After a stint in the departure lounge subjected to the bane of all Indonesian airports – braces of blaring TVs mounted on walls – we boarded the flight to Yogyakarta, a mere 55-minutes from Jakarta. Lying in Daerah Istimewa, the “Special Region of Jogjakarta” is accorded the same privilege as a province, being directly responsible to Jakarta and not to the provincial government of central Java.
The leader of this political entity, Sultan Hamengku Bowono X, governs over a 3000-square kilometer territory and a population of 3.5 million. The region is bounded on the north, east and west by Central Java Province (with ten times its population) and in the south by the treacherous shores of the Indian Ocean.
Its capital of Yogyakarta (Jogja for short) is the most important city of central Java. Jogja is a hot, flat, sprawling city, Java’s cultural capital – the Kyoto of Indonesia. Wrap-around sarongs, in the age-mellowed colors and patterns typical of central Java, are ubiquitous. Barefoot children play in lanes shaded by leafy trees, university students in faded blue jeans and Islamic head coverings wait at the sides of roads for sputtering public minivans, and batiked-bedecked women carry everything from babies to durian in woven baskets from cloth slings around their shoulders.
There’s a certain softness, sweetness and correctness about the people of the Special Region. Even old white-haired women rummaging through trash bins are dressed traditionally in sarong, kebaya (lady’s blouse) and sash. Because the region has no heavy industries and few natural resources, Jogja’s economy is based on education, tourism and handicrafts – known as the Three Pillars.
Of these, tourism promises the most economic dividends. As well it should. In spite of the war in Iraq and SARS, as a visiting Westerner I didn’t feel any bad vibes or receive one unfriendly stare during my entire five-day visit.
For years Jogja was known as the world’s largest village, but it has now undeniably become a city. Jogja has built its second flypast over the big intersection where the roads from Parangtritis, Solo and Jogja meet. A traditional Javanese spa has opened in the Sheraton Hotel, and a new 10,800-square-meter exhibition and convention hall (JEC) has been constructed on five hectares of land in the middle of the city.
Yet, even with all the changes, Jogja has remained remarkably intact since my first visit in 1972, with many of its neighborhoods retaining a village-like character, the most striking being its endless vista of one-story buildings. The shops still sell only tape cassettes, as if the age of the DVD hadn't yet arrived, and bicycles still crowd the streets.
The Kraton
The main Jogjakarta Kraton is the finest example of classical Javanese palace architecture in existence. However, since I had already visited it so many times, I headed instead to the palace of a junior line of the royal family, the Pakualaman, founded by Paku Alam I in 1813.
On its grounds, bereft of visitors and retainers, one can feel an unmistakable and ineffable nostalgia for the central Javanese palace culture. There was not a single tourist on the premises which alone made it worth a visit over the hot and crowded main kraton.
Its entrance shaded by huge banyan trees, the Pakulaman sits on elevated ground so visitors are rewarded with an unremitting cool breeze. You may not enter the huge pendopo (open-air pavilion), but the museum is open to visitors. It is full of royal bric a brac and paraphernalia of a bygone era – uniforms, weapons, musical instruments, black and white colonial-era photographs – invoking the effete, dusty, sentimental and bourgeois.
But the museum’s most outstanding objets d’art are the 19th century European horse-drawn Cinderella coaches in a back store room. None other than Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore and a one-time governor-general of the East Indies, gave one of the carriages as a gift to the prince.
The Old Town
The narrow streets and lanes of Kota Gede, just a few kilometers south of downtown Jogja, is a strongly Islamic neighborhood of small traders and silver craftsmen. Every five days the market, which begins at five in the morning, seethes with stands, motor scooters, pedicabs, horsecarts and bicycles through which visitors can barely squeeze an automobile.
Sidewalk vendors sell farm tools, plants, medicines and cosmetics. Hundreds of songbirds flutter in high stacks of plaited bamboo cages. In this ancient part of the city the rivers still flow a healthy dirt-brown.
Until the end of the 16th century, Kota Gede was the seat of the Islamic Mataram Kingdom. In its center, where over a hundred years ago a town square was located, is Kampung Alun-alun, a quiet orderly area of small lanes, old houses, rickety fences, rows of flower pots and banana trees growing in neglected graveyards.
Three gigantic ageless waringin trees, thought to be inhabited by hordes of spirits, entirely cover a sleepy crossroads and small market known as Batu Gilang. Pre-schoolers circle on their tricycles and chickens peck the dust in the stillness of the afternoon’s heat. An elaborate gate topped by a statue of the Hindu elephant god Ganesha leads to the burial place of the 7th Sultan of Yogyakarta.
Inside is an almost supernaturally quiet courtyard before the entrance to the hallowed grounds where Senopati (1586-1601), the first Sultan of Mataram, is interred. Sitting languidly on several open pavilions, six attendants in full court attire, all armed with kris, stand guard over this dusty remnant of the last great Javanese Hindu empire.
E-mail : pakbill2003@yahoo.com
Copyright@2004 PakBill
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