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Jogjakarta trip
Day 4 - 1st May - Water Castle (Part 2)
We elected to skip the Sultan's carriage museum, not least since we had already seen pictures of his various drawn vehicles.
The next stop was the Water Castle (Tamansari), a reconstructed version (with UNESCO help) of what was "built in 1758 by Sultan Hamengkubuwono I as a rest house and pleasure park for the Royal family" and damaged in an 1867 earthquake. According to our guide, the area used to be a lake and they started working on it in 1750.
I had been earlier advised by a friendly local at Vredeburg not to visit as, in his words, it was "no Water, no Castle". I quoted this to our guide, who said that the place was not nice, but the story was. Our guide fee was fixed anyway, so we assented.
People camwhoring on the parapets
Obama as Jaws
Stairway and Entrance to the greater complex
Skyline from near where the people were camwhoring. The volcano in the distance is Mt Merapi.
Bombed out shell. Maybe UNESCO money ran out.
A moment's respite (from the heat, if not the humidity)
They also had some grafitti in death-defying positions. Why anyone would draw a Makcik (second picture) is beyond me.
Hiao Indonesian Girl
More skyline, from higher up
Amidst all the Indonesian kids' camwhoring, the best of all was this guy who took himself in weird emo poses
More desolation
Our guide told us they were still restoring the place, and these houses would be demolished and built over by 2010
Doorway with reliefs
Pregnant CWN
Underground tunnel: the area used to be underwater so the Sultan would travel by means of the tunnel
Ticketed entrance to Water Castle
Map of area
There're some very nice pictures of the Water Castle online:
Unfortunately, they bore little resemblance to what I saw:
Fetid water. The mask in the centre of the latter picture is a Buddhist symbol of protection.
Algae pond
There were 3 swimming pools: one for the women, one for the children and one private one for the Sultan (and his woman of the day).
Spout water came out from
Dried out pool
Honeymoon bed of Sultans 1-3. The holes you see underneath are for fires to warm the bed - in the times of Sultans 1-3 it was cold.
The interior had small doorways so you had to bend down, clasping your hands, to pass. This was to enforce politeness.
Changing room with mirror (fill the urn with water) and clothes shelves. 44 women used to swim naked in the pool.
Gate - main entrance for guards
Ayam long legs
We then went to the Sultan's Meditation Chamber. He would meditate inside for 40 days and 40 nights and get magical powers.
Planks would be placed on top of the partitions, and water underneath would keep the Sultan cool while he meditated
Looking out of the meditation chamber
Entering meditation chamber
Light seen through hole in meditation chamber
Road sign in Sanskrit
Bombed out neighborhood
Our guide had earlier brought us to his cousin's shop, where he made puppets. We declined to buy anything. He now brought us to his mother's house, where she made batik sarongs (and he made postcards - because he said working in the palace didn't pay well).
Before he brought us in he claimed we were under no obligation to buy anything ("I'm not trying to pressure you), but once we entered he used the hard sell on us (saying that we should help his mama and the family business so she would have money to eat, and that she didn't earn more than that) so CWN finally broke and bought something.
While we were in his mother's house I asked him if any of his family members sold Nasi Gudeg, but he either didn't hear me or pretended not to hear me. Maybe his sister was a prostitute, but because CWN was with me (and he helped us take pictures on the honeymoon bed) he didn't ask if I wanted to aid his family in that way.
He also tried to guilt us by claiming his mother's house collapsed during the 2006 earthquake, and they got a 50 million Rupiah grant from the government to rebuild it, but it was smaller than before. Please lah.
The bastard walking off. He didn't even walk us back to the main road.
Apparently there's a Becak association. Maybe they discuss strategies to prey on tourists: "Rely on the weather to wear them down and then prey on them". And fix tourist prices.
Bensin. There was something compelling about the Bensin signs. Given how common the stalls were, they must've used as fuel for their motorsikals.
Horse carriage. Incidentally, Bruges smelled worse, since it had more horses - even if it was not as hot there.
[Addendum: Many horses had flowers on them, presumably to give them a fresh appearance. Yet, half the time the flower looked sad or wilted, making the horse look even more pathetic.]
They were so proud of Indomie that they advertised that they used it
Cute puppy
Halal cosmetics
Since we were quite far from our hotel, we decided to take a becak back. Besides the distance, we hoped our distance from tourist traps would ensure rates were more reasonable.
'Nice brownies'
Broken horse shit collector. Kind of defeats the point. Incidentally I didn't see any broken ones in Bruges. Hurr hurr.
Don't jump!