Day 8 was full of pleasant surprises :) and new experiences. I could even call myself a budding art collector now. ;P
In the morning we decided to go to Malioboro Street, its a big main street in Yogya full of Batik shops and market stalls, sculptures, old building and a vibrant atmosphere. I wanted to take a walk along the street as we had driven past it in our Becak from the train station. I thought that I might be able to find a shorter skirt for my Kebaya that I will be wearing to a wedding tonight as the one I have is floor length and might be quite hot. But we didn't find any sadly. But we did find or maybe he found us, but an artist started talking to me in the street in very good English and was asking where I was from and if I wanted to go look at his wife and his art exhibition. He was telling us that they had exhibited their artwork in a famous gallery in Sydney but I cant remember the name. His wife paints beautiful Batik inspired by Australian Aboriginal art!
So we followed him up to a small gallery showcasing his work and that of students and other artists. He had to leave to pray so we were handed over to another very enthusiastic, charming and inspiring artist who was also showing his work here. His name is Heru and he is married to a Canadian woman who is a writer of Javanese Sanskrit. He his about to go to New York to showcase his Batik artwork in a prominent gallery over there and I must say his artwork is very striking.
We sat with him and learned all about his paintings and how he makes them, where he finds inspiration and a bit about other forms of Batik art work that he considers "Coca-Cola Batik" or Batik paintings that you can find anywhere, very common style and subjects.
Heru actually travels to different regions of Indonesia and lives with his subjects for a few weeks, living how they do to get a real sense of meaning and understanding before he creates his artworks. One particular Batik that I would have loved to buy was of a woman that has walked up a mountain every day for the past 20 years to collect reeds which she then sells for only 18,000 rupiah or $1.80AUD!!
But there was another Batik of his that I loved more, and I ended up buying, of three shrimp fishermen, it is a very vibrant green, white and black image. And the reason I love it so much is that he made the green die himself from Avocados!!
I will put up a picture of it when I can properly display it back home.
The next part of our day was a tour of the Borobudur Temple at sunset which was INCREDIBLE!!!
It is honestly amazing to walk through all the tiers of the temple and just see the amount of detail that went into carving every single stone block! Not to mention how beautiful the stones look in the setting sunlight.
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| These carvings were on nearly every surface of the temple! |
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| I am the new Buddha |
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| An example of the beautiful colours and carvings on the stones. |
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| Looks like a postcard, Ma'arif took this one, I let him have free rein over the camera today. And he's pretty good! |
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| This one is the best that I could get of this stunning volcano in the distance! |
This temple was truly beautiful! And a definite must if you are visiting Yoyga but you do have to be careful and I would also recommend arranging it through a tour group or your hotel prior, as entry is quite complicated, its 130,000 rupiah for international visitors and 30,000 rupiah for locals. They have different entrances and we were told by our local friend beforehand that the local villages in the area can try and trick you by telling you that entry closes at 6 am if you want to see the sunrise (its actually 7am) and they tell you to go with them to their village behind the temple to watch the sunrise instead of actually going to the temple. So just a word of warning. Our transport guide was great, he pre arranged my ticket and entry so I just had to walk straight through.
I'm writing this the day after, tonight I am going to a traditional wedding reception for Ma'arifs friends wedding, we went to the ceremony this morning and it was very full on and highly decorated, I hardly recognized the bride with all her traditional wedding makeup on! But she did look very beautiful!
Check back soon for day 9! I don't want to go home yet but it fast approaching :( hehe
Em
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