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Tip No. 1:  Money. Don’t leave home without it.

As usual, I was in a state of panic before my trip to Indonesia.  I barely had time to pack my clothes.  I did remember to bring a camera but forgot to bring my money for the trip.

On our second day in Jakarta, Tita D suggested that we take a trip to one of the outlets in Bandung.  As I was getting ready for the trip, I discovered that I left behind the envelop containing the money to pay for our hotels, food and shopping.  I was in a state of shock when I called my dad to tell him what happened.  Of course I got an earful from him before he and Tito L remedied the situation.  I was lucky that Tito L and Tita D were with us in Jakarta and that they loaned me money for the trip.  I am eternally grateful to them and extremely embarassed by this whole thing.

So, to avoid getting an earful from parents or having to unexpectedly borrow money from someone, don’t forget to bring money for the trip. (more…)

If you knew how batik is made, you would never see it as just fabric again.

The physical process of making batik is long and laborious.  It begins when intricate designs are drawn on to white fabric.  Using an instrument that is similar to a fountain pen, the batik maker then traces hot wax over portions of the design. The wax will prevent portions of the fabric from being colored by the dye.  When the wax dries, the fabric is soaked in boiling dye-bath until the batik maker is satisfied that the fabric has obtained the right color.  After, the fabric is plunged in cold water to stop the dying process.  The fabric is then dried and the wax scraped off.  This process is repeated each time a new color of dye is applied to the fabric to color the other portions of the design.

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LS and Danang were warned that I was going shopping

Before I got there, there were many things about Jogjakarta that I did not know. But, the one thing I did know about Jogjakarta was that it was the place to buy batik.

On our first day in Jogjakarta, I told Danang that I wanted to buy batik and he took us to some out of the way store that had very inexpensive batik but not the type I was looking for.  I wanted to buy hand-made batik.  That night, after Danang dropped us off at our hotel, LS and I took a becak (a pedi-cab that looks like a rickshaw) to the famous Malioboro Street that is lined with batik shops.  For two hours, I literally dragged LS from one shop to another looking for the batik things to bring home as gifts.  LS was cranky after our batik shop jaunt specially when she noticed that I was only able to purchase a few items. (more…)

The Sultanate of Jogjakarta and the Kraton

In the book, Indonesia Peoples and Histories, Jean Gelman Taylor tells us of how Arabs established trading posts in Indonesia, which made it possible for “learned men to travel from one end of the Islamic world to another. Some settled in foreign ports to head mosques or set up a school.” (at, p. 66) Eventually, the rulers of small communities in the Indonesia archipelago converted to Islam and began calling themselves sultans. “In 1641 the ruler of the archipelago’s largest kingdom, Mataram in Java, advertised his rule as Islamic by taking the title of sultan.” (Ibid) “In the seventeenth century Indonesian sultans…extended their power by their tried methods of slavery, raids, and marriage alliances, and they added a new method: they employed and allied with the Dutch.” (Id., p. 142) “In Java, Mataram’s kings hired Dutch soldiers to preserve their throne against rivals.” (Id., p. 144) This paved the way for Dutch trade in Indonesia through the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC) or the United East Indies Company, which was composed on various Dutch commercial companies that merged. Eventually, Dutch not only traded in Indonesia but colonized it as well.

Meanwhile, in the late eighteenth century, there were a series of wars of succession to Mataram Kingdom, which led to its division. Through that division, the Jogjakarta Sultanate was created. The first sultan of Jogjakarta is Hamengkubuwono I. The present Sultan of Jogjakarta who lives in the Kraton his descendant, Hamengkubuwono X.

While I am still trying to grapple with Indonesian history, particularly, Javanese history, my trips to several museums in Jogjakarta and my tour of the city, all care of Danang, gave me the impression that, although Java was colonized by the Dutch, their rule did not dilute the deeply routed Javanese traditions. For one, the Javanese continue to speak their own language. Although I am sure that a number of Javanese speak Dutch, I never heard it spoken by them. Also, the Javanese tradition of making batik and playing the gamelan (Javanese musical ensemble) still lives on. In Jogjakarta, the Sultan remains to be “the center of his palace (Kadatuan or Kraton), which [is] in turn the center of the city. The city [is still] the center of the King’s own patrimonial domain (Vanua), which [is] surrounded by a circle of submitted neighbours…” (Munoz, Early Kingdoms of the Indonesian Archipelago and the Malay Peninsula, p. 308 [c 2006].) I suspect it was this way even when the Dutch had ruled Indonesia as I noticed that the structures built by the Dutch in Jogjakarta were outside of the Kraton.

Although we were allowed entrance to the Kraton, we only saw a a fraction of it.  As the present Sultan, Hamengkubuwono X, and his family still live in the Kraton, many areas there are off limits.  Strangely, for all its grandeur, my favorite part of the Kraton is the entrance - the simple wooden doors that open up to the world inside the Kraton. This entrance is guarded by an old gatekeeper who did not hesitate to have his picture taken by me.

If there is such a thing as reincarnation and if an old soul was reincarnated in me, then, that soul must have been to Jogjakarta.  For strangely, while I was in Jogjakarta, I felt like I was in the old world.  But, how would I know what the old world is like, if I have never lived in it?

Ironically, while I felt a sense of old worldliness in Jogjakarta, I was reminded of what it was like to be a carefree teenager.  This was all because I was hanging out in Jogjakrta with LS and Danang.  LS and Danang are both at that stage of their lives when one is in between finishing school and finding the right job.  You know - it is that stage in life when nothing is definite and you have a lot of time on your hands to just chill.  Since I was out numbered, I was the one who had to adjust to LS’ and Danang’s languid disposition on a hectic schedule.  In the beginning, my obsessive-compulsive self, was bothered by the fact that LS would schedule activities that would ensure we were doing something every second of the day but would wake up late!  When I realized that no amount of nagging could get LS to wake up early, I let my hair down and just went with the flow.

While we did go to all the usual places that tourists would go to in Jogjakarta, we did a lot of talking, eating and joking around along the way. LS, Danang and I felt at ease with each other.  This made the Jogjakarta experience a pleasant one for me.  Of course, when it came to batik shopping, LS and Danang probably did not have as pleasant a time as I did.  But, I’ll let them tell you their version of that story.

I am back from Indonesia with an unintended dark tan, lots of Batik clothes, more than three thousand photos and a host of stories to tell. And, yes Monk, this is the start of a long series of articles about my Indonesian experience.

Initially, I did not plan  a trip to Indonesia.  I had planned  to go to Laos with my little sister (LS) who is fourteen years younger than me.  Then, we received, and later accepted, an invitation from family friends, Tito L and Tita D, to visit them in Indonesia.  As it was the first time  LS and I would be traveling alone together and I knew very little about Indonesia, I was plagued with all sorts of worries before the trip.  But, the gods were kind.  LS and I survived each other and Indonesia opened my eyes to a world I had never seen before – a world where identity is not lost in diversity and where harmony exists despite varying beliefs.

I only hope that I would do justice in describing the friends I made and the places I had seen in Indonesia. As truly, my Indonesian experience was a wonderful one because of them.

A note on my forthcoming articles: I gathered more information about the places in Indonesia that I visited to give you a better idea of them. In the course of my readings, I discovered that some accounts about those places vary depending on who is telling the story.  If I had more time on my hands, I would have endeavored to provide the most accurate account. Unfortunately, time is a luxury for me.  Consequently, I only relied on readily available data.  I would, however, appreciate any additional information (specially if it is different from the information I found) on Indonesia, which is a subject I am most interested in.