A third World Heritage site in the region could be ignored no longer. (Borobudur and Georgetown, Penang were the other two. Singapore was still trying to join the club through its botanical gardens, and a one or two other possibilities.)
The introduction of the bell here in Java was suggested by the repetition of the motif up and down all the towers.
Across the green jungle for miles round and high up into the heavens the peal of the various tones—the kampungfolk must never have heard the like.
The stir of the moment in time might have been better imagined without the buffeting road-trip on the No. 1A Transjogja, and the commercial strip that had replaced the earlier rice-fields.
Hundreds of bells rising up in the stone, before one final large crown capped each of the structures.
Later the museum attached showed what a state of collapse had been found at the re-discovery of the complex in the early 1800’s.
School-kids from across the archipelago were out in numbers, the requests for photographs with the bule almost as many as the bells.
Mister. Mister white guy. Photograph please? Smiling, beaming young boys and girls, fathers and mothers. One extended family from Sumatra seized their chance early and was later found beneath one of the stunted trees seeking the shade.
In a short conversation of a few shared words the group was keen to impress the touristic claim of their own region. Toba. Beautiful. The famous lake was another must-see in the region.
The plea ventured here recalled mother's own for her birthplace; and all the years she had not been believed.
As at Borobudur, the depth of the treads on these Hindu stairs were not scaled to European feet. The lurching required for the risers must have stretched Javanese and Indians both.
Within the dark of the crypts a minute or two was needed to adjust the eyes. The lines of chiseled stone rising up included recent mortar in a number of places. Many decades the reconstruction here had been continuing.
Candle flames, basilisks and birds with human heads and wings half-stretched for flight were everywhere repeated. The latter struck especially, suggesting as they did the difficulty of capture as much as flight.
Surrounding the candle flames the shimmer of air was included by the old artists and recalled the emblem of the Sikhs.
Without all the high-end Western curatorial trappings, the simplicity of the organisation seemed fitting.
A wandering chook was sighted pecking in a corner of the grounds. It may have been Prambanan that advertised wild deer moving through the precinct, and then dance performance under torchlight for value-added tourist packages.
En route in the bus, the same as from the airport, another EXIST NET was passed on the roadway near the Sentul Market.
The past still figured in the everyday culture for the emerging generation in Indonesia. Despite the lure of modernity.
Yogyakarta, Indonesia
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