The Duo in Solo

After the volcano (and realizing that it was an hour earlier than we thought - tricky Java!) we got on a minibus to return to sea level and perhaps a room larger than a roomy park bench. Once again, we found ourselves in the fun-to-say town of Probbolinggo, en route to somewhere. We hopped a bus to Surabaya, which we quickly realized was not the metropolis for us, and after zooming across town in a cab, hopped a train to Solo (which we managed to make thanks to Kate's still-unadjusted watch). By 8pm, we were safely ensonced in our new hostel, and again eating our first meal since before 8 am. You'd think we would have learned after 3 months on the road to pack some snacks...

Let's talk Java: Java is the main island in the Indonesian archipelago, home to more than half of Indonesia's population (which is a whopping 225 million people - 4th most populace nation after China, India, and the U.S.). A whole bunch of these people live in Jakarta (where we're not going), but immediately upon arrival anywhere on the island you can feel the density around you. Surabaya, for example, has 3 million people in it, and who has ever heard of Surabaya? So these are some big cities we're talking about. Oh, and most people are Muslim, although there's also a lot of Javanese culture that is more hinduism/buddhism/animist in nature. They meditate and make offerings like the Balinese, but wear head scarves and go to the masque. As if to emphasize the point, the call to prayer can currently be heard over the rain outside.

Solo is in central Java, about an hour or two from Yogyakarta. It is a strange urban mix of traffic and no restuarants, batik markets and eager pedicabs. We tried to go to the kraton (sultan's palace) today, but its closed on Fridays (!) so we settled for the King's palace, where the royal family is still in residence. A friendly guide told us about all sorts of royal objects (including male and female gold chastity belts which look painful - please note the male belt, which had spikes, was broken) and insisted we take many, many pictures. Tomorrow we are headed out on a bicycle tour of the surrounding villages, seeing Batik makers and tofu makers and arak (liquor) makers and gamelan makers and roof tile makers and Javan countryside.