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Jogja Day 3 - Prambanan, Wayang Kulit

I wanted to collapse Day 3 and Day 4 of Jogja together until I figured wow, I really shouldn't because Prambanan has a lot of information too. Borobudur and Prambanan are the two most famous landmarks of Yogjakarta. Tourists, travelers and other visitors in general come to Jogja and prioritize these two at their top of the list. So I too did exactly just that. 

I visited Prambanan the day after Borobudur. This time, I didn't go through any tour packages because I was told that accessing Prambanan via public buses is feasible. Thank heavens that Sosrowijayan Street (where I was staying) is less than 5 minutes walk from the bus station (also known as Trans Jogja), so I hopped on to it and told the excellent guest relations officers about my intentions to head to Prambanan and they were so great at guiding on which buses to get into.

Trans Jogja Bus Station
Waited for the right bus in less than 15 minutes (excellent frequency of Trans Jogja buses too) and I was well on my way! The journey to Prambanan was fascinating, but isn't really the nearest, it's fine for me because I like to look at the different people and different antiques surrounding me. Reached Prambanan Bus Station about an hour or so. Once you reached Prambanan's stop, there were tons of becak drivers, carriages and motorbike riders trying to bring you to the actual main entrance of the Prambanan Temple which is about 10 minutes walk (at best) if not more.

I declined their offers and decided to walk slowly to the entrance despite it being at 12noon, means scorching hot. Walking to Prambanan was a breeze for me, but if you're not too confident with big roads (actually I'm not too but I like to toughen up sometimes), then you can well consider the bikers, they would probably just cost about a few Ringgit. I enjoyed looking at things so it was no issue for me.

Upon reaching there, I was quite unlucky that they recognised I wasn't Indonesian :( So I paid significantly a lot more. The entrance fee cost me about MYR 45.00 which was only MYR 15.00 for locals. Since I was alone too, and the tour guide was mighty expensive I decided to not hire a guide by myself. I glorified Borobudur a lot without knowing much about Prambanan, until I saw Prambanan with my own eyes. Oh my God. It's amazing. LOOK.
Prambannan Temples
Thank goodness, they have informative sessions on the Prambanan Temples so I took it and I loved it. They even discussed about some of the carvings that can be seen as well, but essentially Prambanan Temples' idea is that humans and nature need to be in balance and when it is in equilibrium, both worlds enjoy the beautiful balance of what one has to offer.

WHICH I COMPLETELY AGREE. Since I've been in the tourism industry, probably one of the biggest industry here in Sabah, I know exactly what International visitors came to Sabah for. Its nature, views, food and people. In simple English it means, our economy strive on the resources and the beauty that holds the state, so you're basically making money from the nature, from the views. The idea of vandalizing the source of your income, and also in turn ruining where you live in this world doesn't seem to compute to me.


When you understand what a relationship can give to you (much like any business), instinctively you would want to protect it, make sure it is well taken care of,  but not us humans apparently. And I think it's because we take the nature (them not being able to give their voice of reason since they're well nature) for GRANTED. It's illogical. Everything will deplete yes I know, but at the rate of us bullying our fellow nature, it will deplete a million times faster than we can imagine.

Okay, before I get into deep, let's get to Prambanan.


According to Yogyes, Prambanan Temple is the biggest Hindu temple in Java. Intricately beautiful, it has 3 main temples in the primary yard namely Vishnu, Brahma and Shiva which symbolizes Trimurti (the trinity) of Gods where the temples are also dedicated to the animals that have helped serve them and the carvings tell the legendary of Ramayana.



The collaboration of nature and humans 
Since I was alone this time and wasn't attached with any tour packages, I decided to take my own sweet time. Found some hidden spots and hung around the hidden spots all by myself, until I recognized a seemingly strange pattern of.... boys.... asking.... to take photos.... of me.... or with me......

The first batch who asked to take photos with me (I felt like an exhibition) was a bunch of high school boys. The first shoot was fine, I guess. Then another group came, maybe because they saw the first group took a photo with me. They asked me where I came from, and the moment I muttered Mmmmaaa... they had all their digital cameras out. Their fascination of taking photos of / with foreigners is a bit odd to me really.

When the second group came...... well you guessed it, the session continues. And another set of 5 people came up to me after that. Even asked for my BlackBerry Pins, emails etc - told them I didn't want to giveaway my details. Mind you, I was just in plain black shirt and plain black leggings, so I was really no exhibition I was as plain as you could imagine. I was really kind enough to agree to all of it, eventhough I had the notion they would probably be having strange stories of me to their friends, but nah judge all you want I didn't really care what they'd do with it really even if you come up with the worst cases of scenarios.

But I did became quite estranged by the whole affair, that at one time probably after the 5th group that came up to me, I did get quite tired of it all. Eventually, I chose to hide in Shiva's temple, away from a lot of people, because all I wanted was to just sit and... chill, by myself.

I was so at peace, making motions and impressions out of the beautiful moving clouds and having stories in my head about what was of Prambanan for about half an hour when a bunch of boys walked into the cosy area I was sitting, took photos of the area and ......... walked up to me and said, "Nona, boleh bergambar bersama?"

 -______________- (but of course).

After about an hour plus at Prambanan I decided to leave for lunch, unfortunately, partly because I didn't want to be smiling for another set of camera.


Found a quaint little place for lunch in Prambanan itself, which was rather empty (I assumed maybe people thought it was expensive).


They were feeding the deers!
The waiter was really nice and friendly, telling me where are the places to go and what are the things to do. After I was done with lunch, asked for the bill, the dude came and asked for my phone number................ So that was a really tricky half of the day I'd say. It was flattering the first two times, it wasn't after the 7th.

Craftsman at work 
Kind dude gave me a song, and I gave him some bucks 
Right after Prambanan, I actually went back to the hostel because I was super drenched walking under the hot sun. Advice: bring a cap! In fact, I got a little burned, my face, neck and even my feet. You can clearly see the difference in my skin colour on my feet, haha hilarious but oh well :)

Upon reaching my hostel, that was probably around 4pm or so, I stretched myself good and hung around the same balcony I would always to every other day when the same friend, asked me on what I'd be up to, told me to visit the "silver city" which was Kota Gede. Quite frankly, I wasn't really interested because I'm not really into silvers, but the guy kept insisting so I figured jyeah, why not. I had sometime in my hands before my next activity at night.

What really triggered me was probably the story behind Kota Gede, the silver city. It was told that back in the original times where Islam just came into Jogja, the Muslims believed that during the 5 holy times of prayers, one is not allowed to "wear any riches" meaning all the worldly, and materialistic items when praying, and back then the only materialistic items or materialistic riches that they knew or recognised were Gold. So traders started making silver for sales, because silvers were fine to be worn. So Kota Gede eventually became the hub of all things silver, from bodily wearings to house decorations, you can find any type of silvers in Kota Gede, and it doesn't just stretch within an area (although the famous ones are in one area) it stretches right up to some of the alleys and some of the old houses in Kota Gede.

Seriously talented craftsman at work
Very fascinating, to think everyone was outdoing each other in silver's artform back in the days. 


I was done with Kota Gede (thanks to my trustee friend whom I paid for about MYR 20 to ride me around) after 30 minutes tops. He must have felt guilty upon seeing me not buying anything, he actually took me further to some of the batik areas. It's like he must see me buy something to mean that I was satisfied....

I let him took me wherever he deemed best. And I eventually figured, wow throughout this trip I've been getting so many stuff for so many people, except for myself. So I thanked him for forcing me to buy something (I told him that), and was determined to look for a proper batik infused blouse for myself, and I did, I was so happy :)

Once Kota Gede and some personal shopping were done, that was around 5pm, I went home to get ready for WAYANG KULIT! 


Fighting Scene
Gah, if there's any country best to check out Wayang Kulit it is INDONESIA. Wayang Kulit IS from Indonesia, recognised all over the world as one of the most intricate, most beautiful story telling method, complete with a whole set of musical class behind one story, wayang kulit is poetic, and extremely beautiful.


I was there at Museum Sonobudoyo (a cultural hall that plays Wayang Kulit) the earliest, so I had a chat with the uncle who was one of the musical instrument player. Not many knew about the wayang kulit in Sonobudoyo which was strange considering it's also in the city just about 10 minutes walk from where I stayed, so please ask around, it's at Jalan Alun Alun.


NOT a love scene, they're still fighting -_-


The story was about Rama, and his love Shinta, probably has the exact same storyline as the Prambanan Ballet that I visited the day after this. I loved the wayang kulit but I can understand why people lose interest in it after maybe 10 minutes, because it was extremely difficult to understand staunch Indonesian slang............. The crowd went from five to ten to thirty to ten to five to three. I was one of them three.

Halfway through I had completely forgotten which character was who, I had to check on the brochures every 5 seconds. For someone who understood a little bit of the language and not being able to grasp the story..... I could understand the predicament the Westerners and other Asians were facing for not being able to understood a word they said.

After it ended, I slowly walked home. It was a really cool night, so I took my time to walk slowly back and looked at all the things that filled up my senses, haha even the polluted air smoke, just cause.

When I reached hostel, I cleaned myself a little, remembered of all the good people and good things I came across with.... and fell asleep with probably a huge smile on my face.

***

Jogja Day 2
Jogja Day 3
Jogja Day 1
Parangritis Beach

Love, 
Jacqueline Rowena @ Jacqkie.

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