dr pino

Last night I finally called the Sumatrans - on a bad phone line (I'm yet to find a good one here). I could only tell them where I was, and they said they would come and pick me up. So I wait on the side of the road, and the whole of Yogyakarta seems to be pouring down Jalan Malioboro single-file. I waited for half an hour, and called them again. This time all I could manage to understand was "We can't come. Call tomorrow morning." So then I had twenty minutes to make it to the eight-hour wayang kulit show that was my contingency plan, at the opposite end of Malioboro. Trying to cut through the market crowds at any speed is frustrating, so eventually I hopped a becak. After unsolicited detours to various batik and puppet workshops in search of a commission, my driver and I pulled up at the theatre. The show runs every second Saturday, and it's at this point that I discover it ran last week, and it will run next week, but tidak malam ini (not tonight). So we turn around and head back. It's a slight up-hill gradient now, and my driver starts to make noises to show me what an effort it is. Patting his stomach and saying "Very hungry. No money." He pulls over and asks me to buy him a drink. I give him 20,000 for the whole trip (which is four times what a local would pay). He asks for a smoke, but he's not interested in my Gudang Garams. As I start walking back to my hotel he calls "Please sir. Special for my children? Hungry. No money." This morning, going to breakfast, I ran into that same retired British couple for the fourth time. We're heading in different directions now so we're not likely to meet again. Later, I went by public bus to the Hindu temple group at Prambanan, Java's second great tourist attraction. After standing in the queue with my 8000 rupiah entry fee ready to pay, I am directed to the other ticket booth, for foreign tourists. Here I pay 95,000 rupiah for exactly the same thing. Of course, if I'd had the foresight to bring my international student card with me I could have paid the local price, and it would have been the only time I've ever had a use for it. Alas... The main temple group is roughly the same size as Borobudur, but there are five or six separate temples within it. All covered in images depicting the Ramayana, and each representing a different character from the story. The Shiva temple is the largest and most ornate. Mind you, I didn't have much of a chance to appreciate them due to my own popularity as a photo opportunity. There must have been seven separate groups of people who had their photos taken with me, including one group of about forty school-kids, with their teachers. The teachers encouraged their kids to practise their English on me, and I obliged. I managed to get a few pictures on my own camera this time, of myself with little Indonesian people. It's still very strange to be such an attraction. Now, I'm thinking that I should probably call those Sumatrans again. The morning is well gone already, but I'm still relying on them for a lift to Bandung tomorrow. Ho hum.