Finding the spiritual

Judy. It seems we’re coming to the end of our month-long sojourn in Southeast Asia; time to shift gears again into a completely different culture.

This has been a month of surprises and, I suppose, no place as much as Yogyakarta, Indonesia.  Someone had told us that this was an incredibly spiritual city, with Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and Christians living side by side in harmony. I forgot that we all see spirituality in our own way, and so we expected to see Buddhist monks walking past Hindu temples while the call to prayer and church bells rang out. So when we only saw and heard only mosques, and no one seemed to stop when the muezzin sang out, we were disappointed.

But as the week progressed, the city grew on me.

True, that first Sunday when we walked to Jalan Malioboro, we were absolutely overwhelmed by the crowds, all locals. There were street shops everywhere, and street food, but we found no cafes, except for a Dunkin Donuts, a McDonald’s, and a Starbucks, so we wound up in a mall in a lousy chain place. Then we ducked in next door to a drugstore, and to a grocery, and found, as we have before, that people were curious and kind. We also found out that not only is Sunday the main shopping day, but also this was a holiday weekend.  

That evening we discovered what we call “Pub Street”, only a block from our hotel, with all kinds of cafes. (Thank you, Trip Advisor.) Our hotel had lush grounds, with winding paths to the rooms, and our second-floor room at the back was large and cool with a balcony overlooking the grounds as well as the poorer homes behind us. Good reminder.

The visit to Borobudur, a restored ninth century Buddhist temple (the largest in the world), after a two-hour ride through holiday traffic, was both frustrating and satisfying. It sits in a beautiful park, and, although it was packed (again, with locals, which was great), people were much better behaved than at Angkor Wat. The climb was not difficult, the view incredible, and the people—oh, the people! Several groups stopped us to practice their English and ask us questions about ourselves, our home, and what we thought of their country. They did so with kindness and big smiles, and usually asked if they could have their photo made with Ted—he’s so much bigger than they!  

Several groups of schoolchildren were there on an English assignment, and a group of 12-year-old girls stopped to ask us their memorized and carefully practiced questions, then asked us to sign their assignment card. We were approached by other groups from the same school, but had to turn them down. Unfortunately there was a dearth of foreigners that day!

After the long ride back (remind me not to complain about Atlanta traffic), we decided to forgo visits to Candi Prambanan, the ancient Hindu temple, and Mt. Merapi, the active volcano. Instead, we would take the week to rest and explore at leisure.

With the help of the hotel staff, I began to learn a few Indonesian phrases, which I practiced on waitstaff, shop owners, and becak (tuk-tuk) 

drivers. All smiled in a big way, correcting my pronunciation or usage of a word. The drivers along “Pub Street” got used to my responding to their “Ride, Madame? Maybe tomorrow?” with “Salam pagi! I’m walking for my health.” One fellow stopped asking, and simply greeted me each day. Everyone asked where we’re from, and proudly told us they “had been to/knew someone in San Francisco.”

Five times a day we heard the call to prayer. From 5 different mosques, none of them synchronized. One of the muezzins had a beautiful voice, and was usually first. It lifted my heart. But the late afternoon call became an odd cacophony, and drove us from our balcony into our room more often than not. Still, I think I’ll really miss that call.

We walked to the Museum Sonobuoyo one afternoon and had a lovely dose of anthropological Yogyakarta, with its Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim histories. There were exhibits on how batik is made, and on shadow puppets for which they are famous. We met the puppetmaker, tapping out the designs on leather shapes, which he will later paint, and a musician in the show (who proudly showed us the flyer from his performance in San Francisco in 1974). We passed a group of schoolchildren who responded to my “Salamat pagi!” with fits of giggles, “Good morning,” and “Salamat pagi!”

One night we attended the Javanese ballet Ramayana, based on an ancient Hindu epic poem. We sat, mesmerized, on backless benches, for an hour and a half as we watched the love story of Rama and Shinta. We laughed at the antics of Hanuman, the white monkey, and his little monkeys, and marveled at not only Rama’s archery skills, but at the victims who caught the arrows right at the point they were to enter the body. It was a performance I will not soon forget.

There is a group of twenty high school Australian students here with their teachers on a field trip/home exchange. As James, one of the teachers pointed out, Australia and Indonesia are so incredibly close (check it out—at one point they’re 120 miles apart), yet their cultures could not be more different. Their teachers tell us that the kids are jumping in with both feet: eating whatever their families offer, getting dressed in traditional dress to pay honor to the Sultan’s grave, learning the language. They are from a small town in south Victoria, and watching them embrace Indonesia has been great. Yes, they do, when they return to the hotel, make tons of noise in the pool.  Nice to hear. Like the cacophony of too many calls to prayer.

So we spend  quiet days, as in Te Anu and Siem Reap, studying Spanish, doing the laundry, swimming, talking, doing some sightseeing—learning what it might be like to live for two months somewhere. We hear the call to prayer at 4:30 AM, then drift back to sleep. We have coffee on the balcony; head to the open restaurant where the two sweet young women cook us eggs or pancakes to go with the Asian food choices and beautiful fresh fruit.

We swim, study, walk to our Pub Street for lunch (and maybe a lemongrass or basil ice cream); we hear the fruit seller bang on his wooden cart; we stop in the shop that sells antique batiks; we listen to the storms that sometimes come through; maybe we do a touristy thing. I practice yoga and Ted scans the internet to find good deals on hotel rooms in Europe. We end the day sipping coffee or tea and eating the treats the hotel sends us each evening while we listen to the muezzin.

I think we’ve found some spirituality after all.