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Wednesday, 21 January 2015

Jogjakarta and Prambanan Temple



In August I received a message from my friend Félix from Germany:
"hey Mariate! My girlfriend and me are going to spend a few weeks in Indonesia and it could be nice if we can meet somewhere!" My answer was "of course! We will meet!"!!

We met in Borobudur village because they wanted to visit the temple for the sunrise and after that we went with indonesian and Czeck friends to "Festival Lima Gunung" ("Five mountains Festival") in Merbabu mountain where we could enjoy paintings, indonesian traditional dances, javanese music... It was amazing!




The day after, we moved to Jogjakarta. The first day there we walked around the city enjoying street food, watching street art, visiting museums (Batik Museum), "shopping" in the traditional clothes market... and we also drank another beer in our hostel (Backpackers Homestay Casa Raffles) celebrating our meeting!

street food

street art

Batik Museum

Daily life in Jogjakarta

The second day in Jogja, we did the "Temples route". The first temple that we visited was Prambanan Temple. It is part of the Temples Complex which has been defined as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. It is a complex made up of five temples, but at the moment it is only possible to see two of them (Prambanan and Sewu Temples) and not completely. What happened with this complex is that, a few years ago, a earthquake destroyed an important part of those temples

Prambanan Temple with Shiva's temple in the middle. 
Talking about Prambanan, I can say that in the beginning the total number of the temples was 240 temples. As you can see in the pictures, it is all almost destroyed. But they are rebuilding these temples, for example: Shiva's temple, who is the most important God in Hindu culture because (she/he) is the God of Destruction and who has bigger temple in the middle of Prambanan Complex and Ramayana relief inside, followed by Brahma Temple and Vishnu.

Ramayana reliefs
We also visited Sewu Temple, a Buddhist Temple (you can appreciate it looking the "estupas" because in buddhist temple they are more round than in Hindu's).

Plaosan Temple has two Budhas in the main door

Parts of the temple destroyed

Budhist estupas
Budha in Ijo Temple
The proximity of both temples shows a tolerance between two religions in the past.
And talking about my experience, you can also can feel this tolerance between religions because when you are inside the complex, you are involved in a Hindu and Buddhist culture also hearing the meditation music from the speakers and it is interesting when, sometimes, you can also listen a mosque. That feeling is amazing! After visiting the first two Temples, we walked around one hour (thanks to our map and the people in the villages) until we arrived at Plaosan Temple.


Plaosan Temple
It was also nice. Imagine that you are walking or riding a bike along the road, with ricefields and tobacco plants on both sides, in front of you the road full of sand and at the end a mountain. And suddenly, you find a temple in the middle of these ricefields! Isn't it amazing? And the most important thing: it was not a tourist temple, I mean without tourists, without foreigners... only people working rebuilding that temple.

Plaosan Temple
Our way finished with a fourth temple: Ijo temple. It was also amazing, but I don't have pictures to show you because we were too tired to take them. We had to walk up a mountain around one hour, without water, with a lot of sun, very hot temperatures... but we did it and we are proud of that.

After that long day we came back to our hostel to have a dinner, drink a beer and rest for our next adventure: Volcano Merapi!

Tuesday, 21 October 2014

Idul Fitri and Pangandaran

Idul Fitri is the holi day most important in Islam. They celebrate the end of Ramadan. They celebrate it waking up like every morning at 5am and praying. After pray they eat together in the mosque. During the day and all the week, they visit the family, friends… they cook a lot of food and offer sweets to the people who visit their house.  For me was very strange because I was doing fasting during Ramadan month, and to start to eat again a lot in the morning was difficult, but I couldn’t say “no”.
For us was also holidays and Antonio (volunteer from Spain) and me decided to go to Pangandaran.
Pandangaran is a city in the south cost of Java Island with beautiful beaches, mountain, green canyon and National Park.

We went there with the brother of the Indonesian family with whom Antonio lives. We arrived to the hotel where his brother had the room. The hotel is called Jawa Lagoon and is in the middle of Pangandaran and the Green Canyoon. The owner is one man from France and his Indonesian wife and in front of the hotel there is one beach. To go to that beach, you have to cross one river and it is amazing because nobody cross the river to go to the beach, then, we were alone there. We wanted to camp there, in the middle of the beach and the river, but we did not know when was the high tide and the level of it. Then, we decide to wait one day and observed the tide to know where we could to camp. We asked in the hotel if they had free room for us. Unfortunately, the hotel was fully booked but the owners were so nice and they offer us one room where they save some staff like surfboard, mattresses, and other staff of the hotel. We slept there for free, and also we could use their toilet. Amazing people, amazing hotel, amazing food!

Idul Fitri es la festividad más importante de los musulmanes donde celebran el fin de Ramadán. Lo celebran levantándose el primer día a rezar (como siempre a las 5am) y comen todos juntos en la Mezquita. Despues, van pasando por las casas de los familiares y amigos. Preparan mucha comida, muchos dulces, y en serio, no paran de comer! Para mí, que hice ayuno en Ramadan, fue muy difícil empezar a comer tanto sin parar, pero no podías decir que no!
Y para nosotros también eran vacaciones, así que Antonio (voluntario español) y yo decidimos visitar Pangandarán.

Pangandarán es una ciudad en la costa sur de la isla de Java con bonitas playas, montaña, cañón verde, parque nacional…
Nosotros fuimos con el hermano de la familia con la que Antonio vive. Llegamos al hotel donde tenían la habitación reservada. El hotel lo lleva un francés y su mujer indonesia. El hotel se llama Jawa Lagoon y está en primera línea de playa entre Pangandaran y el Cañón verde. . Para llegar a esa playa, tienes que cruzar el pequeño delta que forma un río en su desembocadura. Puedes ver las corrientes del río y de la marea alta o baja cuando se juntan. Nosotros no teníamos alojamiento, nuestra idea era acampar, por eso pensamos que era buena idea plantar la tienda de campaña en esa playa. Lo que nos asustaba (porque no conocíamos la zona) era cuándo bajaba y sobre todo cuando subía la marea. Así que le preguntamos al francés si tenía alguna habitación libre para pasar la primera noche y ya observar el nivel del agua por la noche y por la mañana. El hotel estaba completo pero nos ofreció dormir (de gratis) en una habitación donde guardan sus tablas de surf, colchones y algunos utensilios más del hotel. La verdad es que el hotel era una maravilla, la comida estaba muy buena y los dueños muy simpáticos y amigables.

We were there for two days. During the day we were in the beach, where we built a “joglo” with bamboo and palm leaves to make shadow.
We also rent a motorbike in the hotel and one of these days we went to Pangandaran. We wanted to go to de National Park, but in holidays and for tourist was very expensive (to say that we are volunteers didn’t work to get a discount!). Then, we only could walk a little bit in the city, buy was full of people, cars, motorbikes, rubbish… Really, was very sad to see the beach full of plastic, boxes… 

The best that day was the food! We went to the fish market where we could choose the fish that we wanted to eat, and they cook in front of you. We ate one fish each one, 100gr of calamari and 100 gr of prawns. Delicious!!


Allí nos quedamos un par de noches pasando el día en la playa, donde construimos un joglo con bambú y hojas de palmera para hacer sombra.


The coast full of rubbish
Alquilamos una moto y un día fuimos a Pangandarán . Quisimos ver el Parque Nacional, pero había mucha gente y la entrada al parque para turistas y en vacaciones era demasiado cara (no funcionó lo de: soy voluntario en Indonesia…).  Así que sólo pudimos pasear como una hora, pero no valió la pena, estaba lleno de gente, lleno de basura… En serio, daba pena. Lo mejor fue la comida! Fuimos al mercado de pescado donde podías escoger el pescado querías comer, fresco y te lo cocinaban a tu gusto. Comimos un pescado cada uno, 100gramos de gambas y 100 gramos de calamar! Buenísimo!




Other day we went to Citumang (very recommended place!) Is in the mountain, with a river, waterfall, caves, place to swim… Also there is a camping paying only 15.000 rupias each tend. That night we camped there. When we arrived, we went to the Green Valley (waterfall). We found the place walking only around 20 minutes in the mountain and it was amazing! There were no people, we could swim, jump from the rocks. Place full of vegetation, trees and also monkeys! Beautiful!





Otro día fuimos a Citumang (lugar súper recomendado!!). Es un lugar en la montaña con río, cascada, cuevas, zona de baño… También tiene zona de camping por sólo 15.ooo rupias/tienda.  Así que allí acampamos esa noche. Cuando llegamos, fuimos a la Green Valley (la casacada). Estaba a 20 minutos caminando desde la zona de camping, y por supuesto, no había nadie cuando llegamos. (En Indonesia la gente no suele caminar mucho). Es una pasada, te puedes bañar, tirar desde las rocas, lleno de vegetación, algunos monos… Precioso!






After that, we spent the last day in the beach and we came back to Borobudur.


Tras pasar el último día en la playa, decidimos regresar a Borobudur.



Friday, 5 September 2014

Fundraising Project

I want to share with all of you our project fundraising!!

"Hello, hello, hello!!
We have new news and new handcrafts!! In Indonesia we are colaborating with three orphanages teaching english, social abilities, motivacional lesson, basic knowledges and environtmental education. And we would like to go to the waterfall in Kopeng (Kali Pancur) to have one of this lesson there and enjoy in the nature! It is for this reason that we need money to rent three buses and to pay the ticket for almost 60 children! Do you want to help us??

The prices is "up to you"!! But you have to think that you are going to draw a big smile in this girls and boys colaborating with this social cause!"