Prambanan Temple in Java

Monday, May 25, 2009

I’m writing now on a Garuda Indonesia flight from Yogyakarta, Java to Denpasar, Bali. I happen to have a window seat and I’m searching to get a glimpse of the volcano that we haven’t been able to see due to clouds and fog during our stay in Java. I had hoped to get a photo but so far nothing. Here is a photo of what I did see as we took off – lovely rectangular plots of greenery, more than likely rice fields and the red roof tiles of houses and shops.

This morning, before heading to the airport, we visited an ancient Hindu temple called Prambanan, located just outside of Yogya. This temple, built in 732 AD was completely destroyed by the huge earthquake that hit Java in 2006. A team of archaeologists have worked for the past two years to rebuild much of the site. But because of the fact that work is very much an ongoing process, we weren’t allow to enter many of the temple structures. I found it interesting that so many Muslim teenagers were at the site visiting. I don’t know what they were, maybe our equivalent of girl and boy scouts, but they clearly understand that this temple is a part of their cultural heritage despite it being a Hindu temple. Down the road just a bit is a huge mosque and around the corner a Buddhist temple complete with a real deer park. We remarked that this is how the world should be; three religions in close proximity, all peacefully coexisting with each other.

While at Prambanan, I took a photo of several girls in headscarves when I saw them posing and hamming it up for photos with their friends. When they saw my interest they came over to me, asked my name, shook my hand and asked if I would pose for a photo with them. I don’t know how old they were but all four came up to my shoulder.

Then we were off to the airport for a 12:55 flight back to Bali. At the airport I saw one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen and it’s really the reason I pulled out my computer on the plane to write. At some point I decided to go to the ladies room. I followed the appropriate signs but as I entered the hallway approaching the toilet I saw that the floor was very wet and there were many men all rolling up their pant legs and scurrying around. I thought that there was some kind of flood going on in the men’s room. I walked a bit further down the hallway and to the right I realized that the men were in fact cleaning their feet and washing hands to prepare for prayer. And next to this washing area was carpeting and there were several men bowing in prayer. All of this occurred in a just a few seconds and I thought to myself I’ve gone to the wrong place – I’ve entered the prayer room by mistake. I sheepishly and apologetically looked around and suddenly realized that I was in the correct place – the entrance to the toilet is precisely opposite the prayer room! It was quite bizarre and I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like it before.

Once we land in Bali we will ride an hour or more to get to Ubud. We all say that Ubud is rather like Jaipur, India in that throughout our trip whenever anyone has wanted to buy something we were been told “wait until you get to Jaipur”. This trip it’s “wait until you get to Ubud”. I hope Ubud knows what’s in store for it when we arrive.