Sultan Palace

 Gamelon Orchestra instruments were on display at Sultan Palace which includes acres of courtyards along with the palace buildings.  If you enlarge the photograph, you can see the limited variety of instruments showing gongs, drums, sitars and bells.  The bells are played with one hand holding a small hammer-like mallet,  

In nearby Kota Gede, we watched this woman using the ancient method of batik to create a painting on her cloth.  Resist dyeing using wax prevents color absorption during the dyeing process creating a patterned negative when the wax is removed from the dyed cloth.  I know, most of us must see it to understand it.  This artist is painting the negative dot by dot,  

Our first day in Java taught me an important spicy lesson which took me about twelve hours to fully understand.  

The population of Indonesia is 95% of the U.S. while its land mass is 20% of the U.S.  That is like putting the entire U.S population in California and Texas.  It is crowed here and 60% of the people here smoke cigarettes so there is that, too. 

Everyday in Java has been ninety degrees all day with high humidity which causes perspiration upon stepping outdoors.  Our small group of overland travelers consists of eight people and I couldn't argue with Larry today when after sweltering in the heat and returning to our bus with A/C, he said, "Air conditioning is the greatest invention ever made"

We finished the day with a four hour train ride to Surabaya, Indonesia.

Rick Steves gave an interview on nextavenue.org whereby he shares not only insight about traveling as we age but also wisdom from decades of immersing himself in other cultures.  Here is the link to this important interview;  https://www.nextavenue.org/rick-steves-next-adventure-turning-70/

A broad worldview is the most important souvenir" - Rick Steves