Kratan

Saturday 4th October 

Today was a bit of a day to 'kill time until my train' at the unearthly hour of 00:56 am That night (or next day) I had already got confused once and had to alter my ticket. I also had a touch of the 'Delhi belly'......or is it the 'Jogja trots!'

I had decided to visit the Sultan's palace or Kratan. This is the Sultans abode but also a centre for culture and a major tourist attraction in Yogyakarta.

It wasn't too expensive to get in - only 25,000 Idr and you had to ensure you wear appropriate clothing, i.e. No Shorts!

On entering there was a dance display in full swing, displaying traditional dancing and music. It was really fascinating to watch. They had elaborate costumes and strange animal masks. I particularly liked the weird and wonderful musical instruments played by the musicians sat behind the dance troops.

The dance troop posing for photos after:

I wandered around the various rooms which were generally part of a museum 

with information about the dance traditions 

Animal masks as worn by the dancers:

and about the Sultans through the ages and the Royal family, customs and marriage traditions etc.

There were guys walking around who were servants or caretakers of the palace, called Abdi Dalem, who i thought looked quite cool. They had bare feet and big knives tucked into their Sarongs. They perform various duties around the palace.

I thought this tree was beautiful:

After the palace I was pretty tired and so had a wander through the main street of the city - Malioboro Street - which was extremely busy, it being Saturday. 

There were so many shops and stalls. I got 'guided' into an art exhibition, with art pieces made in the traditional textile style called Batik.

One of the artists - Harri - explained the technique to me. 

They use liquid wax to create intricate patterns onto cloth and then, natural die is used in different colours in order to layer the painting. The wax is removed with boiling water to leave the pattern or picture. He showed me the little 'spoon' tools used to draw the wax onto the cloth

The wax is heated to a liquid - traditionally, bees wax is used, but sometimes paraffin wax - which then trickles down the tiny tubes used to make patterns. 

Batik comes from the Javanese language, Babat Tik, which means 'making a dot'.

Anyway - I could see what was coming - the hard sell as apparently it was the last day of the exhibition. 

The paintings were very beautiful and you could see he was very passionate about his art, and that a lot of work had gone into each painting. There was one amazing one of Borobudur temple, with many different colours and intricate designs. It took him eight months to finish.

I didn't really want to start buying souvenirs yet, after only one week of travels but there was a very lovely Batik painting he had done of Merapi Volcano, which reminded me of my magical trip to see the lava. 

I thought - what the hell - it's cloth so not too hard to carry in a back pack and I did some serious haggling.

After that I needed coffee - cold - and I could feel my stomach starting to feel a bit uncomfortable.

I had promised the 'Siomay stall' lady, Tutut that I would eat at her stall today. I had tried her food on the first day in Yogykarta, and since then, every time I passed her stall on the way to the supermarket she would say 'Hello Lisa' and we'd have a chat. 

- and No, I was pretty certain it wasn't her food that had upset me............could have been the backstreet nasi rames.....or the mango juice where I saw her splash in some water from a jug........

or even the food or 'fresh orange juice' at Prambanan temple, the juice being ice, water and orange food colouring.....I'm not joking! - It had never been near an orange - 

There are so many food stalls - anyone can set up and sell food - they don't have the food hygiene regulations and licences we have!

But Tutut's was sound, and used by many locals

These are the siomay - made with mackerel:

I sat chatting with her for ages, waiting for my train. Turns out she is 59 and retired and lives in the house behind the stall, which was very nice. Her husband makes the dumplings etc. and the peanut sauce and she is 'front of house', and every now and then he'd appear with more dumplings or a pot of sauce, then go back to watching the footy on TV. Their daughter works for some kind of diplomatic agency in Spain and her Son lives & works in Jakarta.

Many people came for take away and we were joined by a 30 year old guy called Bagus, who had learnt his English from online gaming.

He had a similar cynical outlook on life, including religion and politics and we sat for ages, putting the world to rights, whilst he ate the most enormous plate of siomay and peanut sauce. He does various jobs including taxiing with his scooter and once worked in Turkey, at a hotel as a waiter. He said it was really cold in Turkey - 18 degrees ! 😂. He offered to be my guide if I paid him. 

Its a long way to Malang! I said.

At 8.30 pm Tutut wanted to shut her stall, so we said our goodbyes and I went back to the hotel where they said it was fine for me to wait and drink coffee and read my book........

...........but my trots took a turn for the worse and I ended up getting a taxi to the nearest 24 hour chemist near the station to buy Imodium ........

I then sat at the station (at least the chairs were comfy - soft leather armchairs in the waiting area) and got talking to Rinny, another local who was on a hiking trip. She had travelled a lot and we discovered we had both been to Kiruna in Sweden last year - marvelling over how they were moving the town bit by bit - and visited the Ice hotel.

The constant chimes of the train announcements does your head in after a while!

I boarded my train and managed to get a reasonable amount of sleep. 

I'm currently sat in Malang station - seats not so comfy - writing this up

They have different things in the supermarket - weird combinations of things - these buns were filled, two with chocolate and then two with cheese

yummy!