We were seated on little plastic stools, huddled around the uneven light thrown by a propane lantern. I can’t even see what I’m eating, and except for my friend’s prudent admonition to watch out for the chilis, it doesn’t much matter exactly which morsel I choose. The dish is Gudeg, jackfruit cooked with plum sugar and chili, accompanied by the perpetual tempeh, tofu, rice, and unidentifiable vegetables. This is the only place that serves gudeg hot and spicy, I’m told, and it’s only open after midnight, which is why we are here on our little hockers, and it’s delicious.
We’re sitting at a little table in the corner, the three of us, my host, her friend and I. The place is called Boshe, and it’s a nightclub somewhere, for which we have donned the obligatory heels and mascara. We ordered a pitcher of beer and had a good view of the band. They were pretty good and pretty active, managing coordinated dances in heels to go with their covers of various pop hits, but still not too many people were dancing. Then the DJ started in, and I kind of expected it to fade into a typical club evening, standard hits, same kind of scene as everywhere else. But no, this club, in addition to its hyperactive band also had three ladies I think aspiring to be exotic dancers. The three were dressed in leggings, heels, and I guess you could call it a bustier. Basically, the women were each wearing a pair of metal cones. I’m pretty sure the left boob got good reception of Al Jazeera and the right one of CNN. Anyways, the girls were trying hard but came off as more frenetic than sensual, one of them so enthusiastic I thought she was getting extra points for flinging her extremities and assets twice as fast as the beat. They danced a number or two, went for a costume change, and came back in stockings and dessous. Hi-la-ri-ous: their counterpart, dancing away in the crowed, was another conversation piece altogether. Dressed head to toe in black, dangling chains and wearing a massive mask/facepiece ending in a pair of giant horns, balanced on half-meter stilts, it was if a bizarre alien were dancing in the back of the room, jerkily. Reminded me of the scene in Star Wars (the new version, I think) where they’re all in some bar with all the aliens…
“Excuse-me-can-I-please-take-a-photo-with-you?” the little girl asked, reading shyly from a piece of paper. We’re at Borobudur, the largest Buddhist temple (in the world, says Wikipedia), and it seems like everyone, their grandmother, and their pet goldfish wants a picture of me. Yes, it’s because I’m so beautiful and charming that they think I’m a runaway supermodel. Just kidding. I seem to be pretty much the only white person here, and I’m pretty sure that’s my only qualification, but I’m getting school kids, families, women, men, pretty much anyone asking for a picture. I’m not sure why they want me on their vacation pictures, but if they bother to make the effort to ask, it’s all the same to me….
Once again I am clinging to the back of a motorbike, but this time, instead of a busy highway, we are heading up a steep incline on what in the West would be a one-lane road, but here serves dual-directional traffic. The poor bike labours up the hill, and understandably so. The grade is impressive, and even more so the small file of people bent over almost horizontally from the load they were carrying; they looked like pandan leaves but could have been anything. We pass terraced hillsides and small villages, we work our way through herds of schoolchildren and chickens, and after a twisty, muddy path, we arrive at our destination. It’s secluded in an alcove, protected by cliffs on both sides, buffeted by huge and crashing waves which slowly undercut the rock, leaving almost caves in the hillside. We explore the beach, venturing along the coast and scrambling over, under and through the sharp rocks. It’s a mixture of bouldering, caving, and wading through the water and the waves which soak us to the waist despite our best efforts. We work our way back, finding a perch from which to contemplate eternity. Another “beach” is merely the side of the cliff into which a staircase is cut, providing another excellent view both of the bay and of the hindu shrine cut into the hillside. The last beach is filled with fishing boats, narrow, outrigger boats which were responsible for our lunch, prepared for us as we sat on the beach and watched the little white crabs scuttle to and fro.
It turns out several of the beaches near Jogja have black sand, beautiful black sand stretching in both directions and pretty much covered by holidaymakers. There are horse-drawn buggies tearing up and down the surf, kids playing in the mud, families on mats provided by enterprising individuals selling roast corn, cold drinks, food, or flipflops, and no one seems daunted by the incipient rain. It’s growing dark off the coast, as we walk along the water, contemplating the almost pressing atmosphere and trying somehow to capture the mood on camera. And at some point we notice, like two fingers of a hand, little funnel clouds stretching downwards towards the water; still on the edge of the storm, they disappear, and we head back towards where our car is parked in case the storm moves in. We’re seated on one of these mats, enjoying our roast corn – after I thought I couldn’t eat any more following our fabulous dinner of barbecued fish fresh from the boat which we had enjoyed at the last beach – when we see the larger finger funneling towards the water. We can see the clouds rotating, see where the waterspout is beginning to form at the bottom and we are transfixed, trying our hardest to capture it on camera. As the little twister dissipates the storm rolls in, and the beach clears as if by magic, little mats are rolled up, trolley and horse carts pushed away, kids gathered and shooed towards the car.
Photo by Debby, who is much better at taking twister pictures than I am
On the way back we stop at a Javanese church, different, apparently, than other churches in Indonesia, itself a predominantly Muslim country. The nave itself is an open-air pagoda with a wide and relatively flat roof sheltering the pews and the altar; there is no one there when we approach. We proceed towards the back, where the sound of gongs, xylophones, and other instruments mingle with the chorus of voices singing songs of which I recognize neither the words nor the melodies; even the tonalities are foreign and eerie to me. The musicians and chorus are to one side, and between their shelter and the church there is a small, elevated stone temple, in front of which several people sit in rows. One by one they cross themselves, climb the stairs, kneel, pray, and retreat again from a statue bearing the face of Jesus and the body of a Buddha, perhaps a feature of the unique flavor of religions in these parts, a delicate mélange of various traditions and practices under the umbrella of a particular faith. We watch in silence, we attempt to photograph, and we ourselves retreat.
Photo also from Debby.
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