I’m back. In Cambodia, where I’ve been for a bit over a month, before that in Thailand, and still before that in Indonesia where I felt terribly guilty about not blogging as I spent most of my time either in the Banda islands, or trying to get to the Banda islands, or trying to leave […]
Rasta lunch
This afternoon, our boat guy, a rastafarian came over to take us to his restaurant. This was down a path we’d never been down, through small tree-covered valleys, in a village about 10 minutes away, down small criss-crossing trails that would not boggle Google Maps quite thoroughly. The place itself was up the side of […]
Disentangling
The end of our second-last day in Cholula, and while the excitement about Oaxaca is building, so is sadness at leaving. One settles so easily into little routines and habits that then disappear entirely, from knowing exactly which point on the dial of the stove to prepare my tea in the morning, to the habit […]
India, Indonesia
A couple of good new political podcasts in my listening list. Polis Project which had a few very good episodes on upcoming elections, and Talking Indonesia, where I just listed to a superb reaction episode to the elections. Great stuff.
More success
This morning we went to Brahma Tirta, an art studio I had, after some really vigorous sleuthing, as the place where a batik wall hanging originated. I had seen this wall hanging in a shop in Bali, lusted after it, but then said nothing as I was not in the market for wall hangings. When […]
Great success
A highly successful morning. After a great deal of research and mulling I had found that a good place to buy batik was Bima Sakti, a women’s collective near the new royal cemetary of Imogiri. So we went there this morning and found ourselves in a really lovely village amidst the hills, with rice fields […]
Long drive
Another visit to Borobudur this morning, and again the school groups were in full swing. I suppose I can’t begrudge them, though I certainly got very annoyed at a little phalanx of Buddhists: all white, dressed in flowing robes, with fixed, desperate expressions (not even the la-la-enlightenment one saw in Ubud), circling the stupa and […]
Divine eggstacy
After the GF and his mother arose we booked ourselves a car to take us to the Gereja Ayam, a place I have wanted to visit ever since I first heard about it. Many years ago, a man had a vision, telling him to build a church for the lord. The church would be in […]
Big old thing
We arrived in Jogja last night after circling the airport for what felt like a really long time. Torrential rain had closed the airport. It also closed up the streets, so it was a long, slow drive to Borobudur where we were staying in a hotel attached to the site itself. It was very dark […]
Rush
We leave for Yogyakarta today, earlier than I thought. The flight is at 1500; I had thought we were to leave for the airport then. Of course, some work has come in and I won’t finish before leaving, so my computer accompanies me so I can work on the flight. I am not sure what […]