Noon Report:

• Location: S 06° 56.69′, E 110° 25.40′
• Speed: Docked
• Course: Docked
• Weather: Scattered Showers
• Temperature: 28º C, 82º F
• Wind: WNW 12 knots, 14 mph

We had an early call for our excursion today so it was up, quick breakfast, slather on the sun screen, throw the required docs in the day bag, and off to the Theatre where we waited for them to call our group.

We cleared customs by waiving at the officers and boarded our bus for our 2 hour drive thru the city of Semarang and up into the hills. Java has some pretty significant volcanos so “hills” is perhaps not quite accurate. By the time we had traded our bus for smaller vans and made our way up to the ‘base elevation’ we had climbed to just over 4,100 feet.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Shortly after leaving the port we passed a fish farming village. Each house in this waterfront area has a section of the river netted off using the tides to corral fish. We also passed several mosques – Here’s one example.

Up in the hills it was market day.

The buses and cars honk to warn oncoming traffic as they go around corners, also to indicate you are getting in front of somebody, and also to say thanks for letting us in.

Eventually we made it to the entrance to the temple complex.

Candi Gedong Songo is a complex of nine temples – six of which are accessible from this entrance. “Candi” is Indonesian for “Temple.”

From the base we (most of us) mounted horses while the rest of us chose to walk.

Cheryl’s Factoid:

• Java has 113 volcanoes – only 35 of which are currently active, but it makes for an amazing landscape. The mountain our horses climbed was a sleeping volcano with sulfur steam still issuing from a side vent. We had no control over our horses-the trainer kept his hands on the reins as he walked/jogged next to us the whole way. Luckily they provided a grab “handle” on the top of the saddle.

Each horse had a handler and the ship had contracted for a horse for each of us. So several horses/handlers made the trip without a rider. I chose to walk because it looked like a good opportunity to burn off a few of the calories I’ve been neglecting to burn off the past few days.

Our first objective was Candi V – the highest and farthest temple (with an elevation gain of 462 feet over 9/10 of a mile). This was followed by several other temples (Candi IV, Candi III, Candi II).

While the temple complexes are partially in ruins (restoration has been done on the main structures) they are still used for ceremonial work.

You may recall that I asked you to remember the photo of the seniors exercising.

After investigating the temples and learning more about their history and meaning we slogged thru the rain back down the mountain, into the vans, and on to lunch.

Fortunately the rain stopped before it was time to load the vans, back to the bus, back to the ship.

Showers and dry clothes had amazing restorative powers, as did the open-faced shrimp salad sandwiches from Mamsen’s, even if it meant missing the 4:30 lecture on “Stories the Vietnamese People Tell About Themselves.” We’ll catch that on TV eventually.

Following Church at 5:30 we took some time to work on Blog posts before dinner and a drink with our BBB team (for some reason there was no Bruce’s Brain Busters scheduled this evening but that didn’t stop us from drinking and catching up with friends.

Then it was time to put our tired but happy bodies to bed.

Thus ends our sojourn in Indonesia. It’s an amazing part of the world and one that wouldn’t fare poorly with a return (and somewhat longer) visit. Hmmm.

Nite all, R