Today is the last day in Semarang, if you can call it that. We travelled from Semarang (in the north of Central Java) to Yogyakarta, or Yogya, in the south. Personally, I didn’t sleep much last night, because we had to wake up early. The bus departed at 7:30am in southbound direction. As always, the traffic was crazy. This is one of the things that I will now forever associate with Indonesia, crazy motorcyclists and cars, but somehow it seems to be an organized chaos, for I haven’t witnessed a serious accident yet.
The trip from north to south comes with a variety of landscapes. First you see the incredible contrasts of huge houses with big fences around it and small ‘houses’ made primarily of sheets of corrugated material. Also the numerous small shops on the road side are predominant in the streetscape. It seems that having five tire repair shops in about a kilometer is not a lot at all. After moving away from Semarang and driving in the country side you get an impression why so many conquests have been undertaken to explore Southeast Asia. The number of buildings became less and the urban environment transforms into village aside the road. The road, however, remained as busy as ever.
All these people living on Java leave their mark. The island seems a lot smaller if you consider the fact that there are hundreds of millions of people using and depending on Java’s resources. Indonesia copes with a lot of serious problems and you don’t get the feeling that the government has any control over what is going on, especially perhaps in the country side. Most infrastructure, beside the main road, looks improvised by the locals.
As we approached Yogya, we caught a glimpse of Mount Merapi, a very big volcano that as recently as last year claimed many lives and livelihoods. The government tried to provide an alternative way of life for the predominantly (ex)farmers. Their land has been destroyed and it will take some time to recover. And farmers are no salesmen or cooks and cannot just change their profession. This is one of the issues still faced by the locals and the government.
Finally, we arrived in Yogya. It had, in my opinion, a complete different feel about it then Solo and Semarang. It looked friendlier, cleaner, more historical yet younger, but I think the hotel in Semarang, which was not very nice, added to that contrastive experience. We arrived at the University Hotel of the Islamic university. After some time to refresh (with a normal shower!) we departed with a guide to explore Yogya. We saw a lot of buildings with Dutch architecture and some typical Java activities, such as the production of Batik clothing and Yogya’s silverware.
The guide also explained about the natural disasters in the city, such as flooding, earthquakes, tsunamis and volcano eruptions. The guide told us about an earthquake on 5.3 on the Richter scale and how basically nobody knew how to react and what to do. The people near the coast fled to the north to escape a possible tsunami and the people in the north fled towards the sea in fear of a volcanic eruption. The result was that everyone wasn’t going anywhere and that it could have led to an even bigger disaster.
Concluding, this day was a day of transition, from location and atmosphere. Yogya was the first place where the Dutch explorers arrived and settled and this history has been well kept and remains visible. The people of Java are very friendly and even though they have so many problems, they keep smiling and remain hospitable.
Laurence Koetsier, 12th of November 2011, from Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
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