From to Solo to Goa Cerme

Hello all!

I have been spectacular! I have managed to only get sick with a stupid sort of cold twice, but nothing that has kept me home for several days or anything like that.

I had the best weekend and I wanted to write about it! On Thursday I went to an acara in the village of one of my friend's lecturer's. It was a huge party, sort of like a salamatan, but a little different. There was heaps of food and some performers and such. There was a band and then dancers and some other magician type performers. One guy ate razor blades and another stuck pins in his face and neck! Too, there was this really crazy trance dance in which "ghosts had entered the people dancing" and were making them go all crazy and eat roof tiles and plants and kratek and things like that! It was strange, but awesome to watch. I have pics up on facebook... you could see if you get one... :-)

Then friday I was with some friends and ended up meeting these guys from Solo and we started talking about ghosts (I'm doing a small research project about ghosts right now and it is fascinating!) and they said I had to come to Solo to meet a dukun and see ghosts and all that. So Saturday night I went to Solo and hung out for a bit and went into one of the Kraton's secretly at about 2 in the morning. When the security guy saw us we told him I was ghost hunting and then he was more than happy to walk me around and show me all of the particularly haunted rooms. Then we slept in the old Dutch cavalry and artillery building there (practically outside!) Which was weird, but still kind of cool. People were so nice and fed us and gave us drinks and everything, it was great!

The next day I went to Boyolali to a friend's family house there. It is about half way between Solo and Yogya and about an hour away from the top of Merapi, so the weather was fantastic! It was so calm and quiet there. We made a fire in the front yard and cooked an entire chicken on it. We wanted the chicken to be kind of salty, you know more like the chicken you eat at home, but one of the Ibu's there though we were crazy and kept wanting to add sugar to the chicken. So finally we just agreed and we ended up having a more Indonesian style chicken, but it was really funny and we made up a song about it too. Then we woke up early the next morning and I milked the cow they had and got to keep the milk! We left there about 5:30 and went back to Yogya. I met another friend around 9 am and we left for Goa Cerme (which is about 30 min south east of Imogiri). Have you been there/ hear of it? It is a fantastic cave complex which is about 1km long. You can go through and you have to wade through water and in some places the water is only about 1 meter from the ceiling of the cave! It was so cool!!! I didn't have my own torch though, so I fell in twice. lol

On our way back to Yogya we stopped in Imogiri to check out Makam Raja, but it was already closed to the public for the day. There was this really crazy guy there though! He was walking around and went up to this table and ripped this umbrella from it and then walked up these side steps and there were two little pools of water there and he jumped in them and was splashing around a lot and then she came down the steps and threw the umbrella away and then walked up to me and my friend and shook our hands and then walked over to this group of girls with bottled water, took on of the bottles and drank from it and then smashed it on the ground! It was kind of crazy to watch, but kind of funny too. We asked what was wrong with him, but everyone just kept saying he was crazy, the wouldn't say why.

Anyway, I'm sure I'm leaving things out, but you get the just I think. It was a really busy and random sort of weekend but it was great!