Yogyakarta – yes!

We arrived at our hotel in Yogyakarta, the Phoenix, about 1.30pm yesterday after a much quicker car ride from Borobudur. And what a magnificent hotel it is! We were already surprised at the low cost of accommodation here from our Borobudur experience, but these are real classy digs – real opulence. Built in the 1880s (probably by the Dutch), it is spread over a couple of acres, with restaurants, drawing rooms, a large central swimming pool (which our balcony overlooks – we are on the third and top floor) and staff at your beck and call, always helpful, always smiling. After lunch we headed off on our complimentary becak, or rickshaw, ride. That was quite an experience – we were crammed into a bench seat that is definitely not designed for two people our size – and we were immediately out in the mayhem of traffic; cars, motorcycles - thousands of motorcycles – and the occasional bus or truck. Quite an enlivening experience, sitting in the front with nothing between you and the traffic as it swarms around you (especially when we take a shortcut on the wrong side of the road).

While out for our ride we spotted a campaign poster for a candidate for a local by-election, to be held soon. Apparently his strong views resonate with voters; he is hard on crime, hard on corruption, in fact his campaign theme seems to be “hard on....”. For some reason he seems to get a lot of support from women voters.

On our return, fortunately unscathed, we headed off on foot and had dinner at a local roadside restaurant. We are not sure what we had, although we know there was fish and chicken in there somewhere, however it attracted the locals and the food tasted good.

After a good night’s sleep and a delicious breakfast, accompanied by Javanese percussion music, we headed off to Prambanan, fifteen kilometres out of town and the home to a number of Hindu temples built between the eighth and tenth centuries to commemorate the return of a Hindu dynasty to power in Java. Although the main temple, Shiva, is complete and a magnificent sight and many of the other smaller temples have been restored, many are still suffering earthquake damage and are basically still in ruins. In fact there are acres of stones, statues and carved reliefs just sitting there, waiting to be re-constructed at some time in the future. The site is so vast that we caught a little motorised train to travel to the furthest temple, but everything is beautifully laid out, the grounds are well landscaped and maintained and it is to be hoped that funding will continue to come in to assist with restoration work. We stopped to admire the beautiful deer in an adjoining park before returning to our car. Our wonderful driver handed us a cold wet face washer and bottle of water to enjoy on the drive back to our hotel. Once home we again set off to explore the local area on foot; walking through the main shopping area, which is made up of row after row of shops and stalls on the footpath, then into the vast Pasar Beringharjo, the main city market, for more of the same (although much more compressed and congested). We eventually staggered back to our hotel about 5pm, after the nerve-shattering experience of crossing a few streets where pedestrians seem to have absolutely no rights. A swim and drinks by the pool then back to our room to write this.

This is the last night of our holiday (sob), so we are having a farewell dinner in the hotel restaurant and will have an early night before heading out to the airport to begin our three-stage journey home. Hopefully, during our time waiting around the various airports, we will compose a final blog.

Beautiful Borobudur – Buddhism at its best

After a very long day, night and day we finally arrived at Borobudur, Central Java on Saturday afternoon. We left our Barcelona hotel at 8am on Friday, caught a flight to Singapore arriving at 5.30am local time Saturday, then two flights to Jakarta and Yogyakarta, with long waits in between. Finally, after a two-hour drive from Yogyakarta and thirty hours after leaving our hotel in Barcelona, we arrived at the Manahora Hotel, Borobudur. We had already decided that we were going to have a rest for the remainder of the day and visit the famous, World Heritage-listed eighth century Buddhist temple the next morning, but as soon as we saw that our hotel (set on several hectares) was actually on part of the temple reserve, we dropped our bags and were off! We climbed up the many, many steps to the top, took lots of photos and didn’t come down until sunset. Then a well-deserved shower, a beautiful meal in the outside restaurant and a sleep in – until 4am, when we got up for the 4.30am start to again climb to the top of the temple for the sunrise.

The Borobudur temple was built some time between the middle of the eighth and ninth centuries. It was conceived as a Buddhist vision of the cosmos in stone, starting in the everyday world and spiralling up until it reached Nirvana. The base is 118 metres square and the entire structure contains two million stone blocks. It was abandoned shortly after its completion due to a shift in power away from the area and a decline in Buddhism, and suffered the effects of neglect and even earthquakes, but since its rediscovery by Sir Thomas Raffles in 1815 it has been gradually restored to its former glory. It even had to survive the effects of a terrorist-motivated bombing in 1985 and an earthquake in 2006.

It is an extraordinary monument in an extraordinary setting, surrounded, at a distance, by high mountains and forests. The immediate surrounds have been cleared and you can stand back for uninterrupted views of the entire facade of the temple on all sides. The six square and three circular terraces contain a total of 2,672 carved relief panels, and the large bell-shaped dome on the top of the temple is surrounded by seventy two smaller (but still substantial - more than two metres tall) latticed domes, each containing a Buddha. Watching the sun rise in the distance, and watching the colours on the face of the temple gradually change, was enthralling. Perhaps we were carried away a bit but overall, between our arrival Saturday afternoon and our departure Sunday morning, we took about two hundred photos either of, or of the views from, the temple. Choosing just six for this blog was a challenge.

Visiting the Borobudur Temple was the realisation of a long-held dream of Elizabeth, dating back to her study of Indonesian language and history at high school. And she was not disappointed.

All Creatures Great and Small.......

As we sit at Jakarta Airport awaiting a connecting flight to Yogjakarta, some 20 hours after leaving Spain, I (that’s me, Elizabeth) am feeling sick and tired and would right now love nothing more than to be lying on my own bed in Mount Hutton with my hairy four-legged friends (and my hairy two-legged friend, of course) curled up next to me. I’ve missed Maddi and Sasha a lot and have had to reach out to their international brothers and sisters for a hit of creature-therapy. I have begged John to allow me to rescue a donkey from Morocco but he says one ass in the house is enough. It seems that animals all over the world speak the same language. They just want to be loved and to be part of the pack and, in return, they give bucket loads of love and loyalty. The photographs above represent just a small sample of the lovely animals that have touched my heart during this trip.

Morocco musings

We have arrived at out hotel near Barcelona Airport and will remain here until tomorrow (Friday) morning, when we embark on the twelve hour flight to Singapore and then spend a further few hours reaching our destination of Borobudur, Java, mid-afternoon Saturday. So there won’t be much to report over the next forty-eight hours. However, there is time to reflect on our two and a half weeks in Morocco and mention a couple of highlights of that amazing adventure.

Morocco is a country of contrasts; contrasts between the modernity of cities such as the capital Rabat and other iconic towns that have played such important roles in the nation’s history – Casablanca, Meknes, Fes, Marrakesh, Essaouira – and the smaller, less advanced but nonetheless thriving towns and villages on both sides of the Atlas Mountains. But size and modernity do not rule out observance of the traditional ways of living. No matter how big or modern, you are likely to see a donkey or a mule, laden with skins of other produce, picking its way through the city streets, the souks or the medinas.

It is difficult to pick out the most memorable moments when we have seen so many wonderful sights and experienced so much beauty and diversity. Every mountain road, every town and village, was different and they all have their special features that will live in our memories. However a couple of things do stand out.

Elizabeth: “For me, the stand-out experience was when we walked out of our hotel in Merzouga (appropriately dressed in our kaftans and head-scarves), mounted our camels and with just a few loping strides we were actually in the Sahara Desert. The long slow ride was magical; the colours of the desert in the twilight were unexpected and almost overwhelming in their beauty, the silence was absolute and we could have been a caravan of Bedouin nomads crossing the sand, as they have done for centuries. Then to dismount and clamber up to the top of a tall sand dune and witness the sunset, in silence, was an extraordinary experience; sitting up there, with our small camel train squatting on the sand below us, watching the colours change as the sun slowly disappeared over the distant mountains, and then the camel ride back to our hotel, in the moonlight and, again, in silence. This was a truly magical experience, one that I will never forget.”

John: “One morning, in Fes, we went for a walk through the old medina. As we ventured deep into the narrow alleyways, we found ourselves in a lane that would have been less than two metres wide, with towering walls either side, narrowing as they rose. There was no artificial light, so the only lighting was the sunlight that filtered down. People were coming and going, all in traditional garb of kaftan and headscarf, or old western dress. Suddenly, from behind us came the call of ‘balak, balak’, which means ‘stand aside and let us through’ – a call we had quickly learned to obey! Coming up behind us was a small caravan of three donkeys, each loaded high and wide with animal skins and urged on by an old man in kaftan and headscarf. We had to press ourselves hard against the wall and even then the pile of skins brushed against us as the caravan passed. There we were, amid the noise and smells, the clip-clop of the donkeys’ hooves and the calls of their driver ringing in our ears, and I realised then that this exact scene would have played out – unchanged - every day since Fes was established on this site twelve hundred years ago. I truly felt like I was experiencing history in that moment. For me, it defines Morocco.”

The varied vistas of Valencia

Last night’s paella was delicious. Scampi, king prawns, calamari, mussels and pippis were steamed in white wine laced with our Moroccan saffron, then added to the rice, which was slow-cooked in fish stock and – voilá (or whatever the Spanish equivalent is).

Another late breakfast, then into the old city and onto the Hop-on Hop-off for a circuit of the rest of the town, taking in all the magnificent buildings, constructed over the centuries, and the parks, gardens and fountains. Back on shanks, we stopped off at the Lladro shop to admire the latest designs and watch a film on the history and making of Lladro...very interesting. Then a walk past the bull-ring, where John took the opportunity to display his similarity to one of the all-time great matadors, and it was time for lunch at one of Valencia’s iconic restaurants, Jack Hambre. A walk then to the Mercado de Colón, a former nineteenth century market and now an up-market food hall, and finally a visit to the magnificent Palacio del Marqués de Dos Aguas, now the National Museum of Ceramics. A wonderfully-restored palace with rooms set up as they would have been in the day and an amazing display of ceramics from the tenth century to today.

Dragged ourselves back to our apartment for the last time, although we shouldn’t complain – it only got to 35 today. Left-over Spaghetti Valencia and eggplant in olive oil and parmesan for dinner tonight, then:

Tomorrow: the three-hour train trip to Barcelona as we prepare to leave Spain (sob).

Valencia – very pretty, but pretty hot.

We had a slight internet problem last night, so this is the blog that should have been published yesterday (Tuesday) evening local time.

Our seven hour train trip from Seville to Valencia was uneventful, except for an old Spanish gent in the seat in front of us who leapt to his feet every eight minutes for the entire journey, to look out of another window or give other passengers unwanted advice as to how to stow their luggage. He would then fling himself back into his seat so that everything on our small table attached to his chair flew into the air in all directions. We think he might be a creation of Miguel de Cervantes (come to think of it, when we passed a bank of windmills on a hill he did seem to look at them wistfully, while standing at a slight angle).

Our Valencia apartment is delightful; on the eighth and top floor of block of apartments, within walking distance of the old town, with its own large terrace for surveying the surrounding neighbourhood, and for eating our meals in the cool of the evening. Our first venture out was to the nearby supermarket to stock up; we had Spaghetti Valencia (Bolognese with a local twist) last night -after all it was Monday night! - and are having a paella tonight.

Today, after breakfast on the terrace, we headed into the old town and visited the majestic Conjunto Cathedral, which holds what is claimed to be the Holy Grail, the chalice from which Christ drank during the Last Supper. One of the chapels displays two magnificent Goya paintings. Incidentally, for over one thousand years the “Water Court” has met every Thursday at noon outside the cathedral’s Doors of the Apostles to hear and settle disputes over the distribution of irrigation water. It is the only non-secular court still allowed to operate. Then to the UNESCO heritage site, La Lonja, constructed at the end of the fifteenth century as the Valencia silks and commodities exchange. We also visited the Mercado Centrale, the meat, seafood and produce market with its nine hundred stalls. Before lunch we visited the Basilica Virgen de los Desamparados and listened to the boys’ choir during the lunch-time mass. Then a few more amazing churches with the usual skulls, bones and embalmed limbs on display.

By this time it had reached thirty-nine degrees and after John made an unsuccessful attempt to hijack the local police car we escaped onto the Hop-on Hop-off bus and did a ninety minute circuit of the city, including a cooling visit to Valencia port and a glimpse of the Mediterranean. We were delivered back to the heart of the old town and trudged back to our apartment with limon and mandarina gelato in hand, hot and tired, but content – and looking forward to paella on the terrace.

Tomorrow: more of the old town, including a couple of must-see museums.

Sunday in Seville – churches, churches, churches – and a palace

Being a holy day we decided to devote it mostly to visiting churches. We managed to fit in the Iglesia de la Magdalena; the Capilla de San José, named in honour of the famous carpenter Joseph; Iglesia del Divino Salvador, one of Seville’s grandest churches, built on the site of the mosque of Ibn Addabas; Iglesia de la Anunciación, with a macabre-looking crypt where many of the city’s governors are buried. As we have come to expect, most of the churches are magnificent inside, with frescoed ceilings and such detailed presbyteries that it was all too much for the eye to take in.

The majority of our time was spent in the Alcazar. Originally built as a fortress for the Moorish caliphs in AD 712, it later became the residence of many Christian monarchs following the expulsion of the Moors. We spent hours wandering through the many ornate rooms and courtyards, then made our way into the peaceful and lush gardens.

Our last stop for the day was the Hospice of the Venerable Ones, built in 1675 as a retirement home for aged priests and today maintained as a museum. We found it plant- embellished and spirit-reviving - the only nursing home we’d ever consider living in. It also has a beautiful chapel and a small gallery of paintings from a few of the great Spanish masters of the seventeenth century, with the most famous portrait being the Santa Rufina by Diego Velazquez. This masterpiece was procured for a hefty 12.5 million Euros in 2007.

Finally, the long walk back to our hotel, savouring the sights, sounds and smells. A soak in the bath and an early dinner are in order, because:

Tomorrow: the long train journey to Valencia.