I had though I would stay in Surakarta for only one day and then move on to Yogyakarta anothe Javan royal city 90 mins down the road. However I saw a picture of one of the temples nearby in the mountains and I felt I had to stay on and try to visit this place. Its caled Candi Sukuh and I thought it looked beautiful from the picture I'd seen. Back in the hostel I enquired about visiting the temple and a trip was arranged with Patrek who is employed at the guesthouse and as it turns out does this trip anything up to 4-5 times a week.
This morning I meet up with Patrek at 9am and we went by motorbike out of town and into the neighbouring countryside. Traffic was light and we were soon beyond the outskirts of the city and into farmland where local farmers were both planting and harvesting rice. It looke like back breaking work. All very laborious. Old men worked with hoes to build up the sides of a rice plot in order to retain the water in which the rice would be planted. Women worked barefoot singly and in groups ankel deep in water planting the rice in neat rows. All wore the distinctive pointed hats to shade them from the strong sun.
On the road groups motorbikes zipped past us. Cars beeped their horns to warn us they were passing. Their engines sounding so much smoother and softe than the angry bee sound of the motorbike engines. We entered hill country and passed through Patrek's home village to a succession of hoots, smiles and waves. Patrek angled his head back and shouted to me "Everybody knows me here". I didn't doubt it. For the next while most of the people we met on the road shouted greetings to Patrek. Higher in to the mountains we passed through vast tea plantations which covered large tracts of hillsides. It was getting cooler know as we gained altitude. We arrived at Candi Sukuh, an old Hindu fertility temple. It sat high, overlooking the valleys beneath with a backdrop of rainforest stretching high up the mountain slopes. It was misty here this morning. We were unable to see the volcanic peak which crowned the top of this mountain.
The temple itself was small, strikingly similar to the Mayan temples of Central America. Its a Hindu temple still recieves a devout following. AS a fertility temple it is frequented by married couples who have struggled to have children. They come here to pray and make offerings to the Gods in the hope that they will accede to the couples wishes. Patrek conducted the tour, explaining the history etc of the site but I became slightly puzzled as to his 'orientation'. He had very camp mannerisms, allied to immaculate grooming, tight t-shirt and equally tight jeans. A tendency to squeeze my harm was........ a little disconcerting. I was relieved later in the day when he made reference to his wife and children.
From Candi Sukuh we crossed to a neighbouring valley 8km away and climbed deeper into the hills to visit the even more spectacular location of Candi Ceto. This temple, also Hindu, is perched on a shelf of land high up in the mountains. It is approached by a steep winding road. The final approach to the temple puts a strain on car and motorbike engines as they struggle up the last couple of hundred yards. The location of the temple provides a sense of drama as it sits above a small village of the same name and looks down across breathtaking views over the surrounding landscape. Both Candi Sukuh and Candi Ceto date to the same period of the 14th century but Candi Ceto is a more conventional Hindu temple. It is laid out on ascending stairways which mark the progression of the devout from the temporal earthly domain to the achievement heavenly nirvana at the top of the temple. It was cool and misty up here lending an air of quiet mystery to this remote site. Down in Solo as with the rest of Java it is Islam which dominates but up here in the mountains the older Hindu beliefs still predominate. Muslims are tolerated, indeed, welcomed to live within the community up here but no mosque is permitted to be constructed on this hallowed Hindu soil. Both Sukuh and Ceto predate the arrival of Islam in these parts and reamin important sites of pilgrimmage for local Hindus.
Afterwards we descended through the tea plantations and stopped at Patrek's sister-in-law's roadside cafe cum shop for some locally grown tea. It was a novelty drinking tea knowing the leaves had been picked from the field just over the hedge. While it was nice to taste the local coffee I've got to say tea still wins the day for me. And its good out here.
We wasted no time descending back down to the plains and to Solo. We were back at the hostel for 2pm. I stayed out of the afternoon heat for a few hours writing up for the blog. I was all set to head out for the evening but by early evening I began to feel unwell. I ate in a nearby restaurant but had to leave most of the meal after me. Leaving the restaurant I went straight back to the hostel and into bed. I didn't know what was wrong with me but quite evidently there was something not quite right.
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