Boys--"Meet the Dragon !"

It was the penultimate weekend of our trip and the ash clouds were well and truly behind us. The team was bitten by the travel bug again and we gathered together to chalk out our weekend plans. It emerged that most of the team wanted to visit the Silver artisans town of Kote Gede and the nearby pottery village for some shopping while three of us including Dany, Jibu and myself were not very keen. hence we decided to split up and go to the Gembira Loka zoo instead.

As we entered it, it was like any other zoo...only a shade cleaner...which we later realized was on account of the impending visit by the President of Indonesia the following day...so we were lucky indeed !..it was a small zoo..not very exciting except for the reptile section, which had an amazing collection of snakes, turtles and of course the famed Komodo Dragon.

Sleeping Dragon

Dan, the Dragon

Quite contrary to their names, the Komodo "Dragons" are rather tame creatures..so no wonder the zoo keeper was just wandering near it as if it were his pet dog). The star attraction of the zoo was the Indian Albino "pet" Python which the visitors can hold and put it around their neck, if they are brave enough, for a small tip. The bravest among us was Dany who put it around his neck, while Jibu and me were content to just hold the python.

Dany and his "pet"

Jibu playing it safe

..mee..too

Hungry Rhino

Herbivoures only.;)

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon, three days after a certain Mount Kelud decided to "clean its bowels". We were all confined to the hotel and I was casually browsing tripadvisor.com for restaurants in Yogyakarta when I chanced upon Milas, the "all vegetarian" restaurant. In a country where there is virtually no main course without meat or seafood, this was a rarity and I decided that it definitely warranted a visit.
After meeting the team later that week I learnt that they had already visited the place and many had liked it. I called upon the team for a second visit and gladly Elisa, Antonella, Shannon and Dany agreed to accompany me.

As always we gathered at the hotel lobby and a 10 minute cab ride later we entered this spooky lane called Jalan Prawirotaman and there it was, a quaint looking place with the ambience of a hamlet. The theme looked deliberately rustic with bamboo huts and mini fountain ponds with frogs crocking from them. We occupied our table under one of the bamboo huts. The menu was "all vegetarian" indeed with an interesting collection of dishes from soups and salads, herbal drinks, natural ice creams, veggies cooked with coconut milk, yogurt and mustard, vegetarian pancakes, pastas and of course the staple food of Indonesia--"nasi putih" and "nasi goreng". A sumptuous meal and entertaining conversations occupied us for the next couple of hours before we decided to call it a day. A truly "Herbivoures only" evening !

A Tour of the "Ash county" !

After a couple of days of forced confinement thanks to the Ash "Kelud", we decided to break the hibernation and head out of the hotel. Eleven "brave and masked warriors" of the CSC Team 5 headed out to Malioboro for a "walk,shop and dine" day out. Our first stop: Mirota Batik, a shopping paradise for tourists in Yogyakarta. This three storied outlet is filled with everything from Batik clothing, little souvenir magnets, postcards, wooden and metal showpieces, wall hangings, spices, local chocolates, mini bottles containing strangely coloured liquids...quite literally a "one stop" shop for all "tourist" shopping. After splurging thousands of Rupaiahs over the next hour, the team decided to split.

Mirota Batik

The Malioboro Gang

A bunch of us wanted go to the Ambirukomo Mall which left me, Claudia, Elisa and Shannon and we decided to stay in Malioboro and have lunch at the mall a few paces away, down the same street. Post lunch, Elisa suggested that we should visit the bird market or what is locally called the Pasar Purung.

We had grabbed one of the free maps available at Mirota and it seemed that the bird market was pretty close and a few yards behind the famous Tamansari, or the Water Palace of the Sultan's Kraton. What we did not know was that the map was not upto scale. It was like one of those dubious "Location maps" shown in the websites of real estate developers in Bangalore, which project a picture as if everything you could possibly need is within "walking" distance from your home.

Tamansari--the Water Palace of Sultan

It was probably the drowsy feeling after a good lunch that made us take a taxi despite our "tourist friendly and scale unfriendly" map....we were so glad that we did. Thanks to the map which showed the Bird Market right behind the Tamansari and our broken Bahasa, the driver mistook that we wanted to go to Tamansari itself. But once we landed there, we decided to have a look anyway...but to our dismay we realized that it was "Keluded" and hence closed. Nevertheless, an enterprising self-appointed local chap offered to provide us a guided tour through the "back door" and we took it. Once again we were glad that we took it. 20 minutes later we were back in our cab and thanks to some actions of birds in flight, our cabbie understood where we wanted to go. Turned out that the "walkable from Malioboro" Pasar Purung was a good 5 kilometers from Tamansari !

We made it just 30 minutes before closing and glimpsed upon a variety of birds, live worms for bird feed, exotic lizards and reptiles including what was probably a 15 foot giant Anaconda. Thankfully it was in deep slumber blisfully unaware of our existence.

Multi coloured Chicks

Exotic lizards at the bird markets

Apparently Indonesians kept birds as pets in their houses for good luck and fun, and this is where they came to buy them. However the hostile conditions to which the birds were subjected to pained me, many crammed into tiny cages. They were fluttering so hard, clearly very eager to just get out and fly, but to no avail. Its funny how the same thing can be entertainment to one man and a painful sight for another.

For more interesting pictures, check out my collegue Claudia's blog--http://claudiacscexperience.wordpress.com/

Volcano Eruption !!

I was woken up by the beep of SMS I received at 5:40 AM on Valentine's Day. Despite all the love, I was pretty sure that my wife would not have woken up at 4 AM India time to send me a message...;). The message was from our ABV coordinator and it informed us about the Volcano eruption of Mt.Kelud, about 260 kms east of Yogyakarta but well within Java island. It is then I opened my window and was shocked to see that it was pitch dark !!...The street lights were still on and they were very hazy.

Ash rain under Flash photography

View from window 90 minutes after sunrise

In a place where the sun rises at 5:15 AM, this was quite a spectacle. I tried to take a pictures of the ash rain and the surroundings. Soon within the next hour, we received a couple of more SMSes from IBM Security and from ABV advising us to stay indoors and work from the hotel for the day. It was 6:30 AM and light was steadily creeping in to brighten up the area. It was then that I could see. It was like the scene from the movie "The Book of Eli". Ash covered everything one could see--rooftops, trees, cars, bikes, dish antennas, light poles...everything had at least a centimeter of two of ash cover. The sky was invisible and so was the sun. It was like one massive foggy day with visibility under 100 meters. The usual buzz of activity and traffic on the road was obviously absent.

Ash covered everything in sight

Ash laden Swimming Pool

If all this was created by a volcano which was well over 250 kms away within 6 hours of eruption, its hard to imagine how it would be in the danger zone- the area within 10 mile radius from the volcano. Truly despite man's best efforts, the power of nature is unfathomable.

Around 8 AM we received official communication from our clients saying that a holiday has been declared and that we should stay indoors.

Now we wait for the ash rain to end and the sky to clear.

IBMers transform to Tourists for the weekend !

We completed our first full week in Yogyakarta and it was time to head out and get to know the place. Yogyakarta is one of the most historic cities in Indonesia. Its the cultural capital of the Java island and arguably the birthplace of the world famous Indonesian Batik clothes. It was also the erstwhile capital of many Central Java kingdoms and for a brief period, it was also the political capital of Indonesia. All this meant that there is a lot to see and do in Jogya.
The most famous tourist attraction within Jogya city is the Kraton or the Sultan's palace. In the democratic Republic of Indonesia, Jogya is the only province that is still a fully functioning monarchy. The Sultan of Jogyakarta automatically becomes the Governor of Jogya province and there are no elections !
The Palace's courtyards were cool and breezy and were always busy with one ativity or other--on Saturday it was the puppet show.

After a quick tour of the Palace, the group headed off to Prambanan to see the world famous Ramayana ballet...en route we relaxed at a resort where Daniel entertained us with his board games.

Sunday started early at 3 AM ...when we boarded our bus to catch the sunrise at the most popular UNESCO World Heritage site in Jogya-- Borobudur buddhist temple.  Sleep deprivation, early morning hunger pangs and a climb of 250 steps up the pyramidal shaped temple symbolizing the 10 stages to attain nirvana, was all worth it, when we caught the breathtaking view of misty countryside with mountains at the backdrop and the sun slowly and steadily rising, to illuminate this abode of Buddha. One million photo clicks later, we descended to attain "nirvana" for our hunger and devour the most eargely awaited breakfast of our trip thus far.

The next item on the agenda was Mt. Merapi. Merapi is an active volcano, 20 miles north of Jogya and had erupted just three and half years earlier. It is probably for this reason that they take you there after you have obtained the blessings of Buddha...;)

Once we reach the base we commenced what is interestingly called as the "Lava" tour. Our mode of transport is also changed--a 4x4 Willis Jeep that looked like it was running on super-special life support systems ! Nevertheless it did the job that day as the ever-smiling driver rode us through the bumpy ruins of villages and terrain which had faced the full brunt of the 2010 eruption. There were places where the super heated steam from below was still brewing, after almost 4 years ! I have never ridden an ATV, but my collegue said that this ride would come pretty close to that.

An exhausting weekend but well worth it indeed which ended with lunch at a Mushroom only restaurant...happens only in Indonesia !

Touchdown at Yogyakarta

It was a cloudy and still morning on February 2nd when we woke up to get ready for our journey from Jakarta to Yogyakarta. As always the team assembled at the hotel lobby on time and we commenced our soujourn with a cab ride to the Soekarno-Hatta airport. It was Jean Sum from ABV who accompanied us this time as Waya had left earlier to make arrangements for our stay in Yogyakarta.We checked in as a group and mercifully all our extra luggages got unilaterally checked in without any additional charges....many thanks to the disciplined light travellers of the group .:-)

 

One and half hours later we landed in the quaint looking Adusutjipto airport of Yogyakarta. At the beginning of our trip we were told Jakarta is the political capital of Java while Yogyakarta, also known as Jogja ( pronounced Yogya) for short was the spiritual and cultural capital. If the airport is any indication of that, it did not disappoint. Surrounded by mountains and serene scenery, the bumpy landing was not even felt by any one of us. Waya received us with a caravan at the airport and we checked into our nice comfortable hotel rooms. Post a briefing session in the afternoon, we headed for dinner at a local restaurant which by last
count had about 100 Indonesian dishes to choose from....and what more around 20 of them were vegetarian...my kind of place..;)

The next day we headed up to the University of Gajeh Madah to participate in the seminar organized by IBM for the promotion of entrepreneurship. In the second half, we were introduced to our clients and that ended our long day. On Tuesday morning, we participated in the public event at a school
where IBM introduced and donated the KidSmart platform. Our scheduled meeting with the client got postponed which meant that we got some extra time to do shopping for our Batik clothing at the famous Malioboro street.

Salamat Detang Indonesia

At 10:30 AM on January 31st, I landed in Jakarta and thus began my CSC journey. Incidentally it was also the Chinese New Years Day and the Year of Horse began on that day. A friendly chauffer from Four Seasons Hotel was waiting for me just after the Immigration area, as promised. Thanks to the holiday, the notorious traffic of Jakarta was not encountered and me and Jibu, my fellow collegue and CSC participant from India, zoomed to the hotel in just 45 mins.
Indonesian hospitality never disappoints. After checking me in the Concierge gave a description of the hotel facilities and walked with me all the way up to my room...never before have I experienced this level of service..Kudos to Four Seasons Jakarta !

Almost the entire team and Waya, our ABV co-ordinator gathered together in the evening for dinner--a Javanese cuisine. A whole slew of dishes swooshed into our table...however it was "Sayur Sayuran saja" (vegetables only) for me since I am a vegetarian. Thankfully there were enough "sayur sayuran" dishes in the menu and I relished my first Indonesian meal with the team. A sumptuous "sit-in" dinner enjoyed by a group of 12, in a restaurant which featured live Indonesian music band, all for just $50 !!

Welcome to Indonesia !..;)