Travel

Food is everywhere here in Yogyakarta. Rickety carts offering noodles and soups and fried this-and-that line virtually every street. Fruit stands overflow with piles of black-skinned mangoes, bunches of red bananas, scaly snake fruit and enormous purple grapes. Girls ride by on bicycles rigged up with wooden boxes that hold bottles of colored drinks to mix and sell on the spot. Yes, it's hot and grimy but the ingredients look fresh and everyone is eating with gusto. Westerners are so afraid of Third World street food, but meanwhile we are washing our own e coli-imbued beef with bleach. Take a look at these market photos and tell me you wouldn't want to sample the wares.

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Foods markets, especially in Third World countries, are where you can really see what the people are all about. In Yogyakarta, the “traditional market,” as my driver Toto referred to the place where locals shop for food and dry goods, is an open-air, multi-level building teeming with humanity—sullen youths smoking clove cigarettes, wizened old ladies hunched over baskets of shallots, krupuk sellers, batik-clad matrons shopping for fish, the occasional leathery homeless man brandishing a tin begging cup. Around the perimeter of the market are countless little stands where vendors and cooks ply their specialties: fresh salads, soups, fried tofu and tempeh, cow skin crackers, grilled satays, iced coconut drinks with green cam cau jelly, sweet cakes made from glutinous rice flour. There is a general din composed of the constant roar of motorbikes, the swishing of beans though bamboo strainers, the clang of metal spoons and the sweet melodies of caged songbirds. I am never happier than drifting through such a place, absorbing it all (even the scary smells), tasting what I dare, interacting when I can and marveling at this daily life that is so unlike my own. I took so many pictures that I’ll spread them over a few posts. This one features the many strange and exotic foods I came across (but did not eat) at Beringharjo market, which was built on the site of a former banyan tree forest in 1758.
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Wayang, “theater” in Javanese, is the word used to refer to traditional Indonesian shadow puppets. Though beautifully rendered and colored, the puppets are held up behind a screen so only their outlines are visible. These intricate plays of shadow and light are often based on romantic tales, especially adaptations of the classic Indian epics The Mahabarata and The Ramayana. Some of them also depict local happenings, current events or other secular stories. Performances are generally accompanied by gamelan, an orchestra composed of metallophones, xylophones, drums, gongs, bamboo flutes and strings. The puppets are made in various styles, with perhaps the best known being the wayang kulit, crafted from parchment-like sheets of dried water buffalo hide (kulit). As with batik, UNESCO designated wayang kulit a “Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity” in 2003, making it incumbent upon the Indonesians to preserve this precious indigenous art form.
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With my trusty driver, Toto, in an air-conditioned Toyota minivan, I ventured forth into the heart of Yogyakarta to do a little shopping. Beneath sulky grey skies, the city was smelly and palpably damp. Our hotel is in a rather unattractive neighborhood close to the airport, and the view out the window included some classic Third World sites: shanties with corrugated-tin roofs; entire families perched on a single motorbike, the parents with helmets and the barefoot babies without; scrawny chickens strutting in roadside ditches. The strange dichotomy between progress and tradition is perhaps best summed up by a poster I saw for a local technology convention, featuring an ox-drawn cart laden with the latest computers and electronics. Even the batiks for which I was shopping are evidence of this tension, an ancient craft now more and more being executed with mechanized techniques. Of course, I was in search of the real deal, the artisanal, hand-printed and –dyed version that is so much harder to come by.
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We went back to visit the surgeon because G's pain level had become rather worrisome. Fortunately he doesn't have a clot or deep vein thrombosis, but he did come away with some new painkillers. (Hello, Sister Morphine.) And I came away with several treats from the hospital snack shop. What with the crutches, the pillows, the xrays and G's backpack, I couldn't bring the camera with me, but later I snapped some photos of my finds on the tiny terrace off our room. For the most part, we've been flat on our backs (healing is a team sport), watching bad movies and the occasional itunes download (loving The Killing--is AMC the new HBO?!), and, yes, eating crackers in bed. Fortunately, they've been some quality Indonesian crackers, a national specialty that puts Ritz to shame.
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After 18+ hours in the air—all of them spent comfortably reclined in my most excellent Singapore Airlines business class cubby—I am now ensconced in the business class lounge at the Singapore Airport, availing myself of the copious complimentary amenities. Chief among them is the extensive international breakfast buffet, a somewhat more subdued version of the lavish spread found in most Asian hotels. Lest they fail to please every last guest, these dining rooms offer an international round-up of every conceivable breakfast fodder—and I'm talking pancakes, waffles, gelato and brioche, omelettes and eggs every which way, crepes, full-on English fry-ups with kippers and sausage and tomatoes, croissants and muffins of every stripe, groaning platters of tropical fruit, miso soup, Vietnamese pho, Chinese dim sum and congee, Indonesian fried rice, hoppers, porridge, muesli, and that's not all. When I stayed at the Conrad Hotel in Bangkok with my friend Lisa, we tried desperately to monitor our intake every morning but inevitably trudged out for a day of sightseeing, shopping and more eating with already pronounced potbellies. To wit, I landed here at 5am, it's now 7, and I've already been to the buffet twice.
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This is going to be the view from my window in a couple of days. More vacation? you say. But you just got back from Antigua! I admit, it does look an awful lot like a holiday but, in fact, it's more of a rescue mission. G got into a motorcycle accident while on a job in Indonesia and shattered the bones in his left shin. He's currently recuperating from surgery in a hospital in Yogyakarta and I'm hopping a Singapore Airlines flight to be by his side. By the time I get there (having flown nearly 24 hours on three planes), he will have checked into the lovely hotel you see above. He needs to recuperate for a couple of weeks before he can fly (danger of deep vein thrombosis), so I'll be posting from there for a while. It's called making lemonade.
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A month or so before we got married in October of 2007, G whisked me off to Turkey for a quick getaway. Although we had big plans to travel around and see lots of sights, after a couple of days in Istanbul we found ourselves holed up in the unbelievably charming Hotel Ada in Turkbuku, in the hills above Bodrum, with absolutely no desire to go anywhere else. This gorgeous stone hotel is built around several 150-year-old olive trees, has a lovely hammam for bathing and steams, and is beautifully furnished in a warm and eclectic style. Our room had stunning views of the Aegean and a private pool where we sunned and swam every day. We breakfasted on juicy peaches and sweet figs on our balcony; lunched on fresh salads and icy cold watermelon juice by our pool; and dined in bed on just-caught seafood. G was especially taken with a pasta dish piled high with what they called "sea delicates"—little scallops, shrimp, squid and fish in a tomatoey sauce. At the time, he did not know that gluten was a big problem for him, so this was truly an instance of ignorance being bliss. Ditto the molten chocolate cake he had for dessert every night.
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This beautiful green chameleon is the first creature I captured with my new camera, a present from G who is leaving Antigua early today to shoot a job in the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia. Although my new toy hardly makes up for losing my better half for a couple of weeks, it will prove a welcome distraction. The food here is not much to write home about, though we did enjoy dinner on the beach last night, including a delicious chowder made with local shrimp, lobster, clams and fish. Earlier in the day we'd seen a haul of a couple of big, square-headed, glistening yellow mahi mahi, but there was none of the simple and fresh ceviche you might hope for. Still, I can't complain, when the days consist of sunning, napping, reading, hammocking and sipping piña coladas. (Note to self: must perfect this drink at home this summer without that noxious, soapy Coco Lopez). And the nights consist of family dinners, rum-&-tonics with extra lime, moon-gazing, more reading and the beautiful music of tree frogs.
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I'm on vacation in Antigua this week. Being lulled to sleep every night by the sound of the crashing surf just outside my room. Yesterday, I saw a red-spotted starfish beneath the crystalline waters. A wonderful Balinese woman scrubbed me from head to toe with sea salt and green coffee as I looked through the massage table headpiece at a bowl of green sea glass. I've eaten callaloo soup (like a spinach puree) and a summer roll made with buttery soft lobster. Tonight is dinner on the beach with a bonfire, dancing and entertainment by the island's premier singer of soca, a music with traditional African roots. G bought me a new camera before this trip and I hope to capture some photos of this paradise for you. My vacation reading list includes: Stardust by Joseph Kannon (reading now, it's fantastic); I Think I Love You by Allison Pearson; Mudbound by Hillary Jordan; The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht; The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer; and The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman. Ambitious? For sure. But it gives me the same feelings of security, wealth and possibility that having a full pantry does. My Kindle runneth over...
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