Religions of Java

Via Via is an organic, fairtrade beardy restaurant that arranges cultural tours, off the tourist trail.

We booked the Religion Tour (or Busman's Holiday) which takes you round the villages to see the sites of all the diverse religious groups of Yogya in the company of Maria, a young local Muslim guide.

This is an animist wishing pool - you bathe in the waters when looking for love. Richard was not allowed to go for a swim.


On the same site there is a mosque and this Hindu Shrine, all happily co-existing and seemingly run by the same people.

We were allowed to have a go at the ritual, lighting incense and making an offering of flowers.






This is Holy Cross Catholic Church, built to look like a pagoda as seen in the Kraton. It houses the usual statues and stations of the cross but is open to the air on three sides and has no seating.

The hilltop cross at the 14th Station doubles as an animist spirit tree, where locals come to medidate and contact the spirit said to live inside it.




Next was the mosque. Such a different reception here to in Jerusalem, we were shown how to perform the ritual washing, dressed in religious dress and shown how to perform the stages of prayer. This caused great amusement for the women and children watching us try to stand and kneel and press our heads to the floor without falling over.






Here are said women - very friendly. They thought Laura made good breeding stock and kept squeezing her leg (in a friendly way).

We were also able to visit the Arabic School where the children were having special Ramadan classes.









We then walked to another Hindu and animist shrine. This time the pool was for wealth and buisness (but didn't look very clean - it was inside the bowels of a tree - so no riches for us).

This is Laura with the guide (who said she was big for an Indonesian but looked tiny to us!)







Final stop was a Chinese Cemetary. Previously discriminated against, the Chinese had to be buried separately, reject Confusianism and take an Indonesian name.

Although this is no longer the case the site still belongs to the Sultan and if he wished to use the land for something else, he could order all the graves moved.

Each plot bears the names of living family members in red whose names are coloured in gold when they die. So there is a grave with your name on it, literally.

Tomorrow we fly to Borneo and then, after an overnight in the hotel, being the jungle proper part of the holiday. The blog will be updated as and when we can get an internet connection. (So don't panic, parents, if no news till Friday.)