Jogjakarta

Our hosts and colleagues for our tsunami project are the geology faculty and students from Universitas Pembangunan National (UPN)--National Development University in Jogjakarta. For our first day in Jogja we went to visit the geology department--the largest in Indonesia.

We also had a nice meeting with the President of the University who is a geology professor. She gave me a copy of a book she wrote about Mt Merapi--which includes many of her own photos of the volcano and its eruption in 2010. I made the mistake of admiring the book when we interviewed her in her office and as Indonesians are prone to do, if you like it they give it to you. Years ago Mormon missionaries called the practice of admiring to get gifted "to bailey" something. This word come from the last name of an elder who was very good at intentionally admiring things in hope it would be gifted to him. I did not intentionally "bailey" the book, but it certainly is a nice remembrance from our visit to UPN.

That afternoon a local geology professor took us all on a field trip to see research she has done excavating Hind temple that over the years have been buried in meters of ash and lahar flows. Here she is showing four different layers of these depositions.

This photo shows how the lahar flows enveloped the base of one of the temples.

We had to jump streams to get to this tall wall of ash deposits.



Those meters of Merapi ash deposits are what once buried this temple.

Inside the temple is a lingam--symbol of fertility.


One more excavated temple--this one had uneven foundations which suggests earthquakes.

That evening, we presented our tsunami and earthquake information to members of Nadlahtul Ulama--Indonesia's largest Islamic organization. The presentation was arranged by the public affairs missionaries of the LDS Church as a form of community outreach. When we arrived we were greeted by local LDS leaders and missionaries. When i noticed the name tag of one of the missionaries--Sister Xiao from New Zealand, I asked if she was related to Afat Xiao. He is her father. I met him when he was 14 years old. We were street contacting people at the alun-alun, main square, of Bandung. Afat came up to us wanting to visit and practice his English. I invited him to our free Enlgihs classes. I was soon transferred but he was a regular at English class and eventually got baptized, served a mission, attended BYU and the got married in the SLC temple--which I attended.

Next day we went to Borobudur--a magnificent Buddhist temple. See more  photos and information at this blog post: http://beitemmett.blogspot.co.id/2012/08/mt-merapi-and-borobudur.html

Our guide said this was a family planning relief which shows a happy family with two kids.

This is an unhappy large family. The one grade student with eight kids was not amused with our guides interpretation.

We enjoyed lunch at a nearby restaurant recently opened by my friends Bertha and Hendro. They left productive careers in Jakarta to open a hydroponic based restaurant in the countryside of Central Java.

Loved me some refreshing "green juice" and gado-gado (spicy peanut sauce atop steamed vegetables) made from fresh hydroponically grown vegetables.

That afternoon we visited the magnificent Hindu Temple of Prambanan.

It is dedicated to Shiva.

Also honored is his son Ganesh.

Panels on the outside of the main temple show scenes from the Ramayana

That night we all ate a a delightful restaurant overlooking the lit temples of Prambanan. In the distance the cone shaped top of Merapi looms.