It has occurred to me in recent years that, sometimes, novels with which you were not so impressed as a younger man can contain scenes that hang around in memory for decades, often because they contain the seeds of a truth that you only understand, or recognise, after more life experience.*
This has left me feeling that I should try reading modern fiction again, because now I may appreciate insights into character and behaviour more quickly, and not have to wait decades to appreciate it fully.
My other lament, which I have mentioned before in the context of movies, is that the weird political scene in the US, and the culture wars generally, seems extremely ripe for fictional, probably satirical, treatment; but it just isn't happening, as far as I can tell. Where (as other have asked) is the modern Tom Wolfe?
I have given up on science fiction, as "it's all been done before", and
I remain steadfastly resistant to fantasy. I know a lot of people
liked Terry Pratchett, but I'm not drawn to his oeuvre.
Do I blame authors, publishers, or the book buyers themselves? Probably all them, to some degree.
I guess I can always go back and read some of the famous 20th century authors who I never got around to - but I'm not sure who to start with, and besides, I do feel I want something set in the contemporary world too, because it has become so strange!
So yeah, I am not sure what to read that is set close to the current day, and it's bothering me.
Update: So, it's not a fiction book, but I can still marvel at what some people think is worth writing about. From a summary of up and coming releases in the New York Times:
The Dry Season by Melissa Febos
Reeling from the end of a “ravaging vortex” of a relationship, Febos — a self-described serial monogamist who gave up alcohol and drugs at 23 — decides to give up sex and dating at 35, if only for three months. “To my great surprise,” she writes, those months become “the happiest of my life,” and turn into a year. This ode to female celibacy interweaves personal memoir with literary and historical research, incorporating the influence of Sappho, Virginia Woolf, Octavia E. Butler and others.
Oh, I see this is her background:
Febos is the author of Whip Smart (St Martin's Press 2010), a memoir of her work as a professional dominatrix while she was studying at The New School.
So she makes both kinky sex and no sex into publication money. I propose she stop talking about it completely.
* Admittedly, sometimes it's memorable only because of a surprise element, which is not such an achievement. Other stories sometimes come back to mind for no obvious reason, even when I remember at the time of reading it I may have been pretty dismissive of its quality and thought it was a bit of a waste of time. I really don't know how my father's brain worked in this regard - he would get my mother to go to the library about once a fortnight and take out (I think) three books - always "mainstream" novels and not particularly literary or genre based - and would read them all. He wasn't fussy, although I suppose my Mum always chose books that looked of interest to men, not women. Anyhow, how much of these stories stuck in his head; or does reading fiction constantly work like an overwriting of the memory banks?
Following the brief trip to Indonesia (mainly Yogyakarta), I've been watching some Youtube content about other parts of Indonesia. I am rather inclined to visit Lake Toba in Sumatra - the largest caldera freshwater lake in the world, created about after a massive explosion about 70,000 years ago that may, or may not, have nearly wiped out all of the early humans around the world. I feel I have something of a "Ha! See, we beat you Mother Nature!", success-is-the-best-revenge, motive for wanting to see the lake from a hotel on the island in the middle.
I gather (from both Youtube, and someone I know) that it used to be an up and coming tourist destination up until about the 1990's. It now looks sleepy and underdeveloped. That's a bit of a pity, because my "claiming revenge on the part of humanity" motive would like to view it in the greatest comfort possible. But I still think it looks good for a short visit.
Another place, apparently now popular with Indonesians too, is Labuan Bojo, which seems to be in an area of remarkable clear water and good coral reefs that have managed to avoid destruction, as well as the jumping off point to see komodo dragons on the main island people go to see them. I have low interest in komodo dragons, but yes, the islands and reefs look spectacularly nice.
Anyway, this is by way of preamble to wondering out loud whether watching too many Youtube amateur travel videos (many now done with remarkable high quality) makes people feel like not needing to really go to places in person. I think a lifetime of TV nature documentaries on Africa did that to me - I seem to have accumulated so many viewings of lions taking down antelope that I have no interest in seeing it in person. And I would just as soon not have an elephant charging the safari viewing vehicle. So, with the exception of Egypt and perhaps Morocco: I feel no need to see any of that continent. (And even then, I recently have seen people who videoed the climb inside the big pyramid at Giza to the central chamber, and its looks way too claustrophobic and hot for me to consider.)
I know the first hand experience is different, but you can watch so many people doing the same circuit (and the same things on the same circuit) that it can take away at least the surprise element for some destinations.
Anyway, it's probably just a matter of self control, and not clicking on every link the All Knowing Google algorithm throws up. But it's hard to resist....
My "vegan curious" status continues - although I still swear I will never give up eggs, cheese or crustaceans.
For a long time I have been wondering about a decent vegan mince replacement. Quorn is too soft and pretty tasteless; textured vegetable protein is still around, but not as much as it used to be, and it's OK but I'm curious to try other types.
After watching some Youtube suggestions, and given my wife is away and I bear any possible digestive issues alone, I tried using a combination of dried (but soaked) shiitake mushrooms, walnuts (also soaked for a while), and a block of high protein firm tofu. These were all ground up in a food processor, and while I thought the ingredients meant it was more expensive than beef mince, as it turned out I didn't use all of the mushrooms and walnuts. So I would say the total cost of the ingredients used was perhaps $13 dollars, but I ended up with enough for about 6 or 7 meals.
(It was also flavoured with some dark soy, onion powder, some chilli powder and dried oregano. The lesson I learned from some Youtuber was to not overly flavour it, so that you can add other seasonings for different types of meals. You don't want it full of cumin, for example, if you are using it in a pasta sauce.)
So, how did it go? Pretty good, actually! By itself it smelt good, and I did use it in 3 or 4 different styles of meals, all pretty successful and filling. The only thing I would say is that to fry it, being full of reconstituted dried mushrooms, it did tend to suck up the olive oil pretty readily, and I think using it in a non stick frying pan works best. The shiitake mushrooms give a bit of a meaty bite, and I love their flavour generally. I assume the walnuts are good for me, in moderation, and the tofu was there for protein. (Maybe not that much per meal, but better than the suggestions that were only walnuts and shiitake.)
I will probably make it again in future. It did cause some gas, but it was bearable!
Nick Minchin, as far as I know, has never changed his mind on his climate change skepticism, which is effectively denialism.
He and his ilk are the reason a large slab of the electorate cannot stomach the Liberals until they repudiate once and fall Minchin's views on that crucial subject.
The tweets following do show in fact that there has been some talk in the media about the security risks. An article at The Hill ends with this:
Trump’s argument that the new Qatari aircraft would save taxpayer
dollars is far from sound. The gifted aircraft would need to be
retrofitted from the inside out with new power systems, electrical
wiring and other technology for secure communications and self-defense —
such as in the case of an electromagnetic attack.
That process could take years to complete and cost hundreds of
millions of dollars, according to aviation experts. What’s more, the
aircraft would need to be extensively swept for any foreign software
modifications or embedded technology.
...retrofitting the 13-year-old aircraft to current Air Force One requirements would take years of workand
billions of dollars, current and former U.S. officials say. Such a task
would be impossible to complete before Trump leaves office.
The Air Force referred comment to the White House, and the Secret Service declinedto comment. L3Harris alsodeclined to comment.
Of course they did! That's how authoritarian regimes work.
More:
The
president’s jet has a raft of security, communications and support
requirements that are highly classified and have proven costly and
cumbersome.
“This
is a flying nuclear-hardened command post,” said a former U.S. official
with knowledge of Air Force One operations. “It has to have secure
capability at multiple levels.” The Air Force would have to “rip” open
and rebuild the Qatari plane — which has been flown for years in service
of other countries and individuals — to bring it up to standard, said
the official.
Counterintelligence
is also a concern, said former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall. “We
would have to be sure nobody had planted bugs on the airplane,” he said.
High-end communications have to be protected from jamming, cyberattacks and nuclear blasts, current and former officials said.
“You’d
pretty much have to take that plane down to the skeleton and put it
back together,” said Mac Plihcik, a retired Secret Service agent who
worked on President Barack Obama’s detail. “The security of every
individual component is a big deal.”
Paul
Eckloff, a former Secret Service agent who was a supervisor in Trump’s
first administration, said rigorous inspections are performed after allpresidential
transport vehicles leave the production line. The gifting of a plane
from a foreign government would probably warrant an even harder look,
Eckloff said.
If Trump is given a "free pass" by MAGA aligned commentators to waive the obvious security risks of using this aircraft, it will show how true it is that he is a cult leader. And that's not even considering the corruption aspect. But in the tiniest sliver of hope for America - I see that even Mark Levin, amongst other pro-Trump excuse makers, think it is a bad idea.
Update 2: Even one of the brown-nosiest of "respectable" blogs for Trump, Powerline, says "...it's a very bad idea", and most of the comments following agree. This one gets 4 likes:
Look, you can probably ignore this opinion as I did try watching Episode 1 after a steak dinner with two (small) glasses of red wine, and starting at about 9.30pm. I think everyone can guess the outcome for any human male over the age of 60 - sleep after about (I think) 25 minutes.
But, I don't know - I still think that I saw enough to feel it wasn't engaging. Sure, lots of work and skill in the continuous shot stuff, but I really prefer those to just be a highlight of a more normally edited thing - too much of it dilutes the effect.
One thing I definitely did not understand was why the British police would got to such extremes in arresting a 13 year old boy accused of a knife murder. The scene played more like they were dealing with an adult terrorist who they feared had a house full of home made bombs. Why didn't this seem a tad silly to TV critics?
First and foremost Netflix’s Adolescence
is a fictional drama that does not claim to be wholly accurate of what
would actually happen in similar real-life cases. That being said, even
the very first scene was somewhat questionable when it comes to police
procedures.
“But if they found the body at 10.30 pm why are they waiting until
the morning to arrest him?” Steven told Time Out. “That’s one thing the
police are really good at. They move fast. Is the raid realistic? I used
to do raids like this and if we’d had firearms officers in this
situation, we would have looked at each other and gone: ‘This is a
13-year-old boy, we don’t need two big lads with a shield.’ Yes, a knife
is a deadly weapon, but they have baton rounds (rubber bullets). You
would have so many things to de-escalate in that situation.”
There was also the lack of “evidence preservation” and situational
recordings that could have landed DI Bascombe in legal trouble in the
real world.
He explained: “But the search was poor. The police use specialist
search teams. You literally do training for it. You get paid extra
money. You get brought in at three am in the morning for murders. You
don’t throw mail on the floor.
“You don’t pour shit on the bed like it was in the 1970s and rummage
through it. It would all be documented with cameras. DC Bascombe has his
camera off in the van and the solicitor would say: ‘Why’d you turn your
camera off? What did you say to my client?’ Nowadays, a police
officer’s word is good for nothing if it’s not recorded.”
I know the show has been criticised from the Right due to "race-swapping", and no doubt a lot of the criticism from that side of politics is not going to be fair. However, this person does give a nuanced critique, arguing that the lead character doesn't have the characteristics he has observed in his experience of young gang murderers.
I've mentioned the idea from physics that the future might affect the past many, many times over the years, yet it doesn't seem to get discussed often in online popular science anymore.
Hence I was happy to see that Sabine Hossenfelder finally did a video that talked about it - included the rarely mentioned transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics by John G Cramer.
I'm pleased to see that she thinks the whole concept is worthy of consideration and further work. And going by the number of comments, it's an idea that seems to hold a lot of appeal to people who like to follow her. Is it because it might be a way of incorporating both free will (which, I know, Sabine doesn't believe in) and determinism?
A bunch of people (mainly on the Right) seem to think that the Covid lab leak theory has been shown to be true, when it hasn't at all.
A new study shows that the first origin story is still very much on the cards:
In astudy published on Wednesday,
a team of researchers compared the evolutionary story of SARS with that
of Covid 17 years later. The researchers analyzed the genomes of the
two coronaviruses that caused the pandemics, along with 248 related
coronaviruses in bats and other mammals.
Jonathan
Pekar, an evolutionary virologist at the University of Edinburgh and an
author of the new study, said that the histories of the two
coronaviruses followed parallel paths. “In my mind, they are
extraordinarily similar,” he said.
In
both cases, Dr. Pekar and his colleagues argue, a coronavirus jumped
from bats to wild mammals in southwestern China. In a short period of
time, wildlife traders took the infected animals hundreds of miles to
city markets, and the virus wreaked havoc in humans.
“When you sell wildlife in the heart of cities, you’re going to have a
pandemic every so often,” said Michael Worobey, an evolutionary
biologist at the University of Arizona and an author of the new study.
Dr. Eloit and other scientists agreed
that finding an intermediate form of SARS-CoV-2 in a wild mammal would
make a compelling case for a natural spillover. Chinese authorities
looked at some animals at the start of the pandemic and did not find the
virus in them.
However, wildlife
vendors at the Huanan market removed their animals from the stalls
before scientists could study them. And once China put a stop to
wildlife sales, farmers culled their animals.
“There’s a big missing piece, and you really can’t dance around it,” said Dr. Pond.
Stephen
Goldstein, a geneticist at the University of Utah who was not involved
in the new study, said that the research served as a warning about the
risk of a future coronavirus pandemic. Wild mammals sold in markets
anywhere in the region where SARS and Covid got their start could become
a vehicle to a city hundreds of miles away. “The pieces of these
viruses exist in all these places,” Dr. Goldstein said.
Now, of course, you could argue that climate change fence sitting has not stopped the public going for the Liberals before over the last 15 years - but the apparent success of the Teals in two elections now does strongly suggest to me that it has become a key issue for well off Australians based in the capital cities - who would formerly be seen as the Liberal's natural constituency.
As I'm sure I have written before, Malcolm Turnbull is the one who should have dragged the party into facing reality on this issue. He should have demanded that those who are going to continue casting doubt on the matter being a real, scientifically verified, issue should leave the party, and make any continuing coalition also dependent on the Nationals not undermining him. Maybe the Queensland melding of the parties would have made that difficult/impossible - but he should have acted decisively on it, instead of allowing the alternative to Labor to continue looking disingenuous in their strategy of "we believe in it - don't listen to our MPs and Senators who don't - but to keep the doubters happy we will nag continuously about renewables and undermine other action for political advantage."
Update: it seems still unclear if Tim Wilson will regain Goldstein, but you know, him being one of the few Liberal "wins" out of this generally disastrous election would actually amuse me, given that he is so ambitious that it will be funny to see how little he can achieve by being in such a diminished and talentless Opposition.
Watching a bit of evening commercial TV in Indonesia last week, one thing that really struck me was the amount of advertisements dedicated to kid's nutrition. Not just baby formula, but those toddler formula, and other foods, often with emphasis on health and development.
It reminded me that I had read before about the extent to which children in that country were considered to have "stunted" growth due to poor nutrition. I thought I had posted about it before, but can't find it in my blog search.
The World Bank Board of Executive Directors on June 26, 2023,
approved a program to provide additional support to expand Indonesia’s
efforts to improve the delivery and quality of health and nutrition
services for adolescent girls, pregnant women, and young children to
accelerate the reduction of stunting among children under five.
Stunting,
caused by undernutrition and frequent infections, can result in slower
growth, cognitive damage, and impaired learning. The World Bank’s Human
Capital Project identifies stunting reduction as crucial for countries
to reach their full productive potential. Concerted efforts by Indonesia
have lowered stunting rates from 31.4 percent in 2018 to 21.6 percent
in 2022, and the country’s goal is to cut stunting further to 14 percent
by 2024. The World Bank’s Investing in Nutrition and Early Years (INEY) Phase 2 Program
will extend the duration and scope of World Bank support to the
Government of Indonesia’s National Program for the Acceleration of
Stunting Reduction.
Indonesia has launched a
transformative free meal program designed to combat malnutrition and
support underprivileged communities.
Championed
by President Prabowo Subianto, the initiative aims to provide
nutritious meals to almost 83 million Indonesians by 2029, focusing
initially on school children and pregnant women.
However,
logistical challenges, budgetary constraints and feedback from
beneficiaries and experts highlight the complexities of implementing
such a large-scale program.
Nearly 80 students across two high schools in Cianjur, south of the capital Jakarta, fell ill after eating the meals this week. Most of those who ended up in hospital have since been discharged.
This is the latest in a series of food poisonings that have been linked to the programme, a signature policy of President Prabowo Subianto.
Authorities investigating the case say the suspected cause is negligent food preparation. Samples from the vomit of students have been sent for lab testing, and police say they have questioned people handling the food, from cooks to packers to delivery workers....
Across the world, programmes offering
free meals to students have proved to be effective in improving health,
academic performance and attendance.
But
Indonesia's $28bn (£21bn) version - shaping up to be the most expensive
of its kind - has become the target of food safety concerns and heated
anti-government protests.
In February,
when thousands took to the streets to protest at budget cuts, they
aimed their ire at the hefty price of Prabowo's free school meals:
"Children eat for free, parents are laid off," read one of their protest
signs.
So, I guess it is no wonder that I saw kid's nutrition featuring on TV ads often...
I've been wondering for ages where the obsession with protein in the diet came from. This article in the New York Times doesn't fully explain, but notes this:
Protein has been the hot macronutrient for a while now. Longtime readers may recall that I gently mocked my husband for his protein obsession
in 2023. He had been listening to health podcasts and social media
posts, and various protein powders made their way into our pantry. In
the two years since I wrote that piece, protein has become even more widespread.
This month The Wall Street Journal noted that “in the year to Feb. 22,
the fastest-growing grocery items were those with the most protein per
serving — 25 grams or more, according to NielsenIQ data.” Members of the
extended Kardashian clan, who never met a trend they couldn’t
capitalize on, are in the mix. Khloe Kardashian just announced a new
line of protein popcorn called Khloud.
Protein-forward
diets are easy to market because they appeal to both men and women.
Dieting in general is female coded, but men can focus on protein without
feeling emasculated because body builders do it and it comes in the
form of literal red meat (hello beef tallow, my old friend) and gym-rat powders.
And:
I would like to tell you that I moved away from my protein obsession
because I saw that it was silly and that, as a person who is healthy and
fit, it was an unnecessary tweak. But the truth is, I stopped because
most of those protein-packed products tasted like chemicals and sawdust
and they caused the kind of gastrointestinal woe I do not need to go
into. “Proteinified food is just slightly better junk. Whether you
notice the ‘better’ or the ‘junk’ first is a Rorschach test: You see
whichever you care about more in the moment,” concluded Chris Gayomali in Grub Street, after he did a deep dive on how protein took over American grocery stores.
Unfortunately, the linked article is behind a paywall. Guess I will have to look elsewhere.
Yes I'm back from the short trip to Jakarta/Yogyakarta.
Let's start with the photo above of the Hindu (and Buddhist) temple compound at Prambanan, on the outskirts of Yogyakarta. The amount of reconstruction that had to be done is pretty amazing, putting together the blocks again after eruptions and earthquakes over the centuries. (It was built in the 9th century, but abandoned for about 900 years.)
On arriving there, this was the first "influencer in the wild" that I spotted on this trip. A simple photo of smiling and being happy to be at a grand historical site was not enough for her, obviously:
The temples are very impressive, obviously:
As you can see, the inside of each temple has a Hindu god or divine figure (if I remember correctly, the bull is Nandi, Shiva's mount and guardian.) The interior space in each temple is small and fairly dark, but I like that in an ancient temple!
We were assured by our guide (well worth paying for one) that all statues were originals. Some rocks in the temples themselves had been replaced, but not any of the carved panels (which tell Hindu stories).
After seeing the group of Hindu temples, you can take a golf buggy ride (or walk in the heat) to a separate large group of temples at the back of the compound to see the one that is believed to have been Buddhist (and yes, I think the tops look more obviously stupa like than in the Hindu temples above):
As you can see, there remains a lot of reconstruction of the smaller buildings yet to be done - although it is not entirely clear how many they think they will ever get to. (We also did not have a guide at this part of the complex, but the guardian statues did look new. Also, the Buddhist statues inside the temple had been lost.)
As with Borobudur, the grounds of this complex are very large. And it was from here that I first realised how close we were to active volcano Mt Merapi:
(I never found out who it was that were staying in the campsite set up there - they were teenagers in red uniforms, so possibly a school group, or something like scouts?)
Before moving onto Borobudur, the other famous temple complex everyone visits, how was Yogyakarta generally?
It is obviously beloved by Indonesians themselves - of course Western tourists are around, but it felt like at least 90% of tourism on the street was domestic. We stayed at a very lovely heritage hotel - The Phoenix - which was rather like a mini Raffles and which attracts a clientele of nearly all Westerners for whom, I guess, colonial style still appeals. Well, who can blame us, really :)
One minor point that surprised me - that courtyard was the main dining area, especially at breakfast, and for some reason, flies were rarely to be seen. (Even on the street, the street food vendors with their wide variety of meat and innards on sticks waiting for sale uncovered, and unrefrigerated, didn't usually attract flies. My tentative theory is that it's too hot for them!)
I doubt there are too many hotels from which you can watch an active volcano from your balcony:
(And I swear, that night I did see a brief flash of a of a red dot from lava flow on the left hand side near the peak, before it disappeared under steam. But no, the lava flow was not strong during this visit.)
The main shopping/tourist street in central Yogyakarta is Malioboro Street, which would probably have to be the world centre for batik clothes, which range in price and quality from cheap to boutique. Yes, Indonesians really, really love their batik designs. The male sarong is also popular here, and it did make me that think that it's kind of odd that the West refuses to contemplate adopting any form of male "skirt" as acceptable day to day fashion, despite there being nothing unmanly looking about an Indonesian or (say) Pacific islander wearing it. (Kilts don't count - they are a bit weird in that they are remarkably unsuited to the climate of the country they come from, and their shortness also makes them impractical.)
Malioboro street is also extremely lively at night - the shops are open til 10pm, despite the call to prayer being heard at 4.20 am, and people (nearly all Indonesian) mill about, without a drunk person to be seen (given that finding alcohol outside of a hotel bar is not easy.)
So the next key temple complex to visit is Borobudur, about an hour's drive out of the city. This place is pretty well managed: you have to go in a guided group of about a dozen or so, and the numbers on the temple itself are limited to (I think) 150 people for each 90 minutes booked time sessions, so it doesn't get too crowded. (The first morning sessions, when the day is somewhat cooler, seem to fill up days in advance on the online booking system.)
I've seen some Western visitors on Youtube grumble a bit about the entry price - it was about $45 per person for a foreign visitor to be able to enter and climb to the top of the structure. But it is a world class site with very well kept grounds; the guide was friendly and able to answer questions; and you can wander around on the grounds as long as you like after the 90 minutes with the guide is up. I have no complaints at all. Even the vendors at the souvenir stalls you have to go through to exit were not too persistent.
Anyway, here's a bunch of photos, very similar (no doubt) to those taken by all visitors:
What? Another influencer in the wild. (I can assure you the one having her photo taken was not genuinely meditating):
One of the most interesting things about the place are all the carvings, mostly telling about Buddha and related teachings. I wasn't detailed and quite sophisticated boats to feature too:
These boat reliefs have their own Wikipedia entry, given the apparent controversy of which particular region (or civilisation?) they belonged to.
Here's the classic photo showing both sides (each over 100 m long):
And a bit closer up to see some of the many, many Buddha statutes still in place:
Many are headless or armless, the guide telling us that this was their weak spot that would naturally break when the statues tumbled due to the substantial subsidence it underwent before restoration.
As with Prambaran, a combination of political unrest and natural disaster led to this huge temple being abandoned for centuries; it took decades to restore and although some new stones were needed, the relief carvings and statue are all original. There is no interior (or so they would have you believe!); it is built on a hill that partially eroded away internally during centuries of rain, leading to the subsidence problem that has apparently been permanently fixed by a new internal drainage system you can't see.
He dedicated himself to writing The History of Java, an encyclopaedic, seminal study of Java, contributing hugely to Western knowledge of the East and still used by scholars today. In 1815, undaunted by the 400-mile journey across difficult tropical terrain, he finally arrived at the jungle covered site on the fertile Kedu Plain to find a vast structure built of andesite covered with panels of exquisitely carved relief carvings – the Buddhist temple of Borobudur.
Sir Stamford Raffles was, as Collis writes, ‘captivated by it as a work of art,’ even if he was, as Collis claims, uncertain whether it was Hindu or Buddhist. ‘We are at a loss,’ wrote Raffles, ‘whether most to admire the extent and grandeur of the whole construction, or the beauty, richness and correctness of the sculpture’. Filled with awe, he organised drawing, measuring and recording details about the numinous structure with its rising four square terraces, three circular terraces,1,460 radiant relief carvings, 504 life size images of the Buddha and 72 perforated stupas culminating in a single, large, empty stupa at the top. Dating from the 9th century and the period of the Sailendra (‘Lords of the Mountain’) dynasty in Java, the exquisite narrative carvings form a divine exposition of Mahayana Buddhist doctrine, as later scholarship would reveal, with figures in meditative and graceful movement, sculpted with sublime expressions.
(Yet I note that Wikipedia says Raffles didn't personally visit the site - just that he sent the Dutchman engineer who spent a couple of months digging it out from the undergrowth and - presumably - volcanic ash. I'm not sure who is right - I haven't got to the relevant part of my own book yet!)
Anyway, it's all spectacular stuff, and as Wiki explains, all built starting around 1,300 years ago:
Hindu clerics appealed to the people of Java for generations, a fact that architect and author Jacques Dumarçay finds first mentioned in 450 AD.[25] Influence of the Sailendra and Sanjaya dynasties followed. Dumarçay says that de Casparis concluded that Sanjaya and Sailendra shared power in central Java for a century and a half, and that de Casparis traced alternating succession from 732 until 882.[26] During this time many Hindu and Buddhist monuments were built on the plains and mountains around the Kedu Plain. Buddhist monuments, including Borobudur, were erected around the same period as the Hindu Prambanan temple compound. In 732 AD, King Sanjaya commissioned a Shivalinga sanctuary to be built on the Wukir hill, only 10 km (6.2 mi) east of Borobudur.[27]
There are no known records of construction or the intended purpose of Borobudur.[28] The duration of construction has been estimated by comparison of carved reliefs on the temple's hidden foot and the inscriptions commonly used in royal charters during the 8th and 9th centuries.[28] Comparison of an Indian architectural process across temples, and acknowledgment of who was in power, enabled Dumarçay to approximately date the construction of Borobudur in five stages.[29] Loosely, the Sailendra began c. 780, and continued stages two and three c. 792 through to an unremarkable fourth stage during their decline c. 824.[30] The Sanjaya completed Borobudur's fifth stage c. 833.[30][a]
So, what else about this quick trip:
* Indonesia (or Java, at least) seems to have a sophisticated, affordable and comfortable train system, with the "Executive" class having big well padded seats with plenty of leg room. The 6 to 7 hour trip from Jakarta to Yogyakarta is about $70 one way. There is also a "luxury" class, with seats set up like airline business class, but for around $120 (I think) seems hardly worth it for a relatively quick trip.
Here's the seats, with the incidentally charming child a bonus:
And here are two station photos: the first is Yogyakarta, the second shows a chill cat in Jakarta's rather busy Gambir station:
* Jakarta: Well, I was only there for about 40 hours, but it's clearly one of those cities with massive disparities in wealth and lifestyle in different areas. (On the drive to the airport, the Grab driver avoided some traffic by going through some very narrow streets in some pretty poor looking areas. But the worst was the glimpse of some shanty slum areas on the train going to Yogyakarta.)
As lots of online commentary says, the city is not exactly very walkable, so working out how to use Grab is essential to getting around comfortably. (It's pretty easy, and not expensive.)
I reckon Hanoi might be slightly more overrun with scooters, but they are also ubiquitous in Jakarta, making for some apparent near misses on every car ride. In fact, it occurred to me, it's surprising you don't see more cars with panel damage than what you do - does such dense, weaving, traffic mean speeds are slow enough that car damage is pretty restrained?
The "good" thing for Western visitors is that you don't have to spend a lot of money to stay in luxury. Yes, another heritage hotel for the last night, The Hermitage, and it was the swankest suite I have ever stayed in:
This is the view from the rooftop bar. Live music til 10.30pm.
* Security was very high in Jakarta: Grab cars checked with mirrors for bombs underneath, and dogs, was a common feature when entering the hotels. Up market shopping malls too. Obviously, the government is taking a long time to relax about the risk of terrorist attack.
* Service in the country was, however, overall friendly and welcoming; both in Jakarta and Yogyakarta. It's a bit of a pity there is not much to see in Jakarta itself. (I believe there are some decent daytrips into the adjoining countryside, though, after overhearing a conversation in the airplane.)
* As for the countryside generally:
I have never been to Bali (always sounds like too many Australians behaving badly), so the mountain backdrops, extensive rice paddies and banana and coconut trees everywhere certainly felt exotic to me in a way that perhaps isn't new to those who get outside of Kuta. It was the end of the rainy season, so it looked probably as lush and verdant as it ever does.
The plains between Jakarta and Yogyakarta are so extensively covered in rice paddies, and Jakarta is so low lying with some rather foetid looking canals and a serious subsidence problem, that the overall impression is that most of the country that isn't mountains is barely above the water table. I can understand how badly earthquakes can affect the country.
And to finish on a trivial note, this is the biggest avocado I have ever handled. :
