Java Travels, December 2001
I worked as an English teacher in Jakarta for one year. The contracted holidays were quite reasonable: 3 weeks to take as a when, plus a week or so for Christmas, another week for Ramadan. The year I was there, I lucked out: Ramadan and Christmas coincided, and the two holidays were rolled into one super-long 3 week break.
I took the opportunity to travel the length and breadth of the island of Java, travelling overland (naturally), dropping in on such places as Bandung, Borobudur, Semarang, Yogyakarta, Surabaya, and hopping across to the island of Madura. Spending Christmas day alone on a beach at Ambunten, Madura, far from all the rampant commercialism of the festive season, was one of the highlights.
Dieng Plateau
The volcanic blue waters of a lake on the Dieng Plateau
Dieng Plateau
Air Mata
Semarang
Semarang
Borobodur
Borobudur, a Buddhist monument in Central Java, dates from the 9th century, although for many of those centuries it was buried and forgotten. It contains over 500 Buddha statues, 72 of which, like this image, are seated inside a perforated stupa.
Borobodur
Headless statue at Borobudur. The site of Borobudur lay ruined and concealed for centuries below a covering of ash and jungle vegetation, until its rediscovery by a Dutch engineer sent by Sir Stamford Raffles, later founder of Singapore and then-governor of Java.
Prambanan
A rainy day at Candi Prambanan. Candi Prambanan (candi is Indonesian for 'ancient temple') is a 9th-century Hindu temple compound, the largest in Indonesia, located near the city of Yogyakarta in Central Java. The tall tapering temple structure is typical of Hindu temples and reminiscent of some of the ancient temple structures of Southern India.
Prambanan
Statue ruin at Candi Prambanan. The temple compound, now a UNESCO site, was neglected and forgotten until the early 19th century, when it was 'rediscovered' by a surveyor of the East India Company, under the direction of Sir Stamford Raffles, founder of Singapore. After returning to Dutch rule, the temple complex was again forgotten, and many statues were taken away by the Dutch for garden ornamentation.
Surabaya
Ambunten
Carita
Krakatoa
Krakatoa
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Delhi Deadlines by Sheldon Smith
A washed out journalist, posted to India to cover a bloody election campaign, uncovers truths about his son's life - and death - in the country, truths that test loyalties forged in the war zones of Bosnia and Rwanda. A fiercely evocative narrative of modern-day India, filled with the clamour and hot stinks of its capital, this is a novel of death woven through with life.
"The writing is very very good... the mysteriousness of Wyndham's death and the narrator's involvement will entice the reader to keep reading." - 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA) Expert Reviewer
