INDONESIA
​Java
​I first visited Indonesia in the 2000's and returned in 2015-16 and revisited Java.

Indonesia has a rich heritage of traditional dance styles.*

Solo is also a centre of dance study.*


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Central Kalimantan is home to the Manasai, a friendly dance in which tourists are welcome to participate.
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The best-known, contemporary West Javan dance form, Jaipogan, is a whirlwind of fast drumming and erotic movement, interspersed with a good dose of pencak silat (Indonesian martial arts) and a flick of New York-style break dancing.*

Longser and Joker involve the passing of a sash between two couples.*

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Indonesian music spans everything from thousand-year-old traditional music to high-powered punk pop.*​
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Indonesian pottery is usually unglazed and handworked, although the wheel is also used.  It may be painted, but is more often left natural...the best known pottery centre in Java is just outside Yogyakarta at Kasongan, where intricate, large figurines and pots are produced.*

The best area to shop for silverwork is in the silver village of Kota Gede, although it can be found all over Yogakarta.*

Kota Gede produces a wide range of silver tableware.*





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At the bird market, I was first drawn to the remarkable variety of bird life.  However after awhile the people watching the birds proved more interesting to me.

At the back of Sriwedari Amusement Park, Sriwedari Theatre has a long-running wayang orang troupe.*
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Indonesian dances demonstrate the social complexity and the social stratifications of its people. It often reflects the social class and also degree of refinement. The folk dances were developed and fostered by common people, either in the villages or in the cities, in contrast to court dance that is developed through royal patronage. Indonesian folk dances are often relatively free from strict rules nor disciplines, although certain style of gestures, poses and movements still preserved. The commoners folk dance is more concerned with social function and entertainment value than rituals.

Java is home to wayang dance-dramas.*
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Wonosobo (Central Java) has its Lengger dance, in which masked men dress as women.*

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Kalimantan also has the Mandau dance, performed with knives and shields.
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Jaipongan dance/music is a recent mutatin of a more traditional Sundanese form called Ketuktilu, in which a group of professional femal dancers dance for male spectators.*

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Ogel is a slow and exhaustive form, featuring measured movements and a rehearsal regime that many young performers simply lack the time for patience for.*

Probably the best-known Indonesian music form is gamelan.  

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A sudden down pour provides these kids with endless pleasure.



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Kote Gede in Yogyakarta is famous for its fine filigree work.*
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The oldest method of making batik is known as batik tulis.  Designs are firsts traced out onto cloth, then patterns are drawn in hot wax with a pen-like instrument.  The wax-covered areas resist colour change when immersed in a dye bath.  The waxing and dyeing, with increasingly darker shades, continues until the final colours are achieved.*

The temples at Prambanan village are the best remaining examples of Java's period of Hindu cultural development.*​
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Though it's no longer a premier troupe, only costs 3000Rp to sample this unique vaudeville-style of telling the classics, complete with singing, comedy and action drama.*

Of all the ethnic minorities in Indonesia, none has a larger impact on the country than the Chinese.  Although comprising less than 3% of the population, the Chinese are the wealthiest ethnic group is the country.*

















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Yogyakarta has dance academics and is a good place to see performances of the Ramayana.*

Jaipongan, a modern dance from West Java, is a dynamic style that features swift movements to rhythms complicated enough to dumbfound an audience of musicologists.*

Some of the most colourful performances of all, including the Barong, Kecak, Topeng, Legong and Baris dances, are found in Bali.*

Other dance forms include Longser, Joker and Ogel.*



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The orchestras are composed mainly of percussion instruments, including drums, gongs, xylophones and angklung, bamboo tubes shaken to produce a note.*​

The most famous puppets of Indonesia are the carved leather wayang kulit puppets.  These intricate lace figures are cut from buffalo hide with a sharp, chisel-like stylus, and then painted.*
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Silverware from here tends to be more traditional, but new designs are also being adapted.*​

The technique of applying wax or other dye-resistant substances (like rice paste) to cloth to produce a design is found in many parts of the world, but none is as famous as the batik of Java.*
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Like Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Bagan in Myanmar, Java's Borobudur makes Southeast Asia's spectacular sites seem almost incidental.*
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Borobudur, in Java, Indonesia, is one of the world’s most impressive temples. Sitting on each level are 72 stupas, each containing a Buddha figure, just visible through the latticework perforations. It’s as if each is strapped into his own private module and awaiting spiritual lift-off - an extraordinary spectacle that is, literally, the crowning glory of this significant religious monument. 

The next most significant is another Unesco World Heritage Site, the 9th and 10th century Hindu complex of Prambanan, with its principal temples dedicated to Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma and hundreds of surrounding shrines. A tourist “train” takes you to outlying temple complexes and all in all there are more than 500 monuments on the site. Some have been restored but many remain as rubble, giving an idea of the size of the archaeological task still to complete.

* These captions are from Indonesia -- Lonely Planet's travel guide.