ACROSS JAVA BY TRAIN

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33442, 25 January 1974, Page 14

ACROSS JAVA BY TRAIN

(By ROBYN FRYER,

Surabaya is best seen at 5 a.m., as the sun has not yet risen to cast its light on the dirty crowded streets, and most of the railway station beggars are all curled up on the platform.

This was the time we embarked on a third-class carriage, along with hundreds of bustling Indonesians, all determined to have a “comfortable” journey, on one of the few bam-boo-slat seats available, to their destination. Packed aisles and aching legs however, were inevitable. As dawn approached, the scenery became clearer and I realised that we were passing through miles upon miles of richly cultivated land: paddy fields and sugar cane abounded. Not an acre of land was left fallow.

This densely populated island of Java is certainly attempting to provide for its 90 million people. Even the hills are terraced into paddies, water trickling from one level to another like a Japanese landscape garden.

After 12 hours of hectic travelling', we chugged into Jogjakarta, a pleasant city, rich in art and culture, with cluttered but silent streets; traffic being mostly rickshaws, bicycles and horse and cart.

The city’s centre is the Water Castle, where the Sultan once lived, with an escape route by river down to the sea 20 miles away, for use in times of threat of invasion or abduction. Legend also has it that the route was formed so he could make love to the Sea Goddess. The castle was later used as a Moslem prayer site, and now it stands; moss-covered, rock-crumbled, as a beautiful ruins, surrounded by a maze of exquisite batik boutiques. Historic temple Even more awesome and historically interesting is Borabudor, a Buddhist temple, built in the ninth century by worshippers of Buddha. Second only to Angkor Wat, this magnificent stone structure was built in three tiers, each representing levels of consciousness. On each level friezes are craved into the stone depicting Buddhist stories. Because of erosion of the man-made hill upon which this temple is built, it is being dismantled and moved, stone by stone, to a new site nearby, and restored. The workers will need to enjoy solving jigsaw puzzles. I spent a few days studying the art of batik-making under a competent instructor, and a day wandering around an amazing zoo. Animals were vaguely caged and surrounded by many acres of parkland and moats (the most organised place we had seen on our travels through Indonesia), more to come.' Indonesia is the home of many exotic animals, weird in appearance compared with those in our familiar New Zealand zoos: birds with beaks larger than their bodies, mouse-deer, huge

black bats, vividly-striped Sumatran tigers, Komodo dragons. We re-embarked on the train amid beggars, vendors yelling through the windows to sell their wares, and swarms of people. We clacked on over flimsy bridges, past villages of Dutch - influenced stone and tile houses, terraced rice paddies and ragged children running alongside the carriages with outstretched hands, yelling “Rupiah, Rupia, Yang, Yang.”

Western-style buildings and modern cars, then Bandung was in view. To avoid slipping back into our Western ways, we headed for the mountains and pitched our tent on the edge of the twinpeaked volcano of Mount Tangein Pening, even though it was the tail-end of monsoon weather and not really conducive to camping. The first night a storm raged, lightning continually zipped across the sky in super split-second sparks, rain tumbled down; but we were snug in our orange plastic womb. Excited guides We awoke to a clear morning, the sun painting the mist orange around the hill peaks inspiring us to walk to the volcano ridge. Thirty excited guides followed us, keen to offer their services, but we ventured alone into the craters of steaming gas, dazzling grey rocks and putrid sulphur odour. After some blissful days, we caught an oplet back to Bandung. It was packed so full of people that they were spilling out of the doors on to the runways and roof, perching themselves on top of the baggage and crops for the market (typical of most local transport in this country). We too, clung on to the roof, our feet on the running board, our bodies flapping in the cool breeze to the rhythm of the oplet. Fields, mountains, laughing people flashed past, all comprising an intimate environment.

Back to life on the railway tracks the next day — swaying carriages danced onward on wide-gauge tracks, unsightly high-smell-ing toilets with the tracks visible underneath (the fear of needing to use them tends to be a preoccupation during the journey). We passed towns built around ruins of stone temples, and approached Djakarta. This was obvious by the sight of 15 or so miles of shacks lining the tracks — made from tin, plastic, cardboard: any scrap. It was pouring with torrential rain and people huddled together inside to keep dry, the moat around them becoming gradually deeper and wider.

Enormous piles of garbage, three men high, break the monotony of the shacks. Four million people are squeezed into this modern city of noise, filth and gangsters.

Relieved to find the boat to Medan left between 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. that day, we boarded it to explore yet another of Indonesia’s fascinating islands.