Splendid stupas, fiery mounts and a trance dance

Borobudur, Java, Indonesia
17 March 2010

Two days of grim Solo were quite enough for us, so the Chakra Homestay arranged for a man to drive us, for a slightly hefty fee, over to Borobudur – site of a huge, carved Buddhist stupa and temple complex that dates from around 800 AD.

Our man turned up in a clapped-out and rather small hatchback, which couldn’t accommodate our luggage within its tiny boot. The driver, who I think told us he was called John, half-heartedly tied all our worldly goods onto the roof with some nylon string. It wouldn’t have lasted 10 minutes, so I retied it properly and, not sure whether we should be in the car at all, we left.

It was one of those days when we should have followed our instincts and refused the ride. Within 15 minutes, we had to get out and push the lifeless car, the battery of which John had let go flat by leaving the lights on overnight. Ten minutes later, we had to pull over because the overheating engine had started blowing out clouds of steam. Our man scrounged some water from a nearby mosque and then we all sat and waited for the engine to cool.













We limped on through beautiful green, rolling countryside, which became progressively steeper as the miles went by and we headed over the shoulder of Java’s mighty Gunung Merapi, a large and oft fiery volcano that Maja was soon to know intimately.

We eventually came to realise that John’s motor had a more serious and worrying flaw. It had no handbrake to speak of, so on the occasions when we had to pull over and top up the water, or strap a tarpaulin over the luggage because of an impending downpour, John would stick a stone under the wheel to stop us rolling back. Starting off again, though, meant terrifying high-revs, spinning wheels and spitting gravel as John tried desperately not to roll back down the hill and over the edge. Not a nice experience at the best of times, but especially stressful when you have kids aboard.

But somehow, in rain that had turned the roads to rivers and reduced visibility to several metres, we made it. As I handed over John's cash, I said, slightly firmly: "Please! Spend it on the car!" Next time, we vowed, we would take the bus.













Maja had once again done a great job in researching and booking our hotel. The Lotus II was just a few hundred metres from the Borobudur complex, our rather stylish room had two huge beds, and our view out of the window took in a set of rice paddies in the throes of being harvested, a lush bamboo grove and a small mosque. It was perfect.













Maja set off at dawn for the monument to catch the best light and to avoid the crowds. It was a smart move. The boys and I followed a few hours later (they'd needed rest after a long trip over) and at the top found ourselves smack-bang in the middle of a huge school group whose leader rallied his young troops with a megaphone! So for us there was no tranquil, meditative stroll past the beautiful Buddha statues enclosed in their carved stone stupas. Instead, we were pestered by friendly kids who wanted photos of our two boys on their cellphones and took an unhealthy interest in what country we were from. They were very nice, it just wasn’t the experienced we had hoped for.









Handily, Borobudur is a quite a maze, so you can escape the crowds if you want. It is set in a series of levels that pilgrims would once have wound their way up to reach the many small stupas on top, ‘reading’ the splendid and informative carvings about the Buddha's life as they went. We made our way down to the almost empty ‘mezzanine’ levels… and peace. It seems few people really have any interest in the carvings, instead they just scramble quickly to the top for the lovely view towards the distant hills and a photo opportunity, disregarding a fascinating part of the ruins as they go so.













Borobudur district has much more to offer then just the temple complex and it is an easy trip by plumed horse and cart along quiet roads through the pretty countryside to other smaller Buddhist monuments, an active Buddhist monastery (where Maja discovered an interest in the philosophy of Buddhism, if not the religious side of it), plus local noodle and tofu factories (see next pic).













To my joy, there was also a thriving pottery village, where most houses seemed to have some clay being worked on, we witnessed burnished terracotta pots being fired in a burning heap straw and sealed in with a layer of ashes. That makes them very low-fired pots and without burnishing (polishing the surface with a round object like a spoon or pebble), they wouldn’t hold water. (Like this blog, I hear you mutter…)



















I have missed my pottery since we left London, only having once chance to throw a few shapes in Kuching, Malaysia, so this was a great side-trip for me. I even got a rare chance to throw a small bottle, assisted by a local potter who spun her small wheel for me while I clumsily raised the sloppy, impure clay.



















Maja had a go at the throwing/coiling method the locals employ and made a lovely clay pancake. I jest, of course. It wasn’t easy with that clay. And the boys played contentedly with their own lumps of mire in the background. We were all happy, muddy people that day.











I have to say some of the villagers’ work was very crude, being destined for the market in far-off Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) where obviously standards are not high. They churned out candlesticks and very chunky, square-rimmed teabowls, although some produced much more elegant, round-bottomed cooking pots. They seemed quite impressed by my bottle, which was definitely a bit ill-proportioned, but maybe they were just being polite.













Maja took another side trip here – a climb up active Gunung Merapi, which is not volcano to attempt if you are not fully fit (we’d met a guy in Bromo who said he was pretty much in tears by the time he got to the top) and can sometimes even show glimpses of fiery magma to the visitor who dares approach one of its openings.

She left us at about 8pm and headed off to meet her guide and a few fellow climbers. But they sat around until about 1am waiting for the torrential rain to stop. At a sudden break in the weather, the group set off upwards, but of course the rain restarted within half an hour.

Some of the group started losing heart and slowly one after the other they decided to head back to the refuge. Maja and her guide, though, continued to walk through the night in the deluge, the path now a raging torrent beneath them. The guide kept suggesting a retreat but Maja felt it would have been more dangerous to go down in those conditions, so they kept on climbing. There was no place to hide.

Finally as dawn lit up the eastern sky, they arrived at the base of the smoking cinder cone, which sits at the very top of the mountain. The guide ruled out climbing the last 50 metres up the cone because of the slippery conditions. Ominously, there were also two recent graves of climbers who had died on the mountain.

So, after a rest and a change out of totally drenched clothes (Maja’s decision to take a waterproof dive bag instead of a rucksack was a good one), they turned and made their way down again, passing groups of farmers and a sorry bunch of Indonesian students who had shivered together under a tent flysheet all night in very inadequate clothing.













Maja arrived home late morning, totally shattered, but proud of being the only tourist to complete the climb that night. She slept through the rest of the day.













The adventurous lady took another trip out on our last night to try and get photos of a strange Javan custom, the 'trance dance'. She turned up, accompanied by the owner from the Lotus II, to find a load of blank-eyed men dancing to raucous gamelan music and chanting. Occasionally one would have to be carried off after becoming too exhausted. In a strange parallel to voodoo ritual dances, one man had a wooden horse to ‘ride’ around on – Maja's friend said this was the spirit guide. Hmm, not very Islamic, is it? I can only guess that it is an old custom that predates Islam. It is apparently both sacred and fairly secret. I’m not surprised.













So unlike most people, who turn up at Borobudur, whiz around the main attraction and then shoot off back to Yogyakarta, we loved the laid-back charms of the area and stayed a few days more than planned. We could have stayed longer, in fact, but the seemingly never-ending pressure of expiring Indonesian visas set us on the road again; this time via a quick plane hop to Sumatra and Banda Aceh – the place worst hit by the 2004 tsunami – and eventually Pulau Weh, a small island that is another of the nation’s world-class dive destinations.