Indonesia
I don’t know where to start! What a huge and diverse country and that’s not all of it. It’s beautiful, ugly friendly, busy, quiet, full with superlatives… Days that I felt being in heaven as a veggie with the delicious gado gado, pisang goreng, tahu-tempe goreng, and nasi goreng. The country where I discovered some words of Sranan Tongo (the national dialect in Surinam). And not to forget the many Dutch words I found too! Also the country where I found strangely practiced Hinduism: Praying to a single God. Caused by one of Insonesia’s bizar laws that religion is only accepted when it originates from a single God. Also everyone needs to register religion in his/her passport. To spicen things more up I incidentally ended up in student protest. Not unsual and a sign of oppression, corruption, scandals that terror this former Dutch colony. Furthermore I had 9 times bed bugs 🙁 and moved like crazy to find a bed bug free place. But I mostly remember this as a fanatastic place to hang out!
Java
Okay I start where I arrived: Jakarta. You can call it Jakarta, but I call it “shithole”. Now it’s time for the real start: Yogyakarta. The former capital is less busy, pedestrian friendly and a gateway to the rest of Java or Indonesia. Although it was a hell to find a place which was not fully booked. I spent 6 nights here and moved 4 times to a different guesthouse. It seemed that every Indonesian came to this place. I’ll never visit a Muslim country during Christmas again.
Almost every evening there was something going on. The traditional (Ramayana) ballet was a perfect one. The puppet show was a miss, since it was in Indonesian. The fair was a “oh my goodness” experience. Packed with locals and blasting Indonesian pop/dance music and much more noise! Holy moke… attractions were propelled by yungsters to keep the things moving. Safety first as they say in Asia, but this time it was far from that! I had a lot of fun being the only tourist here (where the hell they were, I don’t know) and getting the attention of the Indonesians 🙂
From here I went to volcano Gunung Merapi which was a far easier hike than I expected. The hills are over grown with many flowering plants that attract a bunch of butterflies and other insects. Probably half of my time I spent on photography.
Te usual tourist attractions such as Taman Sari (Water Castle) and Borobour Temple are nice, but during these weeks mass tourists (national) turned these places into ant nests. The best place in Yogya is the neighbourhood of Taman Sari which is quiet and perfect fo batik shopping. It is really amazing how much cheaper it is over here than in the tourist areas.
Christmas I cannot even remember… I think I just slept.