By far the easiest ride we had on Java was also the last. We enjoyed a bicycle lane for almost the whole 65km from Solo to Yogyakarta and the terrain was nearly flat. We didn't have to compete with buses or trucks at all. Also we passed lots of places to eat and drink. The time passed very quickly.

We stopped for a cold drink about half way at a pharmacy. When we were thirsty, we just looked carefully in all the shops we passed for an obvious refrigerator (a skill that served us well throughout Asia). In large town we could find fridges but in small towns we often couldn't. This pharmacy had a nice clean fridge out front. In the waiting room they had a doctor's scale. Here I found out for sure that I weighed just 134lbs. I had weighed myself on a bathroom scale in Solo but was skeptical of the results. But this confirmed it. At 140lbs I thought I might have lost a little too much weight. I can't believe I can weigh 134. I just wish Indonesia had bigger juicier hamburgers and giant banana splits with lots of whipped cream.

As we flew so quickly down the bike lane we passed right by one of the great attractions of Java, Prambanan, a complex of many many Hindu temples. We made a trip back later though.

About 3km from the center of Yogya we passed an internet cafe. We rode so fast that it was still not yet 2 p.m., so we stopped in to read email. This is where we found out that my Grandma had died. We calculated that she had died at a hospital in Ohio just four hours earlier. I didn't need to be a genius to figure that when I saw her last June, at her 97th birthday party, it would probably be the last time. Yet it made me very sad.

While we read the emails, it started to rain. It rained very very hard. We just stayed and wrote email until it stopped, about two hours later. It still rained a little when we left.

We inspected several hotels in central Yogya before selecting hotel Mendut. It had AC! Thanks to the currency crisis, we can afford hotels with AC.

Yogya gets a lot of tourists. Many locals make a living from tourism. This can make the city a bit tiresome. Take our walk to the palace on our first morning. First we pass a gauntlet of becak drivers trying to get us to hire them. It's not just, "Becak Meestir?" It's more like, "Yes? OK. Becak? Where you go? Yes? OK?" A couple even followed us. Probably 25 becak drivers tried to get us. Much of the "sidewalk" is just a long market for trinkets like T-shirts, wallets, wooden toys, jewelry, etc. We stopped to look closer at a couple things and a salesman ran over and grabbed what he thought we were looking at tried hard to sale it. That really turns me off. As soon as someone started forcing something down my throat, I really didn't want it anymore.

(Joan: still, if you can stand it, it's great shopping. We got lots of awesome gifts in Yogya. It turned out to be one of the three best places to shop in all of Asia, alongside Bali and Kathmandu).

It costs just about 40 cents to get into the palace and that includes a tour guide. The tour is pretty short. The palace was like the palace at Solo but not as nice and no museum. The guide pointed to a room that supposedly had several "keris" (daggers) but we couldn't see inside. At the end of the tour our guide said that 50 meters away, in a building once used by the palace guard, there was a collection of photos of the last nine kings. We were suspicious but went anyway. He took it to his sons batik store which happen to have about six poor-quality photos tucked in among hundreds of batik paintings.

We walked out but our guide chased after us. He insisted we see his kris collection. We reluctantly followed him around the corner to his house, he quickly cleaned some stuff up, a young woman looked briefly at us and disappeared as if we interrupted something then he showed us a pile of kerises in a cabinet, not even displayed, just piled. We turned and left in five seconds.

They also have an insidious system in Yogya where anyone who leads a tourist to an art gallery or shop gets a commission on what that tourist purchases. Any time we stopped on a street corner to study the map somebody would approach within 1 minute. The first thing they would say is, "Where you go?" It sounds friendly but really they just want to lead you to a gallery with commission, preferably an expensive one.

We were already getting burned out by Indonesia and this just made it worse. The continuous high pressure sales is just part of the territory here. You have to learn to live with it. But after just over a month, we were running out of patience. We love to meet people and get to know them a little. I know we won't get any deep insights into how Indonesians think or feel but maybe we can meet a few people and have honest person to person relationships with them. That is why we travel. I bring the adventure horn so I can give something to friends that is not money. So when we feel like everyone who speaks to us in all of Yogyakarta is really just trying to sell us something, it's depressing. It's hard to get through the barrier of our relative wealth.

In the end we made a couple of good friends in Yogya and after a couple days the becak drivers near our hotel recognized us and quit pestering so much.

The first night we went to a good Wayang Kulit shadow puppet show. They had seats in front, behind and on both sides of the screen. The audience walked around during the performance. Like the Wayang Orang in Solo, this performance had a large gamelan orchestra and just about 20 people in the audience. It was a great show, but we wonder how long it can last, since it didn't seem profitable.

The puppet master's talent amazes me. Robin William would be good at it. They do many different voices and talk for almost two hours straight without a script (they get a couple two-minute breaks for music). Unfortunately, as usual the performance was in Javanese and we didn't understand a single word. Like the Wayang Orang, each scene starts and ends with action but in the middle the characters talk to each other for long periods. We had no idea what was going on but the orchestra was laughing like crazy. They seemed really into some of the dialog even though they perform every night.

The next morning I was tired and irritable. I had what Grandma would call "The Grip." I felt bad for no good reason. I told Joan at breakfast that I wanted to do all day was absolutely nothing. Joan said OK. All she wanted to do was shop in one small area near the palace and she would navigate us there. In the first half kilometer I snapped at two or three becak drivers who I found too aggressive. One followed us and said, "What about the American dream?" I guess this was suppose to be a guilt-trip but after a month of people trying to guilt trip me about being "rish" it was a hopeless ploy. I told him, a little too loudly, "The American dream is great! I'm living it!" He left quickly.

On my day of doing absolutely nothing we ended up walking though the city dodging becaks and salesman for about four miles in 95 degree heat and humidity. I purchased 1 thing - a used batik stamp. The one bright spot was the Dutch Cafe where they had very cold beer on tap. This is by far the best way to drink Indonesian beer.

Joan booked us on a tour for the following day to one of the wonders of the world - Borobudur. Unfortunately it would leave at 5 a.m. so we went to bed early.

Next: Wonder of the World

Java Main Page   Indonesia Main Page   World Trip