"That is the miracle of God as Mercy with dedicated to human in order to care and protect, finally it was to be enjoyed. Based on that case Mr Haji Hindarto, head of regent of Tuban thought that Akbar cave can be renovated to be a wonderful and amazing tourist object.
So he began to realise his dreams cames true. Finally he built it up with the sense of art, and now we can see what wonderful it is."
How could we not go?? After Mr Hindarto had put all that effort into building it up with the sense of art, it would have seemed churlish to waste our long weekend on anything other than a wonderful and amazing tourist object.
Akbar cave (or Goa Akbar) is smack in the centre of a smallish (smallish in the context of Indonesia meaning less than half a million souls) city on the Northeast coast of Java called Tuban. There seemed to be a few things worth having a look at in and around Tuban, and we were keen to get out of town, so we rolled up a spare nappy or two and a couple of rattles in the swag, set our eyes firmly on distant horizons, boldly misquoted some Tennyson (For still my purpose holds, to sail beyond the sunset and the baths of all the western stars before I die…What the hell is the 'bath' of a star anyway? Am I mis-remembering the line? I seem to remember being confused by that as a kid, though. Bonus points to anyone who can tell what a star's bath is) and headed off into the wild blue yonder.
You know, now that all our travel plans include a small and rather vulnerable addition to our party, it's getting harder and harder to make ourselves sound like intrepid travellers rather than coddled tourists. Take this Grand Tour of Tuban and Surrounding Areas for example:
Did we hire a motorbike and spend the whole day bouncing over pot-holed goat tracks, getting lost and asking for directions in fractured Bahasa from someone who speaks only Javanese? No.
Did we brave the Javanese inter-city bus system, with its seemingly meth-crazed drivers slamming it Targa-style around blind hairpins, and burgeoning population of itinerant pickpockets, bandits, shysters and general rogues? No.
Did we bung the Ortlieb panniers on the tandem Cannondale and camp on the verge of rice paddies? No.
We hired ourselves a luxury four-wheel drive, complete with individual aircon and the now obligatory twenty-three cupholders (when was the last time you had twenty-three cups of liquid refreshment on the go in a space that could fit eight people at a push?) and matching chauffer. I must admit, this is now my transportation of choice. It was deliciously decadent to finish sweating our way around the markets or a temple or whatever knowing that we had a nice, air-conditioned car to crawl back into, and that all we had to do to get to the next place was tell the driver, who was then responsible for all the asking of directions and so on.
We took the inland road to Tuban on the way there, planning to come back via the coast road (in the event we came back the same way, flooding having closed down part of the coast road). It was a pretty cruisy trip, on mostly well-made roads with little traffic to speak of.
On the other hand, it was a somewhat sobering trip. We'd seen news stories over the previous couple of days about some fairly serious flooding, but our minimal Bahasa and limited geographical awareness meant that we didn't actually know where the flooding was. As it turned out, we drove through one of the affected areas.
It was quite depressing. The road was raised on a sort of causeway, and this was lined with jerry-built shelters rigged from tarpaulins and bits of string: each one home to a dispossessed family. Off the road the water looked to still be about three feet deep, and whole villages had been abandoned. We passed hundreds of people by the roadside, all hopefully waving their plastic bowls or tins at passing vehicles for donations. Unfortunately we didn't have any small money on the outbound trip, but we stocked up on change in Tuban so we could contribute something on the return trip.
First stop was Kerik, ten kilometres or so west of Tuban. We'd read that the area around here was renowned for traditional batik, and Tash in particular was keen to have a look. A slight hiccough in communications meant that the driver thought we wanted to go to the masjid (mosque) in Kerik (my fault—I'd rattled off a list of places we'd wanted to go, and said something like 'Kerik, the masjid in Tuban, Goa Akbar' and so on: the driver heard 'Kerik' and 'masjid' together), so we were a little confused when we thought we were going to a batik market, and instead found ourselves turning into a masjid/school and having the office pointed out to us by the driver.
Fortunately we were saved too much embarrassment in front of the hundred-odd school kids who came racing out to laugh at the crazy bules, as a very friendly (and English speaking) Imam came out and gave the driver directions to where we could find some traditionally made batik.
Ten minutes later, Tash was in textile heaven! Gorgeous batiks, hand-dyed with all natural pigments (primarily indigo) were the order of the day, and we picked up a couple of nice pieces for next to nothing. One place even showed us unspun samples of the various cottons they used for achieving different textures. We also had a bit of a squiz out the back at one of the places, and felt like we were in some medieval witch's den. It was dark as sin, the ceiling was about five feet off the ground, and everywhere you looked were ancient cauldrons seething and bubbling with mysterious substances.
From Kerik we headed into Tuban, where we wandered around Pasar Baru (the markets) for a while before grabbing some lunch then exploring the 'wonderful and amazing tourist object' of Goa Akbar. We were actually quite impressed by the caves, and had a good look around. We skipped some sections, though, as they'd been converted into subterranean masjids, and we didn't really feel comfortable going in. I thought we were going to be arrested on the way out—a great mountain of a security guard insisted on having a cuddle with Iola, who immediately tried to rip off his shiny gold name badge!
Next stop was Kwang Sing Bio, the largest Chinese temple in Indonesia. It was a huge complex, although much of it was inaccessible to casual tourists. Tash was particularly taken with the man-size candles, which could be purchased for the equivalent of a couple of hundred bucks. Also quite impressive, if more in the anticipation than the current reality, was the immense series of frescos in the process of being created outside the temple telling the story of the warrior who got religion who the temple is named for. In honour of Harry and Lou's latest addition, we also took a photo of the big digital board showing the time in 'Sidney'.
Last stop for the day was the big masjid in the centre of town. It was quite pretty in a sort of Mohammad-goes-to-Toy Town kind of way, and we had a good look around the adjacent street market, finding some very cute little batik coordinates for Iola.
I nearly forgot—we also had a failed attempt at a swim. After Goa Akbar, we thought it might be nice to cool off, so we headed south to try finding a spring-fed pool I'd heard about that sounded quite nice. When we got there it did indeed look very nice—a stone-walled pool complete with a water slide and decorative frescos—but fortunately we had a quick look upstream before taking the plunge, and were fascinated to observe that not only were the kitchen staff from the poolside café washing dishes in the water that fed the pool, but just upstream from them was the local rubbish dump, complete with scavenging monkeys possessed of a range of interesting looking skin diseases.
So what else have we been up to over the last few weeks?
Mostly just being sick! All three of us have taken our turns at succumbing to a particularly nasty flu. Iola even had her first trip to a doktor anak (paediatrician) and had to take a course of antibiotics, which singularly failed to impress her (not that I blame her, they tasted bloody awful). Iola and I seem to be out the other side now, but poor Tash seems to be having a bit of a relapse and is feeling pretty miserable as I write this. I've just been down to the markets and got her some tucker (her usual: bebek (duck), urap-urap, tahu (tofu), tempe and nasi putih (steamed rice).
Actually, this weekend has been pretty interesting. Yesterday we went to the Black Urban Art exhibition that's been touring Indonesia for a couple of months. I'd found it online a couple of months ago, but the info I read said the show's stint in Surabaya was at a place called Rotten Apple, and that we'd just missed it. Luckily we spotted a poster for it a few days ago, and realised it was back in town for one day only, set up in a car park next to Plaza Surabaya (at the end of Jalan Kayun; the street with all the plants and flowers).
It was interesting in an east-meets-west kind of way, with heavy influences from graffiti and the vinyl collectible phenomenon. I was particularly impressed with the small collection of custom choppers. There was one big black mother with a sort of spider-web motif as part of the frame that I would really, really like to own. We took plenty of photos, and I'm hoping to upload a lot of them with this post for those people who are interested in this kind of stuff (i.e. all you Juxtapose readers out there!).
Last night we went to a dinner party/movie night at John's place next door. After a lovely homemade lasagne, we all settled in to watch Priscilla, which John's been dying to get his hands on for ages. Unfortunately Iola wasn't in the mood to sit quietly and watch a movie, so I took her off for a walk to the shops. She fell asleep on the way, so in the end I decided to take her home.
There was no way she was going down—every time I tried it she'd wake up and look for her mum—so I actually had a really nice couple of hours wandering around the house listening to music while she slept on my shoulder. When she woke up we had a bit of a dance to the Wiggles, then by the time Tash came home she was pretty much ready for bed again.
It was good for Tash, too, to have a few hours to socialise without having to worry about the little monkey. It can get quite tiring being the life support machine for someone else twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, even if they are pretty darn cute.
Today was the Kartini Day spectacular in at the EF school on Jalan Kayun. Along with a bunch of other teachers I got myself all togged up in traditional East Javanese garb (complete with a gorgeously kitsch shark-tooth charm on a gold fob chain. Plenty of the students got dressed up too, and they looked great.
We hung around for a couple of hours watching the fashion parades of all the kiddies, and going in the Javanese script reading competition for all those dumb-ass teachers who can only speak Bahasa Ingris. I even got interviewed for the television about the significance of Kartini Day! (For those of you who are wondering, Kartini was a nineteenth century proto-feminist who has become a symbol for the equivalent of something like our Blue Stocking Day.)
Well. I guess that's kind of brought us up to date. There's lots of other stuff that's been going on: we had a nice dinner out with John, Jez (a teacher from KELT), Lilis, and Jez and Lilis's little girl Rose; we went to the zoo and saw the baby Komodo dragons (and Iola had her first elephant ride); we've watched Iola start walking sideways with her palms flat against the wall for support; we've got Iola completely hooked on the Wiggles; we watched two entire seasons of 'Who Wants to be a Superhero' in one day when we were both sick; Tash got to hang out with Mrs Sue for a few days when we got back from Singapore; Tash has become seriously addicted to onde-ondes; and we still haven't plucked up the courage to try rujak cingur (cows' noses).
More news soon…
