My stay in Yogyakarta took me on new adventures because this philosophy of stretching myself beyond my comfort zone involves saying yes, trusting people and therefore leads to wonderful discoveries and fresh experiences.
Wandering from my hostel towards the centre on Yogyakarta, I met a very friendly and helpful local who offered to take me to see the traditional painting, Batik. I watched them at work and looked around the gallery of beautiful art. It can take them 3 weeks to do a detailed coloured painting, and you know that they're made properly by hand if you can see the same painting on the back.
From here the friendly local drove me to see the traditional puppets being made. Indonesia is truly a fascinating nation, especially when it comes to religion, there are 5 faiths present here, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and Catholicism, but long before any of this religions came to Indonesia, the country's faith was animism. Which they describe as being about a state of mind and heart. (It's a lot more complex than that, but I'm not an expert theologian so I'm not going to go into details.)
Because very few people could read, they learned the philosophy and meaning through pictures and learned the stories and lessons from these puppets. They still use them today to understand certain principles, because life changes over time but the importance of love and peace and harmony doesn't.
Each one takes about 1 week to make, they're made from a sheet of leather with nails tapped holes in the for the design, there are 25 different shaped nails to make the holes, after this they are painted different colours.
There are 350 puppets in the collection and each one is different and has a individual meaning or what they represent. They have a long nose to show curiosity, long arms for generosity, short legs to be grounded and humble, the "human" puppets have their heads bowed as a sign of respect and a crown on their head, the "spirit" puppets have more of a layered crown. The body is in 3 parts, the bottom is to represent the 4 made earthly elements, fire, water, air and wind. each one is very important, The middle part is about the heart and the top part for the mind. Some puppets embody love, others wisdom, creativity, or education, for some examples.
The guy who owns the puppet making workshop told me that he makes puppets to continue family tradition (that was very important to him) however his true passion is coffee. He took me to his coffee shop and gave me a cup of the best coffee I have ever tasted and I will be amazed if I ever taste anything so good again... but you will be shocked about what makes it taste so good because its a very surprising process!
There are 2 types of coffee plants that grow here, the arabica and the robusta. From here they can pick the coffee beans...or for the best tasting coffee there's another way...
This animal is a Lupak, otherwise called a mongoose. They're wild animals and they know how to pick the absolute best coffee beans, and they eat them, due to their fast metabolism the enzymes in their stomach ferment the coffee beans and then they poop them out again... can you guess what comes next? Yes the pooped coffee beans are collected, shelled, roasted, ground and brewed into the best cup of coffee you will ever taste! Don't believe me? Come and try for yourself!
I sat for a while drinking this coffee and having a lovely conversation with the barista, He talked more about Indonesian culture and lifestyle, we agreed that the west has so much to learn from how the Indonesians live their lives. Indonesians are always smiling, not because they have what they want but because they have peace and harmony, with each other, and with themselves, and they understand how much more valuable that is!
I am really enjoying your blog. When we were in Sumatra they produced civet coffee by the same process and the cafe next door to where we were staying had a pet civet that roamed the place. I can still hear the woman’s scream when it jumped on to a customer’s shoulders and also its musky scent.
ReplyDeleteDrink all the pooped coffee you can while you are there as a 250g bag of civet coffee beans costs between £100 to £250 a bag in the U.K. I think it was about £12 a bag in Sumatra.