I took a cold shower and put on my fresh new cloths, hopped on my rented motor bike and flew out the door.  As I went down the road I saw a few people working in the morning traditional markets or going to masjid.  I couldn’t tell if they have been up all night or just waking up.  The sense strikes me because even though this is a huge city and more then a million people inhabit, you couldn’t tell by the tightly packed communities going god knows where at god knows what time of night.  There is an amount of calm loneliness that will continue through the rest of the day, I won’t say that it’s a bad feeling, but it is loneliness just the same.

 As I continue biking I see others and realize how much faster then me they are.  I begin to pick up speed with these shadows passing me on the street and soon I am at full speed.  Flying down the street I felt powerful and scared.  There was a deep sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as I drove past roads and bridges that were foreign to me.  The hour and half drive flew by and I was getting further and further away from civilization.  And again, I felt the slow dull ping of loneliness creep in; I don’t know how to communicate, I don’t know where I am, and I am guided by my phone.  My phone is the only thing that tethers me to how to get back home.  As I was passing the rice fields that were starting to glow from the morning twilight, I saw workers starting to tend the fields.  Lonely pillars in a sea of mist and mud.  I imagined the Hindu temples I would see later in the day, and about dharma: one’s personal duty.  Looking at the rice fields I felt immortal and invincible. I was joined by more bikes and soon we were joined by more bikes until our little group of motor bikes resembled a stream of salmon trying to swim upstream.  And just like a gathering of salmon, we bottlenecked and stopped short. I slipped in the mud and fell of my bike. I hit the ground hard and was frightened.  I was scared that I couldn’t get the help I needed if I was seriously hurt.  In a few seconds I quickly took stock of my faculties and found I was ok but shaken.  There were so many faces around me asking if I needed help but no one able to communicate it.  I understood, but I also wanted them to leave me alone, along with my hurting body there was a huge gash to my pride.  In that instant, I thought “what can you do? how can you help me?  God, I just hope I just that my rented bike is ok”.   I pulled myself out of the mud, shooing the crowd away with Makasih, Makasih.  Looked at my muddy cloths and mourned the feeling of invincibility as I pulled the bike out of the mud and got back on the road.  From experience, I was thinking that I should take myself somewhere to get looked at, but I have become very skeptical of healthcare in this country, and let the thought go.  All I could do then was listen to my body and keep aware of any lasting injuries once the shock went away.  Besides, I was almost there.  I was left behind from my group of motor bikes and I was thankful because I could breathe easier.  Feeling worn I reached the bottom of Punthuk Setumbu and as I took a right onto the road leading up the mountain, the path went almost vertical.  I was praying that my little motor bike could make the climb and miraculously it did, but a car stopped short.  If I had stopped I would slide down the mountain and the thought instantly turned my stomach and awoke the excess adrenaline from my recent crash.  I turned the bike around the stopped car and into a ravine.  This time the only thing hurt was my pride.  I could kick myself how mad I was.  How would speeding up have helped. I should have stopped and let the other car go, my fear had gotten the best of me and now the faces were surrounding me again.  Luckily this time I was surrounded by 3 people who knew how to help someone in my situation.  They walked up to my bike and whisked me out of the ravine in what seemed like one fluid motion.  Still a little dazed, they led me to the nearby parking spot inside a large lean-to Warung.  I seemed to get special preference on the spot because of my unfortunate accident and one of the parking officials came to help me inspect my bike.  Something tells me that this isn’t the first time something like this has happened coming up the road.  We looked at each other and tried what little conversation we could chisel out until he had assessed the situation and had decided that I was ok.  I had a little chuckle to myself.  I thought it was funny that there was a whole lot of attention being paid to me because of the spill up the mountain, when the real trouble that I was still reeling from was from the earlier one.  What made it even more comical to me, was that I couldn’t tell anyone about it.  Stupid Bahasa…  “No, really I’m fine.  You should have seen the other time I fell”.

              I’m walking up the mountain and the shock from the first fall is finally beginning to go away.  I can now assess the damage to my body a little bit more clearly.  Really just a soreness in my left side, and what seems to be a slight limp.  I’m making my way up the mountain watching the forest surrounding me start to become brighter and brighter.  I pass tiny hutted Warungs with their Ibu’s inside busy frying up some tofu for hungry travelers coming back down from Punthuk Setumbu.  The climb was beginning to get hard but not impossible and I decided that I was well enough to make it through the rest of the day, which was my only concern.  I had a long day planned and I didn’t want something like this to get in my way.  I had temples to meditate in, things to buy, pictures to take, and food to eat.  Each step seemed harder than the first, but I was determined to go on with the rest of the day.  Soon the struggle was over.  I looked out and what laid before me was a blanket of fog stretched out over hundreds of miles of land, shimmering with a pale pink shade of the first rays of morning that were peeking through the side of a volcano far off in the distance.  There is no way I can do the view justice.  I looked at the people watching the same majestic scene I was witnessing and noticed some of the faces from before when I was laying on my side, in the mud.  My mind drifted away from my body and became lost in the view.  I stayed awhile like that for a long time until my body came back to me and I felt the impulse to move.  I started to gaze at the gazers wondering where they were coming from, where they were going, and what were they thinking.  I saw other expats, but rarely did I see anyone alone.  I felt the ping of loneness again as that thought shifted to my level of enjoyment of this beautiful view.   I started to gauge my own happiness with the spectacle with whether I could share it with someone.  I stood there longing for Bree until I let my mind wonder looking for a distraction.  I wanted to share this adventure with someone but I was happy alone at the same time.  I thought a lot about my book on Hinduism that I had been reading on the train ride over and the search for inner peace and letting go seemed very important to me.  I thought about overcoming and excepting.  I thought about what it meant to be at peace and comfortable in the uncomfortable.  These things weighed in my head for a long time, until the sun was high in the sky and people began to disperse.

I turned my thoughts to my body and inspected how I was feeling.  I had not had the chance to wash the mud from my arms yet, so I ran to the bathroom to do so and began my descent.  Luckily there were no issues coming back down the mountain and with a quick 10 min drive I was at Borobudur!  Walking around the fresh compound surrounding the temple I noticed that I was joined by quite a few classes of boisterous school children, and I very slightly enjoyed their energy as it took my mind away from my shoulder.  As we approached the temple I was having just as much fun listening and trying to make out the language as I was taking in the beautiful temple that shot out of the jungle.  As I climbed, the multitudes of children shouting “hey Mister” started to ring.  If you have never been in Indonesia I feel like it’s important now to write that if you are white, people love to take their pictures with you.  To me it seems a tad racist but that is not how the locals view it.  There seems to be a huge Instagram culture here and pictures are immortal.  And who would pass up the option to take a picture with someone you only get to see in the movies; especially because of the rarity of Bules (westerners) in this country.  Pictures don’t always get taken with you, but when you are in a place where everyone one is taking pictures, you’d better be prepared to be treated like a celebrity.  “Misterrr, Picture!”  “Hey Misterrrr!”  Misterrr, Photo! Photo Misterrr?”

There were a few other “Bules” and I felt oddly connected to them because of the onslaught of pictures.  There were only a few nods of “I understand this feeling” shared, but somehow it made me feel better.  This feeling can be very objectifying sometimes, and you can’t always enjoy it.  Today I was in the mood, and I shot right back at them for selfies!  I felt like a king.  I was just as adored as these ancient temples, and to so some pre-teens who had no interest in boring temples, I was more exciting.  I made a friend of one of the teachers who had a great time showing off his students.  He knew just enough English and I knew just enough Bahasa to get a conversation going.  It was nice to finally connect to someone even if it was for a little bit of time, and even though the subject matter wasn’t too deep.  The crowds began to lessen, and I took a moment to sit and meditate on a bench right at the base of the temple.  When I meditate I like to focus on bodily sensations and the surrounding sounds as I keep my eyes closed.  Sometimes I’ll give myself a mantra and, in this case, it was “I’m here”.  If thoughts come into my brain, I decide if I want to think about them, if I like the thought or it seems interesting to me, I’ll keep my focus on the thought.  If I don’t really care, I thank my brain and let it sit next to me.  I’m still training myself to do this, and I have gotten a lot better at it over the past year.  My thoughts seemed to stick with what my own personal dharma was.  I thought about performing and how that is what my job is, what I have been created to do, and what I’m best at.

I left the temple and journeyed through the maze of shops that are stationed there to catch tourists at their weakest.  I was surprised to see how long the maze went, and I had a hard time finding my way out.  Eventually I made it and moved to my bike ignoring the shouts for overpriced plastic Buddah statues.

I mad for my bike and decided that I wanted to continue my adventure upwards to Gunung Merapi.  There is supposed to be this wonderful little village: Kaliurang, but I wouldn’t know because I became hopelessly lost.  When I mean hopelessly lost, I was freighted for my life kind of hopelessly lost.  I was still aching from my earlier crash but the freedom of the road and the wind rushing around my body seemed to dull the pain.  I was having fun.  I was going past tiny farms with soybean and rice workers as their dharma suggested and I let myself get lost in the splendor of the surrounding world, until I was actually lost in the surrounding world.  I remember feeling like I was going too far off course but my google maps was telling me that I was still okay.  So, when passing by a snake fruit farm, I stopped and took a break from the road and laid beneath a snake fruit try and munched on its fruit.  I was open.  I was lost and comfortable.  I was relishing the freedom of detachment until the road stopped, and my phone lost service.  I was slightly panicked, and the panic began to grow when I felt the winds change and a storm begging to brew.  I knew that I would need shelter if a storm came but I didn’t know the language, also I was unsure if someone would help me if they saw me.  I didn’t know if I could communicate enough that I needed help.  I was driving through towns left here, right there, just trying to make it down the mountain.  Until I came to a kampung, got off my bike and sat down in defeat. 

I knew the storm was coming and I didn’t know how long I was going to be stuck there.  Sometimes the storms here can last all day and into the night during rainy season.  I didn’t know If my phone would gain signal again.  I didn’t know how to communicate.  I was scared and frustrated.  I sat thinking about what I could do in my state and started to cry.  A lady saw me and walked over to me.  I was pretty embarrassed because of how blatantly lost I was.  She asked me where I was going, and miraculously I knew what she was asking I managed to chisel out a few “Aku mau ke mana Kaliurang” She said some words that I didn’t understand and walked away.  She came back with a motor bike and motioned for me to follow.  I did, and the day was saved, again.  I don’t remember her name, but I remember that sensation of relief.  I was relieved.  There is no other word then it.  The strongest sensation of relief that I might have ever felt in my life.  Biking my way through the tiny villages to a destination of salvation was perfect.  When we got to Kaliurang, I was dropped off by my savior and sat down in a Warung with a tour guide for the area.  Luckily, he spoke English because I didn’t understand any of his Javanese.  His English was limited, and we didn’t speak much but knowing I was safe after the day I’ve had so far, was more than enough communication for me.  I was happy sitting there waiting for some food with people.  The clouds were still growing, and I was surprised it hadn’t rained yet, so I figured I make the most of my good fortune and start off down the mountain. 

With some broken language I managed to craft a makeshift understanding of how to get down the mountain.  Eventually my phone came back into service and I was back on the right road.

Despite what had happened to me so far, it was still relatively early in the afternoon.  I’d say it was 2 pm and the clouds that were heavy and dark seemed to stay on the mountain.  I knew it was a race.  The clouds would eventually come and when they did, I’m sure I’d be caught.  But until then, I was on my way to Prambanan temple.  It was an hour drive from Kaliurang and I could feel myself becoming more burned so I unfolded my shirt sleeves around my wrists even though it was unbearably hot.  The stiffness in my shoulder and elbow had settled and now moving my arms at any angles that weren’t forward or backwards sent a very dull pain through my body.  I kept pushing on and the sights of the fields and the wind and detachment once again lulled the pain away.  Looking out on the field I thought of the Hindu stories with Rama and Sinta being told to the workers of these fields centuries ago.  Hindu stories from the Vedas and the Upanishads that showed great warriors with complex moral disagreements.  Stories that would be told by Gurus to entertain and enrich the workers from a heavy day at the field as their dharma suggests.  Today, it seemed the workers had just finished with the fields and were returning home.  Possibly to do the same as people did hundreds of years ago, only with Islam in place of Hinduism.  My peace was broken by the growing traffic as I was approaching Prambanan Temple. 

As I walked into the temple grounds, I was sore and tired.  But I kept pushing on.  As I was walking, I saw the temple to the west and I started walking closer to it, but something inside me wanted to hold off the spectacle, so instead of walking through the temple I walked around it.  There seems to be large campgrounds around the site, unlike Borobudur.  I had fun walking past the campgrounds around the main attraction of the temple.  I remember walking by and seeing children playing football in one of the open fields and I sat at this one beautiful gazebo all alone behind the temple.  As I sat, I watched two people walking with makeshift fishing spears.  As I saw them fruitlessly shoot for fish in the damned river below I speculated where they were coming from and where they were going.  I hoped they would catch some fish.  I hoped they could eat or sell to a Warung and make some money.  The technique was really good and I’d never seen anyone use this method before.  It seemed like a tiny spear attached to a fishing line shot from a bb-gun.  It seemed like a pretty inventive way of fishing, which speaks volumes for this country as a whole.  I’m not sure yet how, but it’s seems right.  I stayed that way for a long time until my thoughts shifted to the Bhagavad Gita.  I thought about what the God Shiva told the warrior in his dream right before war.  When he asked if killing was wrong, Shiva replied that it isn’t action that should be regretted but the consequence of that action. In that moment of meditation, I focused on that thought and started dreaming about my own attribution of action to confidence.  I’ve recently had a saying that it doesn’t matter what step you take, because there’s no way to know fully what situation you will be in until you are in it.  We are always making steps in our everyday life whether we like it or not, so make the step you want.  Move according to your dharma, there is no other way.  Work the way you want and live the way you want.  You have no other choice, it is your dharma.  Just like it is the fisherman’s dharma to fish, it is my dharma to perform. I sat there and breathed deeply as I felt myself connect to my nature and everything around me. I saw my whole life in front of me, and it felt peaceful.  I moved when I felt like I had spent enough time watching the fishermen and decided it was time to go up to the temple.

The temple is breath taking.  And I spent a good amount of time in the center of the towers until the rains began to fall.

The Rain had caught up with me from the mountain and I was forced to take shelter in one of the nearby towers.  I found a family there and we stayed there under the cover of the temple and laughed at our little conversation we could make out.  There was a mother, father, and young boy.  They were very sweet and young and we felt comfortable together even though there was lightning outside.  The boy called me Paman witch I knew to be uncle and it made all of us laugh.  Eventually they decided to brave the storm when it started to die down.  I stayed because after crashing my bike, feeling objectified, being hopelessly lost and caught in a rainstorm I felt it was best not to add being wet to the scenario.  I stayed and other people would run in and out of the temple, until I felt that some how this was my temple.  I decided to meditate until the rain stopped.  After about an hour, I could no longer hear the pings of rain on the temple walls and entrance and I walked out into the clearing.  There was a gorgeous sunset igniting the storm clouds that have just past by and sparked the puddles reflecting the giant towers surrounding me.  Another breath-taking view. I stayed until I was forced to leave the compound as we were being funneled out of the park. As I left I said goodbye to the temple as the swarm of bats descended upon the park.  This time no maze of tourist traps, as I’m sure they had all packed to leave.