By this time it was starting to get late and drizzle so I quickly went back to where I'd left the bike and made my way back to Yogyakarta, this time along the highway so as to get there before dark. And then I went to bed early because I was going to have another pre-6 am morning on my birthday the following day!Hurray, we won the game! Cymru 21 - 18 Awstralia. Tense few moments at the end there, mind. Well done, hogie.
1 comment:
Da iawn Cymru 'wir. Wela i di dydd Llun.
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