Pandoraspace

As with my Cambodian trip, I asked myself this question - “If Indonesia is a jar, what would it contain?”

My answer came easily.  Apart from volcanoes, food trips galore and architectural wonders, Indonesia is a place to learn valuable lessons in life.  In particular, that regardless of their religion, people are good.  Despite differences in race, culture, personal histories and beliefs, people value the same things such as love, fidelity, loyalty and compassion.  So, I leave you with these images of the people in Indonesia.

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…)

 

Dearest Uncle G,

On our first day in Jogjakarta, Danang took us to an authentic Javanese restaurant called Yu Djum. Getting to Yu Djum reminds me of how I got to Alamo’s in Legaspi, Albay. That is - we drove through narrow alleys lined with small houses until we hit the end of a road, which opens up to a cluster of small houses, and in one of those houses, you will find Yu Djum.

We got to Yu Djum at 11:00 a.m. and were among the first customers there.

I instantly felt at ease in Yu Djum. It felt like one of those old restaurants in the province that remains unchanged by time. As we entered, four old men started playing Javanese musical instruments while an old lady sang. Inside, there are about six or seven rectangular wooden tables each with two benches. On each table there are a few glass jars filled with kerupuk (fish crackers).

(more…)

Ciao Uncle G!

LS and I are back from Indonesia and already we are planning our next trip there. We had a grand time. I now understand why you want to go back there and stay for an extended period of time. Given the right circumstances, I would like to be in one place in Indonesia like Jogjakarta or Bali for a whole month and just absorb the experience at the leisurely pace.

LS and I wanted to explore as much of Indonesia as we could during our ten-day stay there. But, as our schedule was packed, we had no time to try out all the restaurants you recommended we go to in Jogjakarta and Bali. We did try eating at a restaurant in Jimbaran as you suggested. We loved it and ate there twice.

It was not that we did not spend a good deal of time eating. We did. Being our father’s daughters, we always take time to enjoy food. It is just that we did not plan on where to eat. Most of the time, we simply decided what places  to see and ate whatever we found at that place. Most of the time, we let other people decide where we should eat.

On the whole, we enjoyed the food we had in Indonesia and I made it a point to take note of what I ate so I could tell you about it.

I must warn you though that, unlike you, I am no gourmand. In fact, I am a picky eater. I do not like the taste of liver or soup that tastes like fish or shrimp. While I do know how to cook, I have not stepped into a kitchen in more than six years. I do not thing that I could even cook a decent and edible meal. Worse, describing food is one of the most difficult, if not, impossible endeavors. As my college professor once told me, how can you describe the taste of chocolate to one who has never tired it?  But, in my own crude way, I will try to describe for you the food I ate in Indonesia.

Hopefully, sometime soon (maybe in Indonesia) we will finally see each other and I can sample your cooking.  Until then…

Love, Pandora

Not too long ago, I learned that Uncle G (not his real name) stayed in Indonesia for extended periods of time.  Since he is a chef and a gourmand, I asked Uncle G to recommend to me several restaurants that LS and I could try while there and he provided me with a long list of restaurants.  Although we only tried one restaurant on that long list, I was consciously taking mental notes of the food I tried in Indonesia so I could tell Uncle G all about it.  

As I was writing my letters to Uncle G on my Indonesian food trip, I decided that I should also share the letters with you since you may find them useful on your Indonesian trip.  In the next few days, I’ll be posting my letters to Uncle G.

Beyond the Kraton

Right outside the Kraton is what was once known as Fort Vredeburg, which according to this article, was built in 1765 by the Dutch to protect the Dutch governor.  Nowadays, Vredeburg is a museum showcasing Indonesian culture and history.  Unfortunately for us, we arrived in Vredeburg late in the afternoon when the museum was closed.  The guard did let us in the premises to take a few pictures.

Vredeburg is located on a block along Malioboro and another street.  It is also located beside the old traditional market of Jogjakarta.  Across Vredeburg, there are two old buildings built by the Dutch during colonial times and one of the presidential residences, which is off limits so we were only able to take photos from the outside.  We spent a good hour in that area taking pictures.  Despite the noise and the blur of activities, I found it rather relaxing to watch life as it passes in this place that was once dominated by the Dutch. 

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.

Volcanoes fascinate me.  This is strange.

You see, I have not seen many volcanoes.  I have never seen a volcano erupt.  Although, I felt the wrath of Mt. Pinatubo when it erupted some years ago.

I was in college in Manila when Mt. Pinatubo, which is located outside of Manila, coughed out ashes that spread across the globe. At about 5:00 p.m., the sky darkened and it began raining ash. By 6:00 p.m., it was completely dark and everything was covered in a thick blanket of ash. By some miracle, my dad found me and took me home. We drove at a speed of about 2 kilometers per hour as our windshield was covered in ash and we could not see where we were going. Mt. Pinatubo buried several towns leaving many dead or homeless. Such was the effect of its fury.

Despite the danger that volcanoes pose and even if I never saw a volcano cough out lava or ash, I am drawn to them.

Before my trip to Indonesia, I have only seen four volcanoes, Mt. Mayon, Mt. Pinatubo, the Taal Volcano and Mt. Sto. Tomas.  So you can imagine what joy I felt when I saw not one, but seven volcanoes, while I was in Indonesia.  Even better, I saw five of them at one time.

I should not have been surprised by the number of volcanoes I saw in Indonesia since, according to this article,

“Indonesia leads the world in many volcano statistics. It has the largest number of historically active volcanoes (76), its total of 1171 dated eruptions is only narrowly exceeded by Japan’s 1274, and these two regions have combined to produce 1/3 of the known explosive eruptions. Indonesia has suffered the highest numbers of eruptions producing fatalities, damage to arable land, mudflows, tsunamis, domes, and pyroclastic flows (104, 186, 84, 13, 76, and 96, respectively). In the first five of these, Indonesia also leads other regions in the global proportion of eruptions with each characteristic.

Four-fifths of Indonesian volcanoes with dated eruptions have erupted in this century, and history shows the danger of volcanoes that have not erupted in recent centuries. Relatively few stratigraphic studies of older volcanic deposits have been completed in Indonesia, and only 0.5% of known Indonesian eruptions have been dated by other than historical techniques, emphasizing the need for more study of the prehistoric record in this region.”

But I was surprised.  More than that, I was awed and humbled by the strange sort of friendship that the Indonesian volcanoes have extended to me.

A crash course in religion and faith was not in my Indonesian itinerary.

My itinerary was simple - see Borobudur and Prambanan, go for a swim in Bali, eat and shop.  Of course, I also wanted to see Gunung Bromo but that was too much of an effort for this trip.  Other than that, my modus operandi on this trip was to rely on LS. 

LS surprised everyone by being able to carry a conversation in Bahasa Indonesia at the end of our trip.  As for me, Tito L gave me a tiny electronic translator.  All I had to do was type in the Indonesian word or phrase and I would get an instant English translation.  The lazy me never got to use it.   So, I relied on LS to communicate with everyone new we encountered to get information. I also relied on LS, who read up on Indonesia before our trip, to provide me information about the places we saw and things to do.  I was only emphatic about my views when in came to shopping.  I did a lot of that in Indonesia.

But sometimes, things do not go the way you expect it.  Instead of just coming home with things I bought from the trip, pictures and a few traveler’s tales, I came home with a deeper understanding of different religions and of faith.  And this is not a bad thing.