Java - An Island in the C++

A little code monkey humour there. Anybody geddit? No. Ok moving swiftly on. I'm back in Melbourne after my little bro and I spent a week travelling through Java. We started in Jakarta, which reminded me a lot of Mumbai or Cairo, basically a big, out of control, unmanageable third world city. Not quite Gangetic plain levels of poverty and desperation but no treat. We jumped a twenty dollar (including tax) flight to Yogyakarta which was smaller, nicer and walkeable. Yoga is an exemplar of central Javanese culture and boasts craft markets, a royal palace and dozens of mouth watering food options. I could have spent a couple of weeks in Yoga but we had to move on. From Yoga we took in the spectacular Buddhist temple complex at Borudbudur (right), which is deep in the rice paddies and jungles of central Java. It was the rainy season so we had the place pretty much to ourselves. The stupas are carved from volcanic rock and the whole area is at the mercy of two nearby still active volcanoes.

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From Borudbudur we travelled to Prambanan Temple, a Hindu shrine to Shiva which had been damaged in a 2006 earthquake but was still impressive. At Prambanan we saw the Ramayana Ballet, a night-time performance with the temple lit up behind us. I was entranced from start to finish. The dancing was graceful and beautiful and I was impressed by Lord Ram who kept firing live arrows round the stage killing only the people who he was supposed to kill and none of the paying customers. Even my cynical, hard bitten Iraq war vet brother was impressed and afterwards went to pose for pictures with the chaste Lady Sita.

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A little more journeying east and then I jumped a ridiculously cheap flight to Malaysia where I spent some time in Kuala Lumpur and the delightful island of Panang where I haggled for bangles in Little India and enjoyed a Tiger beer or two. For reading material I took the perfect book: Paul Theroux's "Ghost Train to an Eastern Star" which is an entertaining recapitulation of the trip he took in the "The Great Railway Bazaar". It's a thorough and engaging journey undertaken by a 66 year old who's lost none of his bottle or verve. (One minor niggle: for someone who's worth many millions he complains and talks too much about money.) I flew out on the red eye and after a week of cycle rickshaws, monsoon drains and the smell of morning ghee it was bewildering to be back in 21st Century Melbourne. "The GPS says you don't exist," the taxi driver said after I had given him my address in St Kilda. "Who are you gonna believe?" I replied but I could see the GPS's point of view.