Jogja, baby!

When applying for Darmasiswa, we ranked our top three universities in Indonesia from the list of options. My first choice was a university in Yogyakarta, but I was given my second choice. When we had a holiday weekend for our first weekend here, I knew I needed to immediately book it to Yogyakarta.

The train ride from Malang to Jogja (the local nickname for Yogyakarta) is six hours. The path passes through lush, green rice farms and has a view of mountains in the distance for nearly the entire time. Since arriving in Malang, I realized that this year intended for living some intense and different life experience actually resembles a university lifestyle a lot more than I had hoped: everyday I wake up, go to class, go to a cafe to study after class, and eat dinner with my friends in or by a dorm. Going to Jogja allowed me to be The Little Backpacker Who Could for the weekend. I was feeling a bit out of control when I found my toothbrush infested with ants the night before departing (genuinely ONLY my toothbrush - there was a trail of ants from the corner of the wall, to the back of my toiletries bag hanging out the wall, to only my toothbrush inside the toiletries bag). I ironically felt an overwhelming wave of relief when I struggled to ask the officer at the train station which platform my train was on. There is just something about having to figure it out - something about carrying only a backpack and walking way further than I should in the most inconvenient locations to prove I can get to my destination with broken Indonesian (and a dream). Sometimes it’s nice to lean further into that lack of control and just see how I get out of it.

My hostel was a homestay, meaning the hostel cooks us breakfast and dinner. Breakfast is for three hours in the morning and allows people to come and go as they please, but dinner is at 6:30 every night and forces people to gather. The homestay is for backpackers, so most people there have been or will be solo traveling around SE Asia from three months to over a year. They are all eager to make friends and connections despite their impermanent nature. Laura, the owner of the homestay, was one of the most helpful people I’ve ever met; she sits with the guests every night and helps them plan the rest of their trips around Jogja and Indonesia. She also has a side business (in which she does not get paid) for rescuing snakes from local homes. Jogja is surrounded by rice fields, so the homeowners on the outskirts of the city often find snakes in their houses as the snakes go inside to find cooler air. Every night Laura brings a different snake to the hostel. As some of you may know, snakes are my biggest fear; evident by me asking you to tell me you love me before I left for fear that I would get eaten by a python while I’m gone. With the support of a dozen strangers obsessed with a quick adrenaline fix in their adventurous lifestyles, I was convinced to hold the snake. I conquered my biggest fear! I can do anything!

For the first full day in Jogja, I met up with the Americans from my university doing a different program that also traveled to Jogja for the weekend. We had an all-day tour that started with a 4am sunrise over Borobudur - the largest Buddhist temple in the world. The temple was incredible. There are three different levels to represent karma, dharma, and nirvana. Climbing to the top brings you to a panoramic view of the mountains and rice fields around the temple. The rolling hills allow you to see each exotic tree trunk growing on the side, giving the greenery a rich texture. And just for a second, despite our tour guide constantly doing Michael Jackson dance moves and pulling us out of the moment, I could understand the concept of nirvana not being paradise or being everything, but being nothing. I find it incredible how even the least religious or spiritual person could feel attached to some deeper meaning at such a beautiful place when you just stop for a moment and think about how lucky you are to be there. I was standing somewhere that other religious and spiritual people find their truest peace. I was standing somewhere where people who practice this religion have always wanted to go, but may never be able to. And for a second, I was forced to understand how peace and fulfillment can happen from your own mind, not your surroundings. And then I was truly able to appreciate the beauty in both the expansive nature and the beautifully crafted man-made history surrounding me.

After leaving Borobudur, we stopped for luwak coffee. The artisan coffee is made through collecting feces from luwaks (a local animal) that eat the coffee fruit, but the coffee bean stays intact through the digestion process, fermenting the coffee bean. After cleaning the coffee beans and roasting them as coffee beans usually are, the coffee comes out to be dark and rich. The coffee was good, it reminded me of Greek coffee with the thick sludge of grounds that sits at the bottom of the cup when you’re finished. But the whole event was definitely a tourist trap.

We then went to our next major stop, Prambanan Temple. Prambanan’s main temple is a Hindu temple, but there are also Buddhist temples on the compound. The grounds were insanely crowded, as one could expect for a beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Site, but it was a huge reality check to see a temple to god rather than man be seemingly dedicated to people trying to take Instagram pictures. There is virtually no room for anyone to actually pray in the grounds, and hearing the low, echoing “ommm” of one person praying in a dark and musty hideaway of the temple ironically surprised me and others.

As the sun was setting and the grounds were closing, my friends and I ran to the Buddhist temple at the back of the compound called Sewu Temple. Somehow, we found ourselves completely alone there. To be alone at one of the most iconic historical sites in the world as the sun is setting with saturated red and orange hues behind it is to surrender to the idea that maybe karma is real and brought me here. And it must be good. It felt impossible for that to be an accident. I felt so lucky to experience the temple for one quick moment in the way that it was supposed to be experienced. Serene.

Before I left for Jogja, I had dinner with my roommate and a friend local to Malang. We had an in-depth conversation about religion in Indonesia. You have to have a declared religion. He showed us that everyone’s religion is listed on their ID card. My roommate taught me about the Indonesian Pancasila, the official philosophical theory of the country, which is part of their constitution. Pancasila comes from the Sanskrit word for “five” and “principles.” The first principle states: “Belief in the one and only God.” This means Indonesia recognizes all monotheistic religions, including Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Christianity, and Catholicism. I kept thinking about this while in Jogja. How does Indonesia recognize polytheistic religions as monotheistic? And why? My tour guide explained that Indonesians essentially started to interpret these religions in their own way to fit the model of a monotheistic religion. They argue that because Buddhism centers around Buddha and Hinduism has Shiva (a god who is a destroyer and therefore more powerful than all other gods), these religions fit their monotheistic model. Indonesian culture is deeply religious, and they want to include these religions to be celebrated here. Different places consider religion differently, of course. In one region called Aceh, you are publicly whipped in the town square if it is known that you had pre-marital sex. Jogja is a special place for including so many different religions in one area. The people there are considered traditional and keep the local Javanese culture alive. There is not only a religious feel, but a spiritual one because of this blending.

The themes of my trip very obviously exposed themselves; everything was about detachment, connection, and independence. I was staying in a hostel dedicated to people traveling alone, people living transient lives. I was learning about Buddha and the art of detachment. Yet, despite the efforts around me to be independent and detached, everything pointed to random connections. Longterm backpackers are infamously known for an independence that almost equates to selfishness. Yet, I spent my second night talking to a guy who is going to propose to his girlfriend next week after they have been traveling together for seven months. Besides my American friends and me, there were two people on our temple tour. They are on their honeymoon. Our tour guide at Prambanan told us this couple is together in this life because they are continuing their karma from their past lives where they were together, and if they stay loyal, they will be together in their next life. He described to us, in broken English, that true love is “heart attack but makes you happy.” I met a Australian chiropractor that is passionate about mind to body connection; we talked about the ideas of how the body holds trauma and how one of my main goals of this trip is to really understand that connection for myself in a place with such a different health system. Another guy I met from Ireland works in Public Policy and had been listening to the same two albums that I was that day. At a silver jewelry making workshop the day after our tour, I met a girl that went to high school with my roommate from Germany. Is anything an accident? I don’t mean to visit two temples and become so philosophical. But backpacking is an environment where I could expect to feel so alone. Yet, I am so thankful to be reminded that it always leads to feeling the opposite.

I returned to my dorm after my trip full that I had people there I had missed over the weekend. Connections.

Thank you for reading my words. As always, feel free to chat me in the Substack app, email me in response to this, or WhatsApp me as I won’t be getting iMessages here. Sending handshakes from Indonesia (they don’t hug here :/). Pictures below!