I have a deep and abiding love for puppets. For many of you in my life this is old news, especially if you have ever seen me flip my shit when Bread and Puppet comes to town. The source of this love is as intangible as it is virulent and I will be happy to sit and discuss its merits as an art form upon request (excluding socks and Muppets, sorry Lamb Chop). So you can imagine my distress when, due to the ferry ride from hell, I not only missed a 9-hour Ramayana ballet performance but I also missed my one chance to see Wayang Golek, my all time favorite Indonesian puppetry form*. Yogyakarta was booked into the epic vacation schedule not only because it boasts some awesome shopping, but it is also the performing arts capital of Java. So if you’re going to see Wayang Golek, you have to see it in Yogya. To miss the opportunity is like going to New Orleans and neglecting to eat red beans and rice or gumbo. Tragic.
My disappointment was assuaged by the opportunity to go see one of the largest Buddhist temples/ UNESCO world heritage sight known as Borobudur. Not a bad way to spend the last day of 2010. Borobudur lies about an hour outside of Jogya and it is massive. Unbelievably massive actually. Seeing as one of my fellow adventurers had spent some time teaching in Tibet, we had the down low on how to properly circumnavigate a Buddhist stupa. Technically you’re supposed to walk around each level clockwise, 3 times. Seeing that it took us about 30 minutes to make it around the first level once, we opted for the abridged version. Making it to the top it was a pretty awe-inspiring accomplishment.
Seeing that it was New Year’s Eve day, it felt like an appropriate time to cut the ridiculous mass that was my hair at the present moment. As expected the curling heap on my head was greeting by confusion and mild panic. Due to “dryness” I was told I was in desperate need of a crème bath. Of course this exchange was in Bahasa Indonesia so I was only sure of about 30% of what was going on around me. I was only mildly disappointed to find out that a crème bath is not some ancient eastern bathing ritual, but rather a hair treatment. Cool, for $2 I was game to see what all the fuss was about. I soon learned a crème bath is the beauty treatment equivalent of a gorgeous man saying “ here I made this giant bowl of chocolate covered strawberries for you…oh and I’m going to provide you with mind blowing oral sex for at least 2 hours while you eat said strawberries”. Yes it is that good, but calorie free. In slightly less verbose terms, a crème bath is a 90-minute head, neck and upper back massage with deep conditioning crème. If Indonesia has taught me one thing, it’s that I have a slightly addictive personality (chocolate peanut butter Oreos, iced coffee, DVDs) so I knew I needed to tread lightly with my new indulgence. The gloriousness of my first crème bath experience served to somewhat take the sting out of having my hair cut about 6 inches shorter than my “ please just clip the ends” instructions called for. Once again I was failed by America’s inability to teach the metric system, and I had a chin length indo-bob to show for it.
New Year’s Eve passed without too much fanfare. About 10 of us ETAs got together for a little drinking, dancing, fireworks and of course Indonesian go-go dancers, which are an oxymoron at best. The next day I went on a walking tour of Yogya and then it was off for a solitary morning trip to the Hindu temple complex of Prambanam. I got to put my prolific bargaining skills to good use, acquiring a Wayang Kulit puppet for 40,000 rupiahs. A far cry from the 200,000 rupiah asking price.
Epic travel fest 2010/11 finally ended in Gili T, again. Seeing as I’ve written about my Gili adventures before I won’t bore you with tales of traversing familiar haunts. I will share the fact that the young bartender at our new favorite bar made my girlfriends and I friendship bracelets. It was that type of vacation.
* for anyone interested here is a , not so entertaining, but very informative video on Wayang Golek *
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