The country is dominated by Javanese culture, and in the heart of Java is Yogyakarta the seat of the batik craft tradition. Anywhere you go in town you'll see people making stuff.
Batik is mostly patterns for clothing and household things like drapes and tablecloths. Sometimes they use the same skills to make paintings though. You can put a light behind them and they glow!
If you look through the paintings you'll see a few themes again and again. Volcanos, specifically Merapi, scenes from the Ramayama, images of Borobudur, and maybe Prambanan. The Ramayama is an important Hindu play that's performed in Yogya almost every night and at Prambanan every so often. Prambanan is a UNESCO site just outside of town on the way to Solo.
I went there at dawn.
Everybody goes to Prambanan at dawn. That's how you're supposed to see it. Although sunset with the Ramayama is nice too. Sadly it was half destroyed by an earthquake a few years back, but they're slowly putting it back together again. They've still got the materials, UNESCO just doesn't quite know how to put them back where they belong.
Borobudur, the other UNESCO site near Yogya, is also best visited at dawn.
That's Merapi on the right, a volcano I climbed in the dark and reached the top of at dawn. I saw the sunrise every morning I was in Yogja.
Borobudur is an ancient Buddhist temple and you're supposed to walk around and around it in circles until you reach the top and realise the foolishness of Samsara and become englightened. I uh... just walked up and down randomly and then went off to buy stuff...
There's a big park around the 'candi' and you can walk around for hours if you'd like. There are lots of gift shops and food stalls at the outskirts of the area.
Yogyakarta, like Siam Reap in Cambodia, is small but very valuable for its guesthouses and world treasures. The people in the city know this and they set everything up so tourists can enjoy themselves and see things in the proper light. It isn't enough to see Borobudur, you've got to see it at sunrise. Nobody is willing to take you there at any time other than 4 am. "Why would you want to be there in the middle of the day?" they ask.
Back on the homefront, St. louis also has a UNESCO site. In fact, the St. Louis area used to have the greatest civilization in what is now the United States. What's left of it in St. Louis? The Sugar Loaf Mound...
Every other mound in Missouri has been removed as a barrier to progress. How could you possibly keep mounds in an urban context? Really?
Oh right, parks! Why didn't we think of that? Those are the burial mounds of Shilla kings in Gyeongju, South Korea, by the way. They're beautiful. Obviously Koreans care about their history. Why don't we?
Perhaps the mound builders of ancient St. Louis aren't really culturally connected to the modern residents. Perhaps maintaining ancient treasures and building a tourism industry around them just never occurred to us.
That would explain why our UNESCO site is not a national park. It's a state park, and a bit of run down one at that.
I'm pretty sure all that erosion doesn't have to happen. This could be much more than a place you just drive your car past.
The whole park could be much better.
Why do most people in St. Louis never make it to the top of Monk's Mound? Why don't we go there to watch the sunrise on New Year's morning in great hordes? Couldn't every hotel in St. Louis offer a sunrise package tour? Where are our traditional performances and cultural connections? Sure the culture's long gone now, but we've still got natives around, that's why the Osage Nation bought Sugar Loaf. Let's celebrate the Osage. Let's celebrate the Clovis! Let's connect this to Mastadon State Park and the Center for American Archeology. We can maintain the region's history for future generations and for tourism revenue.
We should take care of our things. UNESCO sites belong to the world.
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