504 Buddhas at a Pizza Hut?

Dear fellow citizens of Earth,

Fear not, we have not lost our nerve (nor stomach) for fine Indonesian cuisine and stooped to patronizing a massive multinational chain restaurant that utilizes manipulative marketing schemes to lure people out of their local eateries and export their money to this corporate juggernaut (although I do approve of "Book It:" get pizza just for reading!). Surprising but true, there are many a Pizza Hut to be found way out here in Indonesia (the prices are the same as at home, which makes it some of the most expensive food you can find here). However, what I am referring to up there in the title is the amazing similarity between traditional Javanese architecture and the iconographic Pizza Hut roof. Indeed it seems obvious that Pizza Hut has stolen its signature roof from the ancient tradition found on Java, the most populated island in Indonesia (with a population of 135 million of the 235 million people spread across the 17,000 islands of the Indonesian archipelago).

 

All this should smoothly segue us from the crashing waves of the Indian Ocean to the boiling mud of Central Javanese volcanoes to the epic Buddhist temple of Borobudur, the biggest Buddhist temple in the world (not to be confused with the biggest temple in the world, the Cambodian Hindu temple of Angkor Wat). This temple was built between 750 and 850CE by the yet little known Saliendra Dynasty, an important force in ancient Asian trade and the dissemination of Buddhism. Elegant and amazing, this ornately decorated 9th century symmetrical megalith is immaculate from micro to macro. As the bird flies, this temple looks like a giant mandala, a beautiful perfectly symmetrical square lotus flower rising towards the heavens. 

Approaching this masterpiece of tranquility affords one the neck-craning opportunity to wallow in sunshining awe at the sheer magnitude of this temple, which was built up around an existing hill to tower over the countryside in the elevated area between two twin volcanoes: Sundoro-Sumbing and Merbabu-Merapi (despite no activity for the last two years we discovered with blackened feet that there was always ash on our hotel floor outside). Up close the intricate detail of this temple is astounding: 504 Buddhas sit meditating in alcoves perched along the walls of 10 terraced levels, each sitting above the 5km long spiraling walkway walls carved with ornate relief engravings detailing the rise through the three realms: (roughly translated) the desire realm, the heaven realms, and the realm of enlightenment: Nirvana.

We got very lucky because it started raining there (which sounds like bad news, but:) for only long enough to drive away the hoards of other tourists and give us the place to ourselves. During the rainstorm we took shelter under a tarp where a local Indonesian restoration team was repairing the drainage system and they let Sarah chisel an actual stone to be placed back on the wall----contributing to the ongoing maintenance of this magnificent monument. After the rain the walkway was clear and we enjoyed following the many possibilities of life: from animal realms, rising to human incarnation, some of which gained karmic merit and moved upwards and others killed animals, stole, and were sent to hell realms to extinguish their negative karma before returning again as animals to work their way up.
 

We walked to the second set of tiers, where gods and devas are born. Some became deluded, believing they are the one true creator of all existence and bullying others into devoutness with their power. In Buddhist religion, interestingly, the heaven realm is not the goal most sought-after. Indeed, they say it is very pleasant, a realm of sensory delights, pleasure unmeasurable, but it's fairly pointless as you cannot do any good to increase your karmic merit. Buddhists strive for the elimination of desire to achieve a clarity of mind and understanding of existence that, at its highest level, has been termed Nirvana or enlightenment. This is symbolized by the uppermost tiers of Borobudur, where around a giant central bell-like stupa sit 72 stone Buddhas, meditating in hollow latticed stupas overlooking the volcanic Javanese countryside.

The following day we set out in that countryside with our fine local guides Dan and Yatno to see how the villagers live. We went to a tofu factory, where one man crushes and boils hundreds of pounds of soy beans every day over a sweltering wood fire, filters the slew, and pours them into moulds to set into our firm friendly familiar cubes. Leaving the sultry factory, we drove through rolling fields of everybody's favorite cash crop: tobacco, set against the misty backdrop of Borobudur fringed by palm trees. We stopped to smell the fresh, earthy tobacco leaves drying in the sun as villagers flipped the big rattan mats upon which they sat. This tobacco shall be sold to one of several major cigarette companies in Indonesia, which add cloves (yes, the spice) to the mix and roll them up. These sweet, spicy, sparkling cigarettes are all the rage in Indonesia, and dominate the tobacco market in a country full of volcano-inspired chain-smokers.

The Javanese countryside was beautiful: driving past all the Pizza Hut-esque Javanese roofs in the beautiful rolling fields, turning the occasional corner for yet another view of the spectacular temple, with local people smiling and waving at us from the fields. Yet Buddhism teaches us that all things pass and so too must our immaculate tranquility. So again we rolled into a big city. But unlike most Indonesian cities, this one didn't suck. In fact, Jogjakarta (alternate spellings: Yogyakarta, Djogjakarta, Djokdjakarta----it seems that in Indonesia there is no standard, you just have to approximate the sound) is considered the modern artistic and musical center of Java (and hence also Indonesia at large). Everywhere we walked there were art galleries and street musicians. 

We CouchSurfed with an eclectic group of kids from: Estonia, Germany, Australia, Mexico, Ecuador, and a home bred Jogjakartian. This enormous house held these six folks plus us and then another 3 CouchSurfers on our last night. I even got to jam on some electric guitar with their friends, Shaggy Dog, a popular Indonesian reggae band----some great guys (the night was 40% English, 50% bahasa Indonesia, and the scattered "other:" Spanish, German, Australian). They were awesome cats with skills ranging from teaching to cooking, painting to accordion. It was a fun house. It was also a house that never slept, as we found out at 3am when a party began and the laughter reigned supreme until sunrise.

A few hours later we awoke and spent the day exploring the colonial Dutch buildings and trying to avoid the innumerable touts trying to lure us into their admittedly impressive batik painting art galleries. That night we went to a traditional Javanese shadow puppet show, which was rather long, slow, and inscrutable (though we have learned a near-conversational level of the national unifying bahasa Indonesia, I can't even remember "thank you" in Javanese) but the highly percussive orchestra of near 20 musicians and singers was spectacular. The ornately designed shadow puppets would talk back and forth, waving one hand to signify the speaker, and then as the action rose the orchestra accelerated, faster and faster, throwing notes up and down the wooden xylophones and brass gongs, drumming and singing, spinning into a chaotic, hypnotic fury. The puppets would start flying around, presumably fighting, and a crescendo would mark a scene change. I never figured out who the characters were but it was a spectacular performance nonetheless.
 

The next day we eschewed the countless batik painting hawkers and set straight out to learn how to do it ourselves at the Magic Gallery operated by the kindly art guru Rudi (we were all amused that his first name is Sarah's surname). He showed us the technique, beginning with a white cotton canvas and using a special pen to pour hot wax on it on both sides to keep those areas white. We painted several layers from lighter colors to dark colors, preserving the each layer of color with wax and mixing darker colors atop other areas to yield the perfect pigments, beautifully juxtaposed in systematic harmony to bring to life our simple animalistic designs. Sarah made quite an impressive technicolor owl, perched between the moon and the heavens in the dark mists of night. I conjured the smiling image of a young giraffe in the heat of day by a swirling river. To summon these sacred images we employed our meditative techniques, honed by the pedagogical energy of the towering Borobudur Temple, all under the red roof of an original Javanese shelter, plundered by Pizza Hut and spread throughout the world.

 
Thanks for listening! And remember: support your local businesses!

Dragons and Dreamscapes

Onwards and eastwards in our Indonesian adventures:

After a brief stint back in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with our friends Iga and Matheus (who we met hiking in Myanmar) to get 60 day visas, we're back on track in Indo. We flew into Jakarta, Java, the capital of Indonesia: a huge city with 10 million people crammed in on a dizzyingly complex public bus system. Couch surfing (really the only way to see an unfamiliar city) with David got us through this concrete jungle with great memories.

In Jakarta we went to Mini Indonesia Park, where we could ride bicycles from Sumatra to Papua, over 2500 miles apart, and explore dozens of examples of typical regional architecture across Indonesia filled with artifacts of daily life and various colorful ceremonial garb. Whilst at Mini Indonesia Park we got to experience the unimaginable: petting a KOMODO DRAGON!

These prehistoric monstrous lizards (the world's biggest!) can grow up to 10 feet long and 200 pounds! Despite their massive bulk, they can get around, swimming, climbing trees, and charging at ferocious speeds while making grunts that have been likened to machine guns. These spectacular creatures are a "vulnerable" species found only on a few small islands in eastern Indonesia. They're carnivores, largely scavengers, eating other reptiles (including smaller Komodo Dragons----another Indonesian cannibal!), birds, eggs, monkeys, wild boar, deer, horses, and water buffalo and can swallow whole prey as large as a goat! And we got to pet one. Wow!

After a grueling series of confusing bus transfers totaling 6 buses (after following a trail of bad advice from bus attendants), we arrived in the beautiful beach town of Pangandaran, Southwest Java. The beach was serene and beautiful (despite ubiquitous scattered trash) and the people were laid back and welcoming. We were so happy to be there we weren't even too mad that the mosque woke us up at 4am every day.

 

But it was in Pangandaran that we encountered a truly breath-taking place: The Green Canyon. We teamed up with a fellow American named Matt, who's teaching English in central Java, rented motor bikes and set off on well-charted paths. Arriving at our destination, we hopped on a boat and chugged along up the river, lined by drooping palm fronds and vines dangling into the lazy river from spectacular sideways trees.

We arrived at a massive natural tunnel (perhaps a collapsed cave) and docked our boat against the covered rocks in the dripping cavern to continue on foot. We stood atop the rocks and marveled at the fantastical verdant vista before us: outside the tunnel's mouth shafts of light illuminated the green river as it gurgled along between the massive moss-covered canyon walls with leafy vines cascading over. The whole place shimmered with a fantastical aura as gleaming droplets of water caught the light in their continual descent from the walls above.

We swam up the river, climbing over rocks and logs in our path, soaking in the sparkling ambiance, until we arrived at a massive stalagmite formation 20 feet tall. Despite my better judgment, I followed our guide up, grabbing handholds and scampering over the bizarre formation, until we reached the top----spectacular view. Then I jumped! Plummeting through the air and disappearing into the cold water beneath was exhilarating but definitely scary. But don't worry, I checked the landing site well in advance.

That's all!