Prambaramayanarama

Not to be confused with the awesome band from the 1980s, our day yesterday was a Pramba-ramayana-rama. Actually, it started with a trip down Malioboro Road to the local market, where we were seeking out some batik creations. Somehow, in the course of our browsing, we became accompanied by a small mustachiod Yogyakartan who proceeded to "assist" us as we searched through literally hundreds of batik stands. This little man took it upon himself to show us through the entire market, hijacking our shopping trip in the process and pointing out everything from spices to sponges. He was also learning new english words like green bean and place mat. Totally unsuccessful on the batik front, although now aware that the moomoo is alive and well, we bid our little friend farewell and headed back to our neighborhood, stopping for a little advice at the tourist office.

We soon learned that the best performances of traditional javanese dance are held at Prambanan, a 9th century Hindu temple about 15 kilometers outside of town. Since we were going to check it out anyway, we hopped on the bus (which had a station and punch cards and was very unlike the bus to Borobodor - we were impressed) and went for the temple-ballet twofer. We managed to convince the ticket lady that at least one of us was a student, and got that person into the temple for half price (take that, UNESCO!). As you may recall, Yogyakarta had a pretty serious earthquake in 2006, which toppled some of the temples of Prambanan. The temple overseers seem oddly proud of this, and there are extensive signs explaining what happened and the subsequent response by archiologists and preservationists. They did a fairly great job of repairing the ruins, although you aren't allowed inside or next to all of them. Still, points to Prambanan for both recovery and cool temples -- we're getting a little hard to impress after the zillions of wats we've visited, but we oohed, ahhed, and snapped pictures at this one.

We then walked through the rain to the theater, where the Ramayana is performed twice a week for enthusiastic crowds. In the dry season, they perform it outside with Prambanan in the background, but these days its next door at an indoor theater. After the rather disappointing "puppetry" of the previous night, we were cautiously optimistic about the ballet, which turned out to be spectacular. The monkey army and evil gods were certainly the highlight, and though we missed the extreme eye movement of the Balinese style, we couldn't help but admire the poppin'-n-lockin' of the dance fighting scenes. Good conquered evil, and it was kind of like "Java Romeo and Juliet, but with happy end," as everyone keeps telling us. Except that it is totally not like Romeo and Juliet at all, but more like a complicated ancient Hindu epic.

Today, we thought about renting bikes and hitting the back alleys of Yogya, but found there to be no bikes available, and so tramped around the back alleys and down to another neighborhood, where we got the greatest cup of coffee possible. A long becak (pedicab) ride home showed us some more of the main streets of Yogya, and we rounded out the day selling books and buying postcards (and a new deck of cards!) in our neighborhood. Tomorrow we head via plane to Medan, in northern Sumatra, for some rural excursions.

By the way, Kate and I have played so many hands of cards that we finally had to invent our own game. It kicks ass and mystifies waiters, who peer questioningly over our shoulders and shake their heads in wonder. Its alternatively called "Take Five" and "Kate Can't Speak Spanish." Be excited.