A good day visiting the city sights of Surabaya, Indonesia

After a rather uninspiring day yesterday whose only hightlights were
booking a day trip for the next day and finding a nearby restaurant
that had chandaliers on the ceiling and a live pianist in the main
room, was served by up to six waitresses at the same time but still
had prices afordable by your average tourist ( less than IDR 100,000
for a starters, main meal, drink plus service and tip ... not bad at
all ) I decided to get a good nights sleep and prepare for a much
busier day in the morning.
Oh, the other thing was that the hotel decided to change my bedding
during the middle of the day and although I arrived when they were
half way through, they seemed in no hurry to finish and I must have
waited outside while three of them continued to slowly drag their
heels and left me out in the corridor for what seemed like an
eternity.
I woke up and had a bit of spare time to sort out the room before I
was to be met in the hotels main lobby by the tour guide and his
friend, who I later found out were both Muslims although they didnt
wear the traditional clothes or giveaway head gear.
Historically Java was settled by Bali Hindu's before Muslims arrived
and settled, then the Dutch came and also did a little settling before
it reached the mixed religious melting pot that it currently is. A
population of nearly two million people almost doubles during the
daytime when civilians from near and far come into the city to work,
beg or pray.
Apparently Surabaya comes from the two words Sura - meaning brave, and
Baya - meaning dangerous, and the symbol and statue of the city is a
shark and a crocodile attacking each other with somehow the shark
being the brave and the crocodile being the danger.
The day started off with a bit of light drizzle, which ceased later
on, then poured down, then stopped again and this continued for the
next eight or nine hours, with us constantly getting wet, getting out
umbrellas and me taking off my jacket to ease the humidity of the
climate, leaving me hot and cold almost at the same time.
The first place we went to was the submarine museum, the KRP Pasopati
#410, a Russian submarine which was given to the Indonesians ten years
after it first saw service and it continued til it became obsolete
when it was eventually chopped into six pieces and moved here before
being reassembled above ground to where it finally rests today.
It is a fairly small submarine compared to the modern nuclear subs,
being only 76.6 meters long and barely 6.3 meters wide, housing at
most a crew of sixty, but when you get inside you cant see how more
than twenty seamen could rest at any one time, there being so little
space for sleeping, eating or anything to be honest.
The guide was an actual former serviceman who worked on the boat, but
his English was so high pitched and thickly accented that I had a hard
time deciding if he was indeed speaking English or had forgotten about
me and dropped back into Indonesian, and when I asked about his
ability to read and speak Russian he tried to demonstrate for me but
again his speach and accent was so strong that I still could not tell
any difference.
The next stop was the Heroes Monument, which was a great museum with
some funky rounded off optical illusion displays that show historical
scenes and was like seing an 3D image but better.
With plenty of reliefs to look at, left over machine guns and mortars
from both the allies and the Japanese and even some makeshift bamboo
spears it was like going back in time, and I was a little embarrased
that when the allies arrived to "help defend" the islands from the
advancing Japanese that they quickly became no better than the enemy
and pitched battles with the bamboo wielding locals soon ensued.
Thankfully, just when the allies thought that they had done enough to
quell the locals and expected their surrender, a force of youthful
freedom fighters arrived and said that they would rather die than lose
their freedom to anyone, which sort of jolted the allied command out
of their stupor and finally they called a ceasefire and finally
started to assist the locals amicably instead of installing their own
government and appoint officials. The news that it was the Dutch who
wanted most to take over control of the Island of Java helped me to
feel a little better, but not fully.
Through the rain we continued to drive through areas showing the
richer and the poorer areas of Surabaya until we reached the House of
Sampoerna, a cigarette factory and museum that smelled heavily of
cloves which they use to mix with the tocabbo in their local brand of
smokes.
I was a bit hungry and so before we went round the museum and factory
area I stopped off to grab a bite to eat and tried the local food of a
fatty beef stew served with rice, which was super yummy, while my two
guides went off to pray for a few minutes.
Although not a smoker myself, it was interesting to learn that the
local women can roll on average 6 cigarettes a minute, although the
factory itself is closed on Sundays, and the musuem above was full of
enough history and interesting stuff, like a original Heidelberg
printing press and a musical band uniform section which was all part
of the advertising down the ages.
It was a shame infact that the factory was not working as it would
have been interesting to see all the workers crammed in like sardines,
with the noise and smell of tobacco and cloves heavy in the air,
especially when I heard that as a tourist I could even pay a trivial
donation to be able to be taught how to roll my own and then a chance
to try it out for real! I wonder if the Heidelberg was still working
as then I could have even producted and printed my own packet which
would have been too cool.
We then drove through a few different areas, and did a few drive pasts
but with the heavy traffic and rain it was nigh on impossible to stop
and get any good shots so I had to be content with just looking at a
few of the rich architectural buildings.
Next stop was the oldest Chinese Temple in Indonesia and it was here
that I had my fortune told, which I hope comes true and it was very
positive. I had to light a few joss sticks, pray then hold two clogs
together and after infusing them with smoke dash them to the ground
and hope for an odd split which signals good luck. I did, and then
after shaking my fortune out of a tumbler, infused and shook another
odd split of the clogs which was about the best luck I could hope for
and then came the fortune telling.
With my guide acting as translator to the Chinese fortune teller, I
was told that I will have good luck, be free from police and miliatary
intervention, find something that was lost, be soon visited soon by a
person close to me from back home, have an ill person close to me get
better before finally returning home to wealth, happiness and more
good fortune.
Then it was on to the Muslim quarter where I thought my two guides
were going to pray more, but they must be waiting for me to return to
the hotel first as they refrained from doing so, possibly because we
were short of time and I politely declined the offer to remove my
shoes, socks and go inside and pray myself. I hope I did not offend or
insult them by not doing this, and as they seemed cool with me before
and after I like to think that I didn't, but you never can tell.
The Ampel Mosque and prayer areas were full of people paying their
respects and I learned about the cleaner who died and returned to life
seven times before he finally died of old age the eighth time and for
his ceaseless cleaning of the area he was given his own gravestone
here.
Along the area was a mini bazarre where there was plenty of cheap
stalls where you could buy just about anything but I refrained from
eating the food when I saw that the sellers were so bored that they
didn't even bother to try and shoe away the flies who happily sat
muching on the sweet buns and cakes that were being sold.
The Red Bridge was smaller than I expected, though its historical
claim to faim is the site where the British Brigadier General Mallaby
was killed and not for its impressive size or complex structural
design, so perhaps I should not complain too much, and when we passed
by the cities oldest best hotel on Tunjungan Street my guides got out
and got permission for me for us to park and for me to take a few
photos which was nice of them.
The next stop was te Cheng Hoo Mosque, which is a Muslim mosque thats
architecture is based on the traditional Chinese Pagoda style and
makes a rather unique place to visit. The place was empty of people
praying, possibly because of the rain, and I made a small faux pax by
standing on the very edge of the floor with my shoes, while I was
trying to get around a puddle in order to take a better picture of the
inside.
Reported to be the oldest Buddha temple in Java, the Joko Dolog Statue
was only minutes away from my hotel and yet I had missed it when I
walked past it the night before due to its use falling into decline
with the more modern and largest temples being created. It was a big
shame that the gates to this shrine were locked but the gates were
close enough to the statue itself for me to still get a photo of the
inside.
After a couple more drive past photo opportunities were ruined by the
rain, we stopped at our second to last rest at a place where they make
Batik, the artwork cloth of the region that is all hand made by a
group of women sitting round a boiling vat of strange waxing tar
substance while they work on reverse painting the material.
The place didnt smell half as bad as I expected and the artwork that
they could achieve through patience and skill was amazing, and I
especially liked one which had the Indonesian islands as the central
motif, and had I been on holiday instead of travelling through I am
sure that I would have bought some.
Despite its small size of the home grown factory, this smal business
take orders from all over Indonesia, even in the other major cities
like Jakarta, and they are currently fighting a cultural battle with
Malaysia to prove where the Batik first originated from, much like the
minor disputes between neighbouring countries in both central and
south america.
The final stop was just a few minutes later and here was a large
Handicraft indoor market which had plenty of nice souveneirs on sale,
and it was here that I saw a postcard that had a picture of the Worlds
Largest Buddhis Stupa, which was breathtaking and apparently was
considered to be a wonder of the world up until they were reclassified
in 2008. This one postcard put me in a bit of a downer as I realised
that this was exactly the sort of thing that I wanted to visit while
here in Indonesia and that I had in effect missed a great opportunity
by spending my days in big cities like Jakarta and Surabaya instead of
heading on over to this place.
My only clouds silver lining is that of course I bought the postcard,
but more than that, as now I know that it exists, depending on what
else happens here in the far east I might just have time to visit here
before leaving the region although of course I wont have time to do it
before I leave for Singpaore tomorrow lunchtime.
Minutes later I was back at my hotel and then spent the rest of the
day eating sweets, drafting this blog entry and ensuring that I was
all ready to leave for the airport tomorrow.