The train was uneventful. We sat in reclining seats, watched a bit of TV, and fell asleep (kind of) until our arrival in Yogya at 3:50am. We wandered down the road a bit. It was quiet and empty, expect for tuk-tuks with their drivers passed out inside. We went into a hotel lobby for a minute to use the restroom and ended up getting escorted outside, but it was okay We took refuge in a 24 hour McD's and waited until breakfast and the bus to start. We headed the bus stop where we were met with the nicest people who helped us get into the 30 cent bus for the almost hour ride to Prambanan Archaeological Park.
After our much needed nap and lunch at an amazing Indo-French pizza joint, we decided to do a Little local exploring of our area despite the thunder and rain. This part of town, a few miles south of the train station and main tourist areas, is much quieter, cleaner, less crowded, and just plain nicer. The "Main stretch" is 2 block of the road we stay on, which is more like an alley than a road. The stores are all Batik (explanation to come) and antique shops. We had fun looking at all the random and old trinkets and made a few local purchases. There was a shop dedicated to only locally made items, which was quite alot. Here, there is silver, copper, and brass jewelry and stuff made, puppets, leather skin workings (explanation to come), carving, painting, batik, stitching, everything. There was some trouble purchasing, due to me forgetting my money in the hostel, so we kept walking up and down the same road window shopping, eating, and getting my money. There was a tuk-tuk driver who wanted to talk, even after he discovered we WALK everywhere. He asked about Obama, the "icon" of America to many places overseas. We finally decided, as the rain had stopped, to go see the sultan's palace. Don't know every much about it, except its not as cool as it sounds and got boring reviews. Basically the guy wanted $2 for both to drive us around, take us new places, do the palace, and wait, so we agreed.
Little did we know, the palace was closed already, which was fine. He instead took us to a few local art places where we learned alot. First stop was a leather maker. By maker I mean carver. We walked into a room with a table and a stone and some tools. The maker talked to us for about an hour. They imported buffalo leather, as Indonesian buffalo hide is too tough since they are working animals here. The items they made were puppets. Leather people with button hinge arms and legs. They made VERY intricate patterns designed on them (that went all the way through) that were created by hammering different ended bike nails into the leather. Back in the day, the puppets were used to educate children about life lessons. They had good/bad motifs, sharing, etc. The puppets have since developed characteristics. There are 200 total figures, 100 human, 50 animals, 50 others. They are representations of Hindu Gods. The actual people all look almost the same, which is the point, as the stories are about what is inside, not on the outside, that counts. They have odd body features, for example, all have very large butts. This represents the bottom of a human, earth. The patters of this earth represent the 4 elements. The upper part, around the chest, is the emotions. There are swirls, representing the ups and downs of emotion. The evil spirit that everyone has is represented on the back of the neck (why yous hairs stands up there when you sense evil/danger) because you can't see your own evil spirit. All the colors to color the leather when they are finished are naturally made and stand for something. Yellow, from tumeric, is justice. Red, from beetles, is smarts. Blue, indigo, loyalty. White from crushed buffalo bone, gold from insect wings. He then asked us about our favorite colors and told us the traits we might have from them. He, just like all the others in SE Asia, asked Alma is she was mixed bc she looked Asia. He found out we were American and said Obama studied here and he and Clinton came and got puppets. And they are the only leather puppet makers that supplied the palace with their puppets. I bought one, Khumi, who is a mothering figure. I gave the maker my email address and he will be sending me her story.
Next we made a stop at the art gallery that sells art from the the university at Yogya's Fine Arts program. There were a few oil paintings, but mostly batik. We sat down with the shop owner with some tea, where he made another mention of Alma's possible Asian-ness when she dumped sugar into hers, as Indonesians like their palette sweet. Batik is much more complicated than we thought. First, beeswax is melted and a handmade instrument is used to make a drawing. It has a little canister on a piece of bamboo or wood that send the wax into a thinner tube, so it comes out like pens ink. Each instrument has any different sizes. What happens is, the wax makes a painting, then the cloth is dipped into die, so the cloth under the wax isn't colored. The cloth then gets dipped into hot water and the wax comes off. So, for the traditional sarongs, this is okay, because they are simple repetitive designs with one color. But paintings are not. You have to plan to over lap colors and put more wax over certain ones, its complicated . The artists now are experimenting with different techniques to come up with different textures. Because it is dyed and no wax is left when its come, the actual cloth is like a shirt, its dyed. You can hand wash it, iron it, fold it, touch it, etc. Awesome.
Got an early night with an earlier rise (3am) to make our sunrise tour!!!
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