I changed my website theme today and in the process I revisited a journey I made over twenty years ago.
I was looking for something suitable to use as a background for my header image when I came across my old batik shirt. The fabric was so worn that it ripped every time I put it on but I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out because it reminded me of the boy at Beringharjo Market, his aunts and the fastidious tailor. So for many years it has been languishing in a box with all the other treasures that I can’t bear to relinquish.
When I was twenty-two I travelled solo through Bali, Java and Sumatra. I arrived in Yogyakarta on an overnight bus from Malang and checked into what was, in retrospect, a pretty creepy guesthouse. My trusty Lonely Planet South East Asia on a Shoestring (a big yellow brick) told me to go to the Beringharjo Market, so I did – even though all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball in my room where nobody could hassle me (it hadn’t been a great bus trip).
The boy at the Beringharjo Market was a few years younger than me. His after school job was to stand near the entrance to the market looking for likely tourists to draw into the depths of the Market where his aunties sold second-hand batik. He saw me coming.
The thing about me is that I have no sense of direction; I get lost at Vic Market in Melbourne, which is not only laid out in a grid but the rows are labelled alphabetically. I knew I had no hope of finding my way out of Beringharjo by myself so I did a deal with the boy (I’m sorry I can’t remember his name): if he would take me into and out of the Beringharjo Market, I would visit his aunties’ batik stall.
We wound our way through the labyrinth. Past stalls selling fruit, kitchen utensils, plastic toys and every imaginable body part of a cow. Finally we arrived at the aunties’ batik stall. It’s possible that they sold new fabrics too but I only had eyes for the old kain. [tbc]
