In Search of Dragons: Kara & Dan's Indonesian Adventure : Batik and bikes: Making both Kara & Dan happy

Much to Dan's shagrin, we did some artisan crafts today. And, we also got to ride bikes, so it was not all torture for him.

Trying our hand at making batik

We woke up at the Digital airport not feeling all that well rested as our circadian rhythms are totally off given the 11 hr time difference. Sleeping in the capsules was a fun experience though. I got up early to get cash and I got distracted by the Papa Beards creampuff stand. There was a long line at 5:45am, so I figured it must be worth it. And they were! They hit the spot as we waited for our flight from Jakarta to Yogyakarta.

Dan waking up in his capsule

Papa Beards delicious cream puffs

Our plane from Jakarta to Yogyakarta was pretty

We arrived in Yogyakarta and we're pleased to see that the ride I had arranged was actually waiting for us. The airport was super nice, but we beat feet out of there for the 1.5 hour drive to Magelang which is where Borobudur is and our lodging. I missed a lot of the scenery as I couldn't keep my eyes open. What I saw was beautiful though. It was super rural and I guess I was expecting it to be more urban. The lifestyle here is definitely agrarian - fields of crops are everywhere with people working hard in the hot sun.

When we arrived at Bhumi Kasuryan lodging it was so perfect! The room was blew us away! So many details made this place special from the gardens to the decorations to the tile work and more. The setting was on a small road surrounded by rice paddies with a view of Borobudur and the mountains.

The intricate door to our room

Our fancy room - definitely not how I usually travel

Check out the bathroom

The eating and lounging area for our lodging

Our "welcome" coffee - Dan enjoyed the "Java" for both of us

After our welcoming, they let us borrow bikes to ride around the village. We put our destinations in our Google Maps and away we rode. The first destination was a batik workshop and gallery. For those of you who know Dan, you may remember that he announced at our wedding that he never wanted to do arts and crafts again. Well, if today's activities were any indication, he must really love me.❤️

At the batik workshop, we learned some of the history of batik as well as how to make it. It is a process of applying wax to create designs and then dying the material. All around the grounds were different kinds of trees, fruits, and flowers that they used to make the various natural dyes for the fabric. Making batik takes a steady hand and lots of patience. Some of the pieces take months to create.

Riding our bikes to the batik workshop

The woman who explained batik to us

Her demonstration of the technique

Making batik well takes a steady hand, lots of patience, and experience

Trying our hand at batik

She had to keep correcting our terrible technique

Look at this proud artist 😃

This woman was working next to us. She must have been holding in her laughter at our lack of skill.

The gallery of batik crafts. Some of the pieces take more than 1 month to make.

Coloring in the fabric after the wax design has been applied.

Our next stop was a place that makes coconut sugar, but I was running on empty so we stopped for a bite to eat. I got fried rice (which is what the server recommended) and Dan couldn't resist getting chicken wings.

Lunch/dinner: Dan ordered chicken wings 😂

We then rode our bikes to the place that makes coconut sugar (brown sugar). We had no idea what it was or what we were getting ourselves into (and they were about to close), but a man greeted us and was excited to tell us all about the sugar making process. They have to climb the trees to collect the coconut flowers. They are then boiled down for several hours on a low heat and then several more hours on high heat. It was hard to understand, but essentially it takes a lot of work to make 1 kilo of sugar. We had some jasmine tea with a nibble of a brown sugar cube in between sips - so yummy.

Explaining how to make coconut brown sugar

Getting a chance to participate in the sugar making process

Tasting the brown sugar with jasmine tea

A bowl of brown sugar with a glass of jasmine tea

There were lots of kitties around the place (Fallon I put a kitty photo in just for you)

Sunset is early (5:30) and we were on our bikes, so we needed to boogie back to our lodging before it got dary. Riding bikes around the region was fun, but Dan was just getting used to the lack of rules, honking, and general chaos of the streets (VietNam broke me in last year) so he was a little on edge.

Not much room for bikes with cars too

Some fun looking cars on the roads

The roads are skinny - cars drive down this

Just outside of our lodging

We made it back to our hotel just after sunset. After resting (passing out cold from jet lag), we had dinner. The food was delicious and we were able to gaze at Borobudur which was all lit up for the evening. It felt good to have made it successfully to our 1st Indonesian destination.