We catch the train just after six in the morning. The train doubles as a hawker market as streams of people march up and down the aisles, many of them shouting a mantra of ‘pop-me!’ which it turns out are Indonesian pot noodles. This continues for several hours, while beggars also get on and off the train for single stop journeys.
Getting some fresh air and a breeze through the hair is easy as the doors of the train are open with passengers sitting down by them watching the landscape speed by. Some policemen pass through the carriage carrying automatic weapons. I feel sorry for any fare dodgers on board, although I have reason to doubt that there are many people on the train with tickets. After most of the hawkers have disappeared, a couple of not entirely convincing lady boys with too much make up on come dancing down the aisle, one strumming a ukulele, and the other jangling a tambourine and they are both singing a rather catchy ditty with universal words of a-wallah-wallah-wa, a-wallah-wallah-wa. I’m sure there’s at least one hit wonder potential here.
The train eventually arrives at Yogyakarta nine and a half hours after we left Jakarta. On first impressions, there’s rusticity about the place, with a bit of bohemian undercurrent. This should be no surprise as it is the home of Batik painting and everyone here seems to be an artist of some sort. Batik actually refers to the cloth. Instead of paint and a canvass, textiles and dyes are used to create very colourful and, you could say, psychedelic images, although this may be a more recent development because the traditional natural dyes are brown, white and indigo which represent the Hindu Gods Brahma, Visnu and Shiva.
Waiting outside our hotel we are treated to a not entirely appealing show involving a monkey on a bike. The kids in the alley are excited by it, and it is a well trained monkey, but it is receiving its instruction via a chain around its neck. Nobody gives the trainer any money for the show.
The hotel is comfortable but dirty (another one run with no women in site). There is a gallery around the corner from the hotel and I let myself get tiredly talked into buying a batik painting for 30 USD, which must be the most expensive item I have bought on this whole trip. It is a highly vibrant image of a fish looking at you like it knows you’re on acid, but I can’t help feeling I’ve bought a highly colourful dishcloth, without meaning to insult the art. The gallery owner, who introduces himself as Eddie, has an undeniably friendly charm. Before I leave, I accept an offer of a glass of local wine, which is like cheap but not undrinkable port.
Jen has refused to let me take her out to dinner for Valentine’s Day, boo.
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| 1,2,3 a-wallah walla wa, a-wallah walla wa |
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| only playing dead, though perhaps it wishes it wasn't |
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