Gods,Sultans, volcanoes, palaces, ballet and temple dreamscapes or what I did with 4 days in Yogyakarta

What do you do when a government official at the Ministry of Home affairs tells you to come back in a week to pick up the forms you need to carry on with the research permit application process? Either sit and moan about it and stay in Jakarta for that week, moan at the officials everyday and either it gets the form quicker or delayed for being a nuisance or do what I did and thank them very much and then once outside go "f*** it I'm going on holiday!". So the next day I was sat on a flight booked with Air Asia for £36 return to Yogyakarta, and is one of the better decisions I've made.

Some may baulk at the idea of flying with Air Asia at the moment so soon after the accident and in the same area, but all I found was a clean plane, friendly staff and very nice prices. The only bit that was a little annoying was when booking you have to pay for your checked in baggage, but the online system doesn't let you choose no checked in baggage so the girls I'm travelling with paid the £5.60 for up to 15kg of baggage that they didn't have. I  however made use of what I'd already paid for to put some toiletries and a couple of changes of clothes and shoes into a small backpack that I was able to check in, leaving more room for camera equipment and tech in my hand luggage. The flight was good though, no real problems other than a little turbulence, but we had amazing views of some of Java's many volcanoes which was almost worth paying for the flight alone.

Some of the volcanoes that you can see whilst flying from Jakarta to Yogyakarta

On arrival at Yogyarkta or Jogja as it's known to most Indonesians, the change from Jakarta is pretty much instant, no more multiple terminals and line after line of planes instead your met with a small single building and a line of Indonesian Airforce Hawk training fighter jets. What is most noticeable though is that there are very few buildings in Jogja more than 2 or 3 stories tall compared to Jakarta where it's a forest of glass and concrete with 15-20 stories are the norm. Jogja also oddly has quite a small town feel even for a city of over 500,000 which puts it in the same class as Liverpool, and like Liverpool it has a large number of universities and big student population. My hotel in Jogja- the Grand Tjokro was near to the main campus and so in the student district and this is a good tip is if your not a fan of being hassled all the time to buy things or for rides in Becak's find a hotel in the student area and you can walk around and shop without anyone bothering you, but still close enough to the main part of town that taxi's are still quite cheap. 

So why of all places did I choose Jogja for my quick couple of days off? Firstly it's known as the home of Javanese culture, secondly it's a very touristy city because of the ancient Hindu temples of Prambanan and Buddhist stupa of Borobudur being nearby, thirdly it's famous for it's shopping and local crafts (silver and batik), and lastly I'd met someone the previous week in the RISTEK offices who's doing their research in Jogja so it was a good way to catch up and get a sort of local's view of the city. First day was pretty much a write off after landing, mostly getting settled and wandering around the local area to see what's about. That night we met up with Belinda to go for some food and a couple of drinks and turns out she was living just round the corner from the hotel which made meeting up much easier. Anyway we went for food at a local warong which is the Indonesian for small café's and restaurants, this one made Chinese inspired food and was well known for it's speciality of hot plates. These were super hot cast iron pots that were brought out with the food sizzling and spitting everywhere from the heat and placed on little stands, we got one similar to sweet and sour chicken though less sour and way spicier, ciap cai (pronounced chap chai) which was mixed spicy vegetables, noodles and some nasi goreng (fried rice) and nasi putih (white rice). All the food was insanely good and fresh and the entire meal with drinks for the three of us came to less than 60,000irp which is less than £3!  

Hot plates aren't the cleanest of meals with all the sauce spitting everywhere just make sure you don't wear white/pale clothes when ordering it!

That meal gave us time to plan out some things to do with our time in the city and the first decided was to visit Prambanan to see the temples and the Ramayana ballet the next day. Prambanan is a huge Hindu temple complex 17km from Jogja built in the 9th Century and is the largest Hindu temple in Indonesia. It's main temples are dedicated to the Trimurti, the expression of God as the Creator (Brahma), Preserver (Vishnu) and Destroyer (Shiva). Within the temple grounds are many other smaller candi's (temple's) like Candi Sewu and Candi Lumbung. Entrance fee's are 175,000irp which is a bit expensive for Indonesian standards but it's not too bad and if your either historically or photographically inclines like myself you could easily spend most of a day here, unfortunately I only got to spend an afternoon but I'm hoping to be able to go back and fully explore the complex. Also next time I'm going to aim for getting there early morning as the main temple was really busy and if your Western it can be a bit of a nuisance as many of the local school children and some of the adults will ask to have photos with you and try practice their English with you. Which is fine for the first or second time but wears off after 10 different groups ask the same in a row and you really want to just get a photo without any people in them and to just take in the view in peace!  However if you leave the main temple but stay in the grounds and head to any of the smaller temples you very quickly leave the crowds behind and can quite easily find some peace and solitude. 

It's not often I'm left speechless, (ask any of my family and friends they've been trying to get me to be quiet for years!) but upon setting eyes on the main temple of Candi Sewu lit by the late afternoon sun and the volcano Mt Merapi providing an awe inspiring backdrop I thought I'd slipped into a dream or a fantasy world of pen and paper not carved stone. What also gives this place such an amazing atmosphere is that it was almost completely empty when I visited it even though Prambanan, less than a km away was completely packed. Unlike Prambanan, Candi Sewu is a Buddhist temple and in the main chamber of the temple there would have been a large statue of the Buddah but like the heads of many of the statues at Candi Sewu it has been removed. 

Candi Sewu and it's Dvarapala gate guardians which you'll see many reproductions of in front of many government and important buildings in Java

When visiting Prambanan, in my opinion and though it's pretty touristy the best way to end a day is to go watch the Prambanan Ramayana Ballet which is held just outside the main complex. Annoyingly the time of year affects the type of show you get, so from May to September you get to watch it in the outside theatre which the main temples of Prambanan lit up giving a perfect backdrop for the ballet. Unfortunately the rest of the year because of the higher likelihood of rain they perform in the indoor theatre and perform a shortened version of the Ramayana whereas in the outside one they spread it out across multiple nights, though it's not as spectacular it's still a really good show! Tickets weren't too bad 275,000irp for 1st class seats which were near the front and the show was over 3 hours! The actual show is of the Ramayana which is one of the two major Hindu epics and tells of the story of Rama and Sita and her kidnap by the demon king Ravana and Rama's journey to rescue her, I won't write it all here as it's quite long and a little complicated but definitely worth reading into if you've got time. 

Traditional Javanese ballet is very colourful and what you'll notice is the stark contract between the movements of male and female characters, where female dancers (except the golden deer) movements are more graceful, but very small and reserved the male dancers are far more flamboyant and spectacular. 

The next day was pretty much wasted because we were pretty tired from the day before, we didn't get back to the hotel until 11pm and we'd left at 1:30pm! So that was a really long day! Then with it's brilliant timing my camera charger packed in, so I spent most of the day wandering around Jogja searching for a Nikon camera charger to no avail. Luckily the supervisors for the MRes student's from Bournemouth University I'm working with were coming to Sumatra the week later so I was able to order a new charger to their address in the UK and have them bring it with them, which was a life saver! Due to this I also wasn't able to sort out a sunrise trip to Borobudur though the £65 price is a little off putting, so I've decided to wait until the end of my trip to go back to Jogja and visit Borobudur.

With our last day we decided to see some of the main sights in the centre of Jogja and have a super touristy day. First port of call was the Kraton or Sultans Palace. There are a number of Sultans in Indonesia with very limited power but the Sultan in Yogyakarta has a special place in Indonesia  as the previous Sultan, the presents father, played a major part in Indonesia's independence and gave shelter to the rebels when fighting the Dutch. Due to this the Sultanate of Yogyakarta was made a Special Administrative Region and is the smallest region in Indonesia and the only one headed by a monarchy as the Sultan also holds the office of Governor.  When visiting the Kraton, before the entrance there's a lot of sellers trying to sell you their wares from drinks and food to toys and the odd blow gun and darts! If you can get through these with a few friendly "tidaks" (tidak is no in Bahasa) then you'll get to the entrance, fees are 12,500irp and an extra 1000irp for taking a camera in, this is around 60p in UK money and with that you also get a tour guide who speaks amazing English as well!

Going round the Kraton I was first amazed by how simple and elegant the buildings were, no tall or ostentatious building as you find in Europe, and much less gold than Buckingham Palace or the Palaces in Brunei. Yet when you look closer, you find out the floors are Italian marble, the lights and lampshades Venetian glass, the wooden struts all teak and the pots surrounding the courtyard 350 year old Ming Dynasty Chinese porcelain! The term I think best fits it is "Reserved Extravagance" it's a strange contradiction of some of the most expensive and luxurious materials used in a way that it looks  reserved and modest, the polar opposite of its European counterparts and the malls that litter so many Indonesian cities. The one exception is in the Pendopo pavilion which is filled with heirlooms of the previous Sultan including his writing desk, however what stands out is that much of the inside of the pavilion is gilded in 17 carat gold leaf, yet even then it isn't as gaudy as many western palaces.

One of the most iconic sites in the Kraton are the palace guards in their blue robes, patterned batik sarongs and their ceremonial kris' (traditional Javan swords) tied to their belts. Their role is mostly a ceremonial one, with each guard working one day a week and unpaid, though it is considered a great honour with the position being passed down from father to son. I would certainly recommend taking time to chat to them and many of them were more than happy for you to take their photos. Overall I would really recommend going to and in the main pavilion there's usually a different show on each day, when we visited there were performances by the male and female gamelans which are and ensemble of traditional instruments including xylophones, bamboo flutes and vocalists, which make a beautiful and soothing sound.

The entrance to the Kraton flanked by the Dvarapala gate guardians that you see in front of many buildings in Java including Candi Sewu

One of the many 350 year old Chinese porcelain pots surrounding one of the main pavillions of the Kraton

The pendopo pavilion 

The traditional male gamelan

The all female gamelan

A trio of the palace guards in their blue robes and batik sarongs

After going round the Kraton we'd planned to go the Taman Sari or Water Castle which is just a short walk away, however on our walk we actually bumped into the head of the Government Tourist Information Centre whilst getting some bottles of water from a shop that turned out to belong to his brother, he recommended not going there unless it's either early morning or late afternoon as it's quite hot and in the middle of the day there's a lot of sellers about. Instead he recommended going to see how Batik is made at the Yogyakarta Batik Art Group which acts as a school for young artists and provides a place for both the students and masters to sell their works. Following this he then recommended going to see Malioboro which is the main shopping street in Jogja and is famous as a place where you can pretty much buy anything and was a place I'd been told many times that I couldn't leave Jogja without going to. So we went with his suggestion and he helped us get a couple of becaks which are the traditional pedal powered rickshaw-esque vehicles you'll see plenty of in Jogja. All I can say is it was on of the most awkward and uncomfortable rides I've ever had and that's only because I was probably twice the size of the guy driving mine and at every incline he hopped off and had to push it uphill (which the other driver also has to do for the girls, so not as bad). 

Once we finally got to the batik studio we were struck by so much colour, every inch of wall covered in artwork that from a distance looks like delicate watercolours but when you touch them it's actually dyed silk and cotton. We were given a short talk on how they produce batik and how to tell the difference between quality batik and the fake stuff. Batik is produced by drawing an outline onto the material cotton or silk, and then coating the areas you don't want to colour yet in wax and then dipping it into a dye which can be either natural or a mix of natural and synthetic, though as you can imagine the natural dyes are far more expensive. Once the first colour is dyed it's placed in the sun to "fix" and then this is covered in wax and the wax from the areas you want to dye a different colour are removed, this is then dyed and fixed again and repeated until the finished design is produced, this is as you can imagine a very time consuming process but what they produce is truly beautiful. Having a look around the gallery I couldn't help myself and bough a couple of pieces that I'll hang on the walls of my flat when I finally return home. Batik as well as being made into art is also made into clothes and it is this that many of the shops on Jalan Malioboro are selling. I didn't buy any of these this trip but on my return trip I definitely intend to have a better look.

The view from the front of my becak of the girls one, needless to say when crossing traffic this is one of the most terrifying forms of transport ever created for a passenger.

Some of the many Batik artworks in the gallery.

After the trip to the gallery we made our way to Malioboro to find somewhere to eat and have a look around some of the shops and the market. It is along this street that you can also find the office for the Government Tourist Information Centre and I would definitely encourage any visitors to Jogja who aren't sure where to go or to book things to call in and have a chat with these guys. After finishing shopping a massive storm moved in so we quickly grabbed a taxi and headed back to the hotel to get some food, and then caught our flight early the next morning and so ended my first trip to Jogja.

If your in Jogja and not sure what to do or where to go, head to Jalan Malioboro and call in to the Tourist Information Centre and remember to pick up a map, it's invaluable when getting a taxi to more out of the way places.

 I didn't do everything I wanted to do, but I'm happy with what I was able to do in such a short time and this just gives me more reasons to come back when I've got time in the summer.  Ciao for now. 

The Journey's Start Part 2: Concrete forests and urban jungles

Crazy guys pushing their food carts
through the mid-day traffic!

Jakarta. Sweaty, busy, smoggy, surprising, green, friendly Jakarta. A city of two halves, on one  side the crazy endless bustle of cars, buses, mopeds, motorbikes, and endless other forms of transport, bajaj's (tuk tuks), bicycles, delman (horse-drawn carriages) and people pushing, pulling and towing carts selling an endless variety of street food and wares that one first thinks of when picturing South-East Asia. The other half is the modern commercialised side increasingly becoming the face of modern Asia; glass skyscrapers cavernous malls and countless Western brands, company's, restaurants and innumerable Starbucks. 

So many people ride mopeds in Jakarta and the way
 they ride them is more than a little scary!

What has struck me most since arriving here (other than the fearlessness of pedestrians) is how incredibly friendly and helpful the people of this city have been. From the moment I stepped off the plane stumbling around trying to find the right place to go in immigration to the many taxi drivers, staff at the various government agencies and our fabulous hotel staff (Hotel Acacia get's a huge thumbs up in my book!) everyone has stopped and taken time to help us and are always so friendly it's refreshing from what other capital cities are like. 



Though I'd been warned many times before coming about the permit procedure and need to jump through flaming hoops of my experience so far all I can say is it has been painless, simple and efficient (as long as you follow the instructions and procedure to the letter!). What has made it so much easier is the helpful and friendliness of the locals, from RISTEK to the National Police (MABES POLRI) the staff and guards have all helped me to find where to go and what to fill in, and for finding them having the address and a map on a smart phone REALLY helps the taxi drivers. The only thing to complain about is the time it takes as I'm currently waiting for my Research Notification Letter (Surat Pembritahuan Penelitian) from the Ministry of Home Affairs (KEMDAGRI) which takes a week, but I'm not complaining as this is going to give me time to go visit Yogyakarta and see the temples of Borobudur and Prambanan (silver linings hey). The procedure is a bit ridiculous and time consuming but I'll write about that in a later post. 

Some of the skyscrapers and greenery along the road from our hotel to the MABES POLRI the National Police

The city has surprised me though as when I've asked friends about Jakarta and read about it no one ever has much good to say about it other than how busy its roads are and the pollution both of which I can attest to, what has surprised me is how much greenery there is in this city with some areas looking more like mini jungles in the heart of the city. The other surprising thing is the scale and grandeur of some of the buildings, the city centre is dominated by skyscrapers and the scale of some of the malls the Grand Indonesia is at least 7 floors and split into East and West halves and only across the road is the Plaza Indonesia both home to countless designer wares; Emporio Armani, Christian Louboutin and Tiffany Co. as well as more affordable high street brands such as H&M and Marks and Spencer. 

So much greenery in Jakarta it can almost make you forget your in a city of  10 million people!

The malls choice of shops are only eclipsed by their huge choice of restaurants and fast food places including many familiar names, like Pizza Hut, Burger King and far too many Starbucks' (at least 5 in the two shopping centres!) as well as less familiar one like Cafe Djournal (amazing tea and cakes!), Crystal Jade My Bread and Bread Talk who are both opposite each other and make the most amazing looking and smelling cakes and bread and Kopi Luwak a coffee shop specialising in the worlds most expensive coffee made from civet droppings (though this is not wild sourced and is from a terrible industry with poor animal welfare, avoid at all costs!).

Kopi Luwak selling the civet poo coffee, as much as it's tempting for
 novelty please avoid giving money to this business

Bread Talk (top) and Crystal Jade My Bread face each other in the Grand Indonesia Mall and
when you go down to the lower ground floor where these two are based it smells heavenly!

This side of the city is so different to what you see when you head to the less wealthy areas and the areas more familiar to backpackers near Jalan Jaksa. This is nearer to the true Indonesia filled with independent shops specialised to certain things like the visa photo printers and photocopiers I used to get my red background photos done and cost about £1 to get 4 copies of my passport and 6 photos done, so amazingly cheap! This is also where I finally had my first taste of some proper Indonesian food at Melly's Garden Bar and Restaurant which is well known backpacker circles. This was mostly just finger food so fired enochi mushrooms and tempe goreng (fried thinly sliced soybean curd), but was good as a start. 

I can't wait to fly out to Yogyakarta tomorrow and experience the real side of Java and some true Javan cuisine.

The Journey's Start Part 1: 36 Hours

36 hours.

36 hours of travel, that's what it takes to get from the tiny village  of Tan Lan in North Wales to the megalopolis of Jakarta in Indonesia, via Heathrow and the oasis of commercialism and designer brands that is Hamad International Airport in Doha, Qatar. Huge thanks to my parents for driving to Heathrow, saved me the huge stress and time it takes getting to Heathrow via the trains and underground.

A great tip if your like me and going away for a long time and pretty much need to take the kitchen sink but only have a small rucksack, pay for the safety wrapping a get them to stick other things in with it! They're actually quite open to this as most airline check-in staff don't like rucksacks due to the loose straps so this makes their lives easier as well as ours! For me paying the £10 for the safety wrap was totally worth it as I was able to sneak an extra backpack through filled with walking boots and toiletries by getting it wrapped together with my rucksack so that it was still only one checked item less than 30kg, though the result bore more than a striking resemblance to a humongous Christmas turkey!

The flights with Qatar Airways I'd wholly recommend, especially flying on their new A380 as I did to Doha; first class service, best food I've had on a plane, great film selection and surprisingly the cheapest prices!

Managed to sweet talk the check-in girl to giving me extra leg room seats right up the front of the plane for no extra cost! Pays to be nice and polite.

Not the best of photos showing the A380, but my Mum wanted to see pics of the plane.

One thing that stuck with me though and may seem a little odd is the view I had whilst flying over London. Seeing the masses of light and their connections through lit roads and motorways I was reminded of pictures I'd seen of the connections of nerves or blood vessels in the body. Masses of light at the vital organs the biggest at the brain of London and smaller masses at the small towns all linked by the golden arteries of light of the country's roads and motorways. This effect though I didn't see when flying over Doha or Jakarta, this may be that London has grown or evolved steadily over time compared to the other cities which have expanded rapidly over a short few years so lack this more natural look to them.

London from the air at night

The surprisingly tasty meal of beef in a thyme and garlic sauce

Though I spent 9 hours in the airport in Doha, there isn't much to write about it as I didn't get to venture out into the city. The airport itself is nice, modern and clean and clearly pays homage to the vast amounts of money being poured into the region at the moment with it's modern architecture and vast array of designer shops akin to the malls you expect to find in any of the neighbouring Emirates. This was the huge contrast to what lay ahead in Jakarta........

So what's this all about and who am I?

When I decided to start a blog nobody told me how hard it is to actually start writing and to come up with something good to start with, and since I've already started this will just have to do! 

So now that I've avoided the incredibly uncreative "Hi I'm John" as a first line I might as well introduce myself and what I do and what this blog is going to be about so as previously mentioned my name's John Abernethy, I'm currently a PhD student at Liverpool John Moores University having just started back in September 2014. My research is on the influence of forest structure on Orang-utan distribution, densities, behaviours and locomotion in Sumatra. This is going to involve completing two 8 month long field seasons at my field site in Sikundur in Gunung Leuser National Park in Sumatra the first of which I'm just starting now. 

To determine the influence of forest structure on these aspects of orang-utan ecology I'm going to be using a combination of ground based methods like transects, day follows recording their behaviour and movements and canopy photography along with data from airborne drones. The goal of this will be to develop a model that predicts how Sumatran orang-utans adapt to the changes in their forest environment which is mostly due to human actions such as logging and deforestation for development. This will allow for land managers and conservationists to be able to develop better management strategies for orang-utan conservation and reduce the impact of utilising the forest resources.

One of the most common questions I've had since I started this project is "Aren't orang-utans everywhere? Why do they need help?". In answer to this, no there actually limited to only two islands in South-East Asia which are Sumatra and Borneo, with each island having it's own species. The Bornean orang-utan (Pongo pygmaeus) is by far the more common, but that's not saying much as it is still listed as endangered by the IUCN with only 55,000 left in the wild! The Sumatran orang-utan (Pongo abelii) which is the species I'm working with is critically endangered with only 5000 or so left in the wild! With numbers like this you can see they're definitely not everywhere and with the rate their forests are being lost to deforestation for palm oil and coffee plantations they definitely need our help. 

So what is the point of this blog? Well what I'm hoping is it will both help to raise awareness about orang-utan conservation, let people to see what modern science is like and that not all scientists are sat in ivory towers and that some of us are in our huts covered in mosquito bites, mud and leeches and in general I want people to get involved in my research. With this blog I'm hoping to be able to update at least one a month though at times it may be way more frequently especially at the start. For now though I hope you read this and that you weren't too bored, future posts should have plenty of photos once I'm in the forests, but I hope you stay for the journey and I look forward to sharing it with you.