Jason Devitt

Some people, particularly in Australia, speak of Indonesia as the Javanese Empire. This is a loaded term, intended to convey something malevolent and bound to collapse, but it gives a sense of Java’s importance. For most of its colonial and post-colonial history, power in Indonesia has been concentrated in Java, and power in Java has been concentrated in Jakarta.

It shows. Jakarta sprawls endlessly, with no center and no apparent planning. The heat and pollution make it impossible to walk anywhere, and the traffic makes it difficult to drive. The city is spreading across the western end of Java like a fast-moving glacier, and just as glaciers pile up rock and earth at their leading edge, Jakarta piles up slums. Given its size there is remarkably little for a visitor to see. We asked friends who live there. They couldn’t suggest anything. We left.

All right, there’s one place worth seeing. In the National Museum, there is a vast collection of artifacts from Indonesia’s 200-odd ethnic groups, all neatly arranged in tall, austere, Victorian display cabinets, and with almost no labels or commentary of any kind. Bewildered, Summer and I fell in with a group of ten women who were training to be tour guides. As the only man in the group, I was the butt of all jokes about matrilineal tribes and penis gourds.

***

From the comfort of our first-class train seats, we saw the slums of Jakarta roll past; the volcanic spine of Java; our first rice terraces; a dozen cozy-looking small towns; and occasionally, glimpses of life in the cheap trains - freight cars with a bench bolted to each wall and, by way of air-conditioning, no doors.

Our next stop was Bandung, where we spent a few days with Johannes, an old schoolfriend of Summer, who was an excellent host. Bandung is a very fine provincial town, much liked by the Dutch, who planned to move the capital there from Jakarta. War and independence intervened, but the Dutch left behind something that I did not expect to find in Indonesia: one of the largest concentrations of art deco buildings anywhere in the world outside Miami. If you are a fan of this style, and we are, skip Jakarta and go to Bandung.

***

Yogyakarta in Central Java is the gateway town for Java’s most important ancient monuments, Pramnaban and Borobodur, and for the volcano Merapi. But it also home to a Javanese Sultan, and thirty thousand people still live within the outer walls of the Kraton or palace of the Sultan. The photo above was taken at the Water Palace. From this vantage point Sultans in former times could watch their wives frolic in the pool below, and choose one or two to, er, dally with.

Indonesia is one of the most geologically active places on earth. There are active volcanoes all along the archipelago, and Merapi is one of the largest. I took this photo from our hotel room a few weeks ago; it was the end of the rainy season and too overcast to visit Merapi or Bromo or any of the other peaks while we were there. Today Merapi is on the brink of an eruption.

Borobodur is the largest Buddhist building on earth. (Angkor Wat is a Hindu temple.) Hinduism overwhelmed Buddhism in Java before Islam even arrived, and for several hundred years Borobodur lay buried under volcanic ash following a massive eruption of Merapi.

It’s a study guide for Mahayana Buddhism; each level represents a stage in the life of the Buddha, and the progression from ignorance to nirvana to parinirvana.

But Budi, our guide, was more interested in the fact that I am Irish and Summer is American.

"Ah, Westlife is from Ireland, no?"

For the benefit of American readers, Westlife is a boy band from Ireland that has never cracked the US, but is big everywhere else in the world. Three different Indonesian people invoked their name. But only Budi serenaded us, as we slowly climbed the steps of Borobodur.

"More than words / Is all you have to do / To make it real … my daughter loves Westlife you know … "

We passed elaborately carved scenes from the life of the Buddha, and I realized for the first time just how much the Mahayana Buddhists have elaborated on his original teachings - the Theravada school that is followed in Thailand and Cambodia.

"Then you wouldn’t have to say / That you love me / Cause I’d already know … in fact I am teaching her English using the lyrics of Westlife… "

It began to rain. It was one of the last storms of the season. As the wind and rain mounted and the stone became slippery, we climbed further, watching each step.

"What would you do / If my heart was torn in two … and I love America. My dream is to move there and to marry an American angel…"

On the upper terraces, 72 bell-shaped stupas concealed life-sized statues of the Buddha meditating. At the summit, a small chamber represented parinirvana: final nothingness. The storm rose, and we saw lightning. Our clothes were soaking wet.

"More than words to show you feel / That your love for me is real … Our children would be mixed race, and all the Indonesian pop stars are mixed race you see."

Summer and I thanked Budi for his time, and left Borobodur, Yogyakarta, and Java behind us.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 1st, 2006 at 7:52 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.