It was really hot and uncomfortable. It made me do a lot of soul-searching about whether I really am the rugged, intrepid traveler that I thought I could be (or maybe that I just wanted to be), or whether I am actually a big western lump who just wants to eat Cuban food and watch touristy dance shows in Bali. Conclusion: Still not sure, but I do know that it's a lot more fun to go to places that are kind of different and hot and uncomfortable for you when you're not already living in a place like that. That is, I enjoyed Bali because it was something different from day-to-day life in Malaysia. It was hard to enjoy Yogyakarta as much because I was back to the world of crazy traffic and insane heat and squat toilets that I knew would also greet me back in Malaysia. Therefore, it felt like less of a relaxing vacation time. Whereas if I had come directly from home, maybe I would've been like, "Oh, a week of craziness, I can do this! And hey, good for me for doing it!" Part of the problem with exoticizing new places is that the exoticism just wears off after a while.
Here's a good example of what I'll call the "Yogya phenomenon": Immediately after we got off the plane from our 6 am flight to Yogya, we took a super-bumpy bus from the airport. A creepy man on the bus asked if he could follow us to our stop. We got misdirected to our hostel. We walked in the heat in the wrong direction for 15 minutes. We got re-misdirected. We finally got a taxi that even agreed to use the meter. (Score!) Of course, it was still only about 8:30 am, so the hostel wasn't ready to let us collapse in our room. We dropped off our things and then set out to try to find food, drink, and air conditioning. (Yes, it was already sweltering at 8:30.) We chose the wrong way to walk from our hostel and ended up in winding residential backstreets that actually reminded me a little bit of Sevilla. They had really tiny streets between houses that were shaded just by virtue of being so narrow and letting the houses block the light. Finally, we stumbled upon a stall, ordered lemon ice tea, discarded our fears about unfiltered water in the ice, and slurped it down. Looking back, and even at the time, I could tell that this was a cool experience. If I was in Philly, and someone said, "Hey, would you like to explore the backstreets of Yogyakarta today?" I would be super excited. But in the moment I was too physically uncomfortable to really enjoy the unique chance to see these non-touristy areas and look at people's little backyards and see people waking up and jumping on their motorbikes and kids walking to school and brightly colored houses and amazing graffiti and such.
Also, in Yogya we kept getting stuck in thunderstorms that put a damper on our visit to major temples, we rode super bumpy buses with creepy men who always wanted to talk to us (ok, yes, Philadelphia is sometimes like that, too), and we had to actively avoid getting ripped off in a way that was pretty tiring and sometimes unsuccessful. Things I was looking forward to, like seeing the sultan's palace and a shadow puppet show, turned out to be somewhat disappointing. That said, I'm still glad I went. Have some temple pictures.
PRAMBANAN
Absolutely beautiful. I decided not to bring my camera, which was a mistake. But it got heavy! And I wanted to be in the moment! So I resort to stealing this photo from the lovely Achsah, who is an excellent photographess. All the temples in the complex are covered with intricate reliefs which are a pleasure to view.
I was super excited about seeing this one, because I had learned about it during my single, solitary class on Southeast Asian history at Cornell. Unfortunately, our weather was bad, a 3-day weekend brought out droves of Indonesian tourists, and I dropped my camera down the stairs a little bit. Classic Liz. The camera still mostly works, and Borbudur was still mostly awesome.
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| Buddha, the back of your head is ridiculous. |
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| Spoiler alert: Inside these bells, there are Buddhas!
Oh, reading. Thanks for the reminder, Ky'lea.
I read Cloud Atlas over the course of the trip and really enjoyed it, even if it had kind of heavy-handed "moral values" at times. Up to Volume 5 of Remembrance of Things Past and terrified to put it down or get distracted and lose the already pretty nonexistent narrative thread. Just downloaded The Sense of an Ending because I wish I could've gone to book club night with Mary Lynn.
Stay tuned for some reflections on teaching, exercise, volunteering, an island adventure, being or not being a martyr, unnecessary ascetism, a nice hotel, and even a wedding--read to find out if it was my own! Spoiler alert: Hell no, are you crazy?
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