Midi sur l’Asie

That’s a statement, Indonesians are the most lovely, helpful, smiley people I have ever met. They haven’t got much at all, you can tell by the old people still doing very hard work at over 75 years old (like pushing a Cebak) or sitting in the street and ask for money because they can’t work to live any more or even sleeping in their Cebak because they haven’t got anywhere to live but it doesn’t stop them from being happy and offer a big toothless smile to anyone who return them the same.

After going up the Bromo Volcano, we took an 11 hours train trip to Yogyakarta where we settled down for a few days. There’s plenty to see in the town as this is the birth place of Indonesian culture. The local specialty is the Batik, a piece of cloth that will patiently be painted with oil and wax. They tell stories and mythes from Java or sometimes even represent various abstract forms. We went to visit one of the many (only!) cultural center and couldn’t resist to buy a few as souvenirs. We then went to see the bird market, a big market where they seel all sorts of animals: birds of course but also, geykos, hawls, snakes,  cats and dogs (poor things, they were kept in a cage with no room to move!

I’m not going to go through the whole of the day as it would certainly be boring and long but i had to tell you that we have met the sultan of java’s sister and she even gave us a present! Yes yes, we were the only tourists there so I believe we looked more important! Monday was a big day for Javanese people. There’s a big ceremony that happens once a year where they take the Stupas, the sacred bells from the sultan’s palace to the mosk.

For the occasion, the sultan’s palace is open for visit in the evening, the national orchestra is playing and there’s a big fair in front of the palace. But when I say big, it IS big! Our fairs looks like mini games beside of it! Millions of people go in the street to play games (they are so funny!), eat and have fun (no, they don’t drink, they are Musulman, I know it’s weird

Then  yesterday and today, we went to visit two of the Unesco world inheritages: Prambanan and Boroboudour, two amazing Boudists temples. Emily who has seen Angkor Wat was a bit disapointed but I was pretty amazed. These temples are so big and so majestuous. I can’t believe people built them in 800ish after JC, even before our French Cathedrals! i was really impressed by the sculptures in Boroboudour

Tomorrow we will are leaving Indonesia to fly to Singapore where we will be spending a couple of days and then we will be heading to Malaysia. I have really liked Indonesia and after the first few days where I was adapting to the heat and the time and the food (I’m finally getting into spicy food since I have no choice and apparently it is good to fight against mosquito’s bites!), I feel like South East Asia is really growing into me.