Java on Java

Last weekend, we traveled to a magical place amidst volcanoes and coffee plants in Central Java. The Dutch colonial plantation turned spa was a restful respite from the traffic and pace of Jakarta. The weather was breezy and cool and we had access to coffee processed locally from vine to mug.

Our villa

The plantation was surrounded by volcanoes

Coffee tour

Lush, isn't it?

Traditional herbs and spices used in healthful drinks called "jamu"

This is where they process the coffee

Coffee and steamed bananas

Crunchy coffee beans for munching together with palm sugar

The organic garden

Look! It's the season for stinky fruit, durian!

Green gorgeous

The Dili Kids

Last week, I was in East Timor for work. East Timor is actually a funny place name. Timor means "east" in Indonesian, so the island is named Timor ("East") and the country is Timor Leste or East Timor or East East. It is one of the world's newest countries and, with a complicated and violent independence from Indonesia, it came into being in 2002. Linguistically it is pretty fascinating with Portuguese (the official and colonial language), Tetum (the local language spoken on the streets), Indonesian (the language many of those left in the older generation were educated in and the language of much available television and media), English (used by the large international community present in Dili), and hundreds and hundreds of local dialects (used at home). Makes my tongue feel tired just contemplating it.

Anyway. It is a beautiful and complex place. My work week was busy with school visits and meetings, but the one of the highlights simplest to share was the school goats. On a visit to 12th of November School, there were baby goats in the yard, seemingly unaware of the students passing through and visitors snapping photos. They munched on grass and took naps under motorcycles... and I'm not kidding around!

Behind the Scenes

Do you want to know how batik is made? Follow along!

Someone with a vision stencils a design that is then made into a stamp using copper and metal. We saw a room with shelves to the ceiling full of such patterns, each one particular to a region or village. Many of the designs are symbolic and are easily recognizable to the batik-discerning eye.

For big pieces of cloth the stamps are dipped in hot wax and imprinted over and over and over again to create a large design.

We amateurs tried our hand at a small piece of fabric with smaller stamps.

Batik tulis is made by hand with a little wand carrying hot wax onto the fabric. It is a lot harder than it looks.

Some intricate designs and the more expensive batik fabrics are done entirely by hand by patient women working with the hot wax.

The fabrics are hand dyed, often many times to create multi-colored patterns or different shades of the same color. This can take days and days and days.

Here's a piece of fabric that has had its first dye and now is drying outside. Perhaps another layer of wax will be added for another color or shade of pink/red.

The Sounds of Bamboo

It seems I haven't had much time for the ukulele lately so I decided to take up a more local instrument, the angklung. It's a Sundanese instrument from West Java made from bamboo and it sounds delightful when played well. During a trip to Bandung, I had the chance to visit Angklung Udjo, a sort of music and dance school that both preserves the tradition of music making and also innovates upon it, adding modern songs to the repertoire and modifying the instruments to accommodate new sounds.


Here's the instrument maker himself playing a modernized version of angklung with keys. Twenty dollars later, this instrument is now mine, although I don't sound half as good on it... yet.