Prambanan and the beginning of the end

Bobby's driver friend, Agus, is a chipper morning person. He chatted with us the entire hour ride to Prambanan Temple in the morning, and I hardly remember what we discussed. I am not a morning person.

Because we left Bobby's at around 6:30am, we were at Prambanan in plenty of time to savor it for a few hours. We made plans to return to Agus by 10am so we had a 60 minute window in which to travel the handful of kilometers to the airport (in case of traffic) and still get there with a two hour window. Not to get ahead of myself, but it only did take 15 mins to get to the airport.

Prambanan is fabulous, and we might have loved it even more than Borobudur. For one, it's easier to take in from ground level; the multi-layer, traveling-through-the-cosmos approach wasn't used for Prambanan (probably because it's a Hindu temple, as opposed to Buddhist). For another, it's set up as separate structures in a common compound, so it's far easier to navigate around swarms of people. "Prambanan Temple" is actually 240 separate temples, all in one site! Since neither Steve nor I are particularly fond of large crowds, and since we had spent the better part of the previous morning dodging 6th graders wanting selfies, we were very pleased to be able to mill about with more flexibility than had the temple been one large structure as was Borobudur. Not least, I think it's pretty cool that the largest Hindu temple complex in Indonesia isn't on the Hindu-majority island of Bali, but, rather, is on Java!

Prambanan Temple 

So we spent lots of time traipsing about the grounds, snapping photos and generally reveling in the fact that we were in Indonesia. Because it still hadn't set in and we were practically on our way out the door. 

Steve

Me

Volcano

Inside Prambanan

There were three other temples nearby inside the "park," if you will: Sewu, Bubrah, and Lumbung. It's incredible that these structures built in the 8th century have survived the volcanoes, typhoons, and earthquakes that ravage the Ring of Fire, but there you go. Really cool fact: Sewu, Bubrah, and Lumbung are actually all Buddhist temples, but are part of the larger Prambanan complex! Just goes to show that religions can peacefully cohabitate. 

Sewu Temple

Sewu Temple

After a few hours of meandering, we decided it was time to head back to Agus. We made our way out through the shopping area. We've noticed that all the temples are set up with a large complex of stalls as the exit. Great way to get tourists to buy things, but they're also accessible from the outside so that the temples can serve as the local markets, as well. We stopped and picked up some tchotchkes to bring back home. Agus scooted us off to the airport in record time and we started to wrap our heads around the trip ending. We were headed to Jakarta and would be flying back home in less than 24 hours.

We hit our first and only snag of the trip when we landed in Jakarta. I'm actually really glad to be writing this after a 3 week cooling off period because we were both STEAMING mad. We had decided to fly to Jakarta in the afternoon rather than the evening in order to be absolutely certain we'd catch our international flights. There had been some late night options which would have allowed us to spend the whole day exploring Yogyakarta and then only have maybe 4 hours in the airport before catching our flights home. I nixed that plans out of paranoia about flight delays and a desire to get a solid night's sleep. Since the Tokyo leg was due to take off at 6am, I wanted to get a solid night's sleep and not feel like a complete bag of... potatoes... on the leg home (24+ hours of daytime). So the plan was going smoothly until we arrived at the airport and discovered that our airport hotel, the one which advertised itself as being located INSIDE THE AIRPORT, was actually a 35 minute drive away. NOT in the airport. And there aren't any payphones at the Jakarta airport, and apparently the Information desk people can't make phone calls for you, so we were stumbling around like assholes trying to get my phone, which we had successfully NOT used the whole trip, to make an international call. It was an absolute nightmare. I think I've suppressed it because I frankly can't remember how we finally connected with the airport shuttle from the hotel except that we had already waited for more than an hour (and apparently he had too, because we were told to wait on floor 2 and he was on floor 3). Ugh.

So anyway, we take this bumpy-ass car ride to a hotel that's located a half hour away from the airport (so we'll have to wake up extra early to get there on time instead of being able to maximize sleep, as planned, and we all know how well I operate on not-enough sleep), get checked in, and find cockroaches in our room. I don't mind mice (until they poop on my cooking surfaces), I don't mind ants, I don't mind dog hair being all over my life. But I cannot do cockroaches, ESPECIALLY when I've been successfully living in random Airbnbs for a week and a half without them and suddenly the overpriced hotel that IS NOT INSIDE THE AIRPORT has roaches. So we're trying to explain to the guy at the front desk what was wrong with the room and he seems to just think we're having room key trouble so he sends along another guy to help us get in, and now Steve is steamed, and I'm suddenly having to be the voice of reason telling him that translating cockroach into English is probably pretty tricky and using the internet to do some of that work for me and FINALLY we get it across to them. So they're super apologetic and we figure well eff it, we're staying. So we get a new room, acknowledge to ourselves that at least 3/4 of our frustration is actually hanger, and head down to the hotel bar to have some dinner. It was the worst meal we had during our trip, but when we asked for a check they explained that they'd comped the expense due to our troubles. So that was very sweet. The poor server was pretty nervous all through our meal which we belatedly realized was because he was expecting us to be dicks because we were mad about the roaches. So then we felt like dicks. Anyway, went for a swim in the pool on the roof and watched a pretty spectacular sunset. We had it all to ourselves and, after all the bullshit, it turned out to be not such a bad way to spend our last sunset in Indonesia. And really, as far as travel snafus go, this one wasn't so bad. 

A lovely photo Steve took of Prambanan, because this should all end on a positive note

Our trip back to the airport wasn't so bad. The front desk guy suggested we leave at 3am(!!!!!!) to be sure we would get to the airport in plenty of time. We were seriously struggling to believe that we needed to leave that much of a cushion to make it there safely, but I wasn't about to doubt the guy and then miss our flight. There was a nasty thunderstorm raging when we woke up, and the poor doorman had to go out and physically flag down a cab in the rain. Our driver must've thought he was on a tryout for NASCAR or something, because we made it to the airport in a flash. No issues with security meant that we were there and ready to go with plenty of time to kill. All the flying we'd been doing meant that I was able to finish 6.5 books during the trip, so that last morning, waiting for our flight, was no different. Besides Steve almost murdering the guy next to him on the flight from Tokyo to Newark (he was a leg jiggler and I thought Steve's head was going to explode), the trip home was unremarkable. First trip to Asia is in the books.

So this is what being a celebrity is like

We woke up bright and early to get to Borobudur Temple on Saturday, and left the property at 6:15. Plan was for us to visit the temple for as long as we wished, use the free wifi there to send Bobby a message saying we had finished, and he'd come collect us. The trip to the temple took about 10 minutes and the sun was just settling low in the sky. An interesting quirk: there are two lines for visitors. One for domestic travelers, one for international. I believe at least part of this is because domestic visitors pay less, but I have to say our line was MUCH shorter! We were able to buy our tickets as a discounted deal by getting a two-temple pass which would also allow us to visit Prambanan the next day and save a few bucks in the process.

As we got inside, we quickly discovered that we were among a very small handful of western tourists, and a VERY large group of student tourists. Kids from age 5 or 6 through high school aged, clearly on school trips and all wearing matching tee shirts from their various groups. Considering how many kids (we're talking THOUSANDS of kids, all on bus trips, all visiting this massive temple complex) there were, it was a good call by all those various schools. Anyway, as we had discovered on South Bali when we met the college kids in Nusa Dua the day we rented a scooter, Indonesian kids are really psyched to have some native English speakers to practice on. Since they all start taking English in grade school, they're quite proficient, and they all want to just say hello and giggle at our accents. So we're walking into the temple complex, built in the 9th century and the LARGEST BUDDHIST TEMPLE IN THE WORLD, and there are kids everywhere. There are these beautifully manicured gardens, and there's a massive staircase you've gotta climb to get up to it, and then the whole thing is set up as a trek through Buddhist cosmology, moving steadily up through to enlightenment. So it's a series of square layers, topped by circular layers, topped by a dome. We're slowly approaching, doing our tourist thing, and some kids come up, giggling, and ask to take photos with us. We're so pleased because the little critters are so excited, as only middle schoolers who are slightly nervous can be. So en route up the stairs we're probably stopped 5-6 times by various groups of kiddos. When we get up the first giant staircase to get to the ground level of the temple itself, we swung around to the south facing wall, which looked less populated, and climbed from there.

Celebrities

Borobudur Temple from the ground

Relief on Borobudur

 The structure is unbelievably massive. You can hardly fit the whole thing into a camera frame. But we made our way around and slowly up to the circular layers which are covered with these giant domes that look like latticed bells just sitting on the ground. They're called stupa. Each stupa houses its own Buddha statue, and they overlook stunning views. If you Google Borobudur Temple, the stupa are probably what you'll see. As such, the stupa are where all the crowds go for picture taking. Including the kiddos. And by the time we got up to the stupa layers of the temple, they were all wide awake and no longer shy about asking for pictures. When I tell you that we were each asked to take over 100 photos with various folks - mostly kids, but not entirely - it is not an exaggeration. We had so much fun!!! They were so excited, I kept feeling like Bradley Cooper making my way through the site. We kept saying to each other "are you sure they don't think you're famous?" because we were so inundated with photo requests. We eventually agreed to stop making eye contact with people because that at least slowed the tide of requests! Our cheeks burned from all the smiling, but it was such a blast because every person would light up when we said yes like we had just made their whole day. It was a very cool feeling, but it was VERY tiring. There was another couple, Australian by their accents, and they were such jerks that it made us feel even better about being nice. They were rude to the kids and kept griping about how they were going to have to edit out all the people from their photos - um, sorry that the most-visited tourist site in Indonesia hasn't accommodated your Instagram habit well enough. Rude.

Stupa... inside each is a Buddha statue

Stupa are very large

Volcano AND stupa

Anyway, we had tons of fun snapping selfies with the other tourists, but the sun was a'coming and it was getting hot. We decided to roll out and wander the grounds a bit, and then go grab some food in town - it was nearly 10am by that point, so we'd been wandering a while. There was a fried chicken shop nearby that we decided to check out and someone had very casually left an owl tethered to their motorbike outside. Just hanging out on the handles. #casual. After some nosh, we wandered down a side street in the direction of a massage parlor that Google seemed to think existed (it didn't) and past the local Catholic church! They had very kindly left a mass schedule on the bulletin board along with whether the mass would be said in Javanese or Indonesian. There was a 6 o'clock mass scheduled in Javanese, so I made a mental note and we headed back towards the temple. Being so close to the end of the trip, we were pretty well exhausted at this point. Despite the afternoon downtime during the rainstorm the previous afternoon, we decided to replicate it and spend another low key day at Bobby's place. That porch was just too inviting to pass up, and it's not every day that I can enjoy the sounds of wild parrots and glance up from my kindle to see a volcano, so we went for it. Bobby had offered to do a tour of the village he lives in, and to go see a coffee plantation, but we weren't totally sure how to decline graciously (not least because it was going to cost like $25USD each), so we decided that our best bet was to just totally exhaust ourselves by walking the few kilometers home!

Middle schoolers

Who am I to turn down a selfie with this adorable little person?

So we set out. And we've barely made it a quarter mile down the road before Seo, Bobby's girlfriend, pulls up on a scooter and starts rapid-fire apologizing to us because she thinks we've been abandoned by our drivers! We try to explain to her that we've CHOSEN to walk back, that we WANT to walk back, but she's not hearing it. So she scuttles back 50 yards or so to a shop to chat with a guy who looks like he might be one of the scooter dudes who's been driving us around (you can't really chit chat on a scooter - too much wind noise when there's already a language barrier). We chase her, emphatically promise that we're not too tired to walk, that it's not too hot, that we're seriously just dumb bunnies and WANT to walk all that way. So she looks at us pretty skeptically and agrees. It was so so sweet, she was absolutely convinced we were just trying to be polite. So she lets us go, we continue walking along, and about 15 minutes later Bobby rolls up on a scooter with another dude in tow. Apparently Seo didn't believe us :) so we tell him that seriously we're good, he laughs at us for being silly white people out wandering in the freaking hot sun, and says he'll see us back at the house. They are seriously such sweethearts.

So anyway, we dumb dumbs continued walking and only stopped at a little corner store to pick up an ice cream cone and some water, and to reapply sunscreen so we didn't become silly lobster people. Made it back only to realize that Bobby was still going to feed us breakfast! We had forgotten that breakfast was included in the stay, and Bobby didn't disappoint. All kinds of fresh fruit, pineapple pancakes, hot tea, cold water, these little rice balls with chicken and coconut that had been steamed in banana leaves and were SO tasty. Man was it good. And, having already eaten fried chicken, man were we full! It made it really easy to head back to the bungalow, shower, and settle into vegetating. Or that was the plan. I made it as far as the hammock chair on the front porch before I passed out. For two hours. Oops.

The day before, when Steve left to pick up the dinner noodles and I hung out in the breakfast area, we returned to find two little pots of spices on a tray, along with a note explaining that they were freshly ground spice blends that are used in traditional Javanese spa treatments. Just add water, use it as a body scrub all over, and rinse! I had been too invested in my book the day before to try it out, but post-hammock nap, and still stinking from our temple explorations and long journey home, it seemed like prime time to do so. Honestly, it smelled like I was rubbing gingerbread spice mix all over my body - there was lots of cloves and cinnamon and ginger smells going on, and it made my skin feel as smooth as butter. Apparently it was originally used before Javanese princesses would get married and I can see why! Smelling freshly of delicious spice mix, I went to coordinate transit to get to mass. Steve said he'd join me before he napped, but I managed to forget that in my actual conversation with Bobby. So we decided that I'd fly solo to mass, we'd plan to eat dinner at a restaurant just down the road from church, and Steve would meet me there. Then we'd both head back to Bobby's together. I really do need to work on my listening skills.

Borobudur's Catholic Church

Mass was gorgeous. The church band was made up of traditional Indonesian instruments including the gamelan, a percussion instrument that is a bit like ringing a bell by tapping it with a pickax. The church choir sang hymns that were unlike any I've ever heard - mass was definitely true to following the customs of the local population! When M&D and I traveled around in Northern Italy back when I was in college, we went to a mass together in Italian and muddled along with the mass parts. Trying to do it solo, in a language that bears NO resemblance to English (at least that I can tell), was tricky. But Jesus and I spent some time chatting while I didn't know what was going on, and I left feeling great about having gone. Mass ran a bit longer than it does at home so I didn't get out til 7:15 or so. I scooted to get to the restaurant where I was due to meet Steve and as I was walking realized that he could, possibly, maybe, be concerned about my having disappeared in Indonesia without a means of contacting him. Apparently the church left its doors open during mass, so when he drove by it looked like we had already let out for the evening. So he was understandably panicked when I arrived. We quickly worked out the confusion, clarified that I had not been kidnapped by roving bands of school children, and enjoyed a really lovely dinner.

Back at Bobby's, we made plans for the following morning. Bobby had found us a driver who was willing to wait while we explored Prambanan Temple and would then drive us to the airport (which is only about 10km from the temple!). It would be another early morning, so we shot for another early to bed evening.