If you know a teenager, ask them whether they’re familiar with an electronic device that has a spinning circular mat, on top of which a vinyl disc rotates at 33 1/3 revolutions per minute. What happens when you place the device’s arm onto the grooves of the spinning disc?
For any of us who grew up collecting records by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin and others, the answer is obvious: it’s a turntable that plays music.
When I asked my grandson recently, he had no idea. He’s a smart kid about to enter high school but to him a turntable was like an ice box, a buttonhook or a laundry board were to me when I was his age.
I showed him my turntable because I was about to sell my entire vinyl collection (above) to a local store. I loved my records, which evoked happy memories, but I switched long ago to CDs and then to streaming options. My LPs were collecting dust in a closet and belonged with an audiophile who still loves vinyl.
My grandson and I were both amused that he didn’t know what a turntable is so, with help from AI, I then asked him whether he could identify the following:
Massive, heavy paper directories delivered to your doorstep every year. You had to flip through thousands of thin, yellow pages to find the phone number of a local plumber, bakery or car dealership. Answer: the Yellow Pages.
Thin, ink-coated paper placed between two sheets of writing paper. When you type or write on the top sheet, the pressure transfers the ink to the bottom sheet to create an instant duplicate. Answer: Carbon paper.
Small, four-sided plastic cubes that attach to the top of a camera. Every time you take a photo with a flash, the cube explodes with a tiny burst of fire and rotates to the next side. You throw it away after four shots. Answer: A flashcube.
Large wooden cabinets in libraries filled with hundreds of small pull-out drawers, each containing cards with book listings. Answer: Card catalogs.
Tiny paper stamps given to you by grocery stores and gas stations based on how much money you spent. You saved them, pasted them into booklets and traded them at a local redemption center for household appliances. Answer: Green stamps.
A cylindrical metal knob inside a car that heats up until it’s glowing red. Answer: A cigarette lighter.
My grandson and I laughed together as we went through the list, which also included 8-track tapes, milk chutes, microfilm, paper maps, rabbit ears, slide rules and manual window cranks. He knew some of these, guessed correctly at others and was baffled by many. The list might also have included typewriters, floppy disks, photographic film, phone booths and more,
If you don’t believe me, try this yourself with a teenager. Just don’t trip over your grandmother’s treadle sewing machine when you go to call them on your rotary phone.
It’s a phrase we’ve begun using as we think about what lies ahead for us, much as it does for millions of other people in their 70s.
When Champa and I walked away from our traditional lives in 2015, at age 62, we didn’t see ourselves as “retiring.” Rather, we hoped to engage with the world in new ways, in our case by joining the Peace Corps(above) and then traveling and volunteering extensively.
Still wearing a suit shortly before leaving for the Peace Corps.
No shuffleboard for us, thanks.
I started this blog then and called it “Not Exactly Retired” to emphasize its focus on alternatives to traditional retirement. Eleven years and 422 posts later, I feel fortunate to have pursued that vision and helped some readers think more boldly about their own dreams.
Back when we started, I was so concerned with transitioning away from the workplace without “retiring” that I barely considered what might happen later when we inevitably needed to slow down. That seemed so far away.
Melbourne, Australia
Recently, though, it’s begun to feel closer.
Both of us remain active. We’re leaving soon on a new trip and have others planned. We’re going to the gym, spending time with our family and friends, volunteering and living full lives. We know how lucky we’ve been to do this and are grateful for our blessings.
Slowly, though, our bodies have begun to creak a bit. Some friends have moved to retirement communities. A few have died. Our two oldest grandchildren are in college. It’s finally dawning on us that “not exactly” can’t last forever. At some point — not yet — we’re going to need to slow down.
Which is why we now find ourselves discussing the phrase “no-go, slow-go, no-go,” which Champa read in an article several weeks ago.
Morocco
It’s popular among financial planners. who use it to help clients think about how much money to budget for the different stages of their retirements. Writing in Kiplinger, one advisor said “it’s best to expect to do the big (and more expensive) stuff early on, when you’re healthier, then slow things down as you get older.”
The stages apply beyond financial considerations to life more generally. In a lovely essay on the Sixty + Me website, Renee Langmuir discussed her journey from beginning retirement “with a fresh start and big dreams” to encountering physical and other challenges in her 70s that “ambushed me, the former ‘can-do’ gal!” She found the transition challenging, writing: “Until very recently, my inner critic was cracking the whip with shrieks of ‘you can do more!’”
Cooking class, Chiang Mai, Thailand
I know how she feels. Champa and I love the life we’ve pursued and are reluctant to tap the brakes on it even slightly. But off in the distance we can see the highway ending for “Go-Go” and glimpse the exit ramp for “Slow-Go.” Like it or not, that’s where we and others in our age cohort are heading.
Champa and I met in Nepal, the birthplace of Buddha, and we know how Buddhism emphasizes the impermanence of life. Wisdom comes from recognizing this reality, embracing it and finding meaning in every changing moment. Even though we’ve treasured our decade of Go-Go and plan to keep pursuing it, we need to accept that it will give way inevitably to Slow-Go, and then to No-Go, unless something worse intervenes.
“Not exactly retired” remains our mantra for now. We hope to keep chanting it as long as we can. It won’t last forever.
It’s Return of the Clutter. Just when you thought it was safe to go home.
Champa and I downsized in a big way when we joined the Peace Corps a decade ago. We donated or trashed most of our books, clothes, furniture and other possessions before moving abroad with two suitcases each.
“It’s been humbling to confront how much stuff we’ve accumulated,” I wrote then. “Getting rid of it has been liberating. We’ve already downsized so much that our house will be nearly empty when we return.”
So it was. When we completed our service in Moldova and returned home in 2018, everything we owned was in a small upstairs storage room of our Durham house, which we’d rented while away. Marie Kondo could have featured us in her hit Netflix series on “tidying up,” which began airing a few months later.
Alas, that was eight years ago. Since then, clutter has crept back, with new kitchen gadgets, clothes, electronics and more.
It’s much less than before. We’ve tried to retain what we’d learned in the Peace Corps about living more lightly and purposefully. We’ve refilled empty rooms mainly with used furniture from consignment shops. We bought a single car, a Prius, which we still have. We resisted buying books or other kinds of paper, doing almost everything digitally. We’ve traveled a lot but have few other splurges. Even while traveling, we’ve brought home almost nothing except souvenir magnets.
Nonetheless, the empty space in our house — even emptier since our two sons left to start their own families — has acted like a vacuum. Slowly, steadily, our pile has grown.
Recently we’ve begun purging again. I just spent several days sifting through the bin of photos and memorabilia I filled when trashing our photo albums last time, top right, above. Back then, I digitized everything but retained copies of several hundred photos. Now I’ve reduced this pile by more than half. I’m about to unload my remaining vinyl records and music CDs. I have few books left but will be thinning those out, too.
We don’t want to leave our sons with a pile of stuff to sort through later. It’s not fair to them and, as I wrote previously, they and others of their generation have little use for many of the things we consider valuable. I do plan to keep some items that have special significance, but only a few.
For us, Decluttering 2.0 has proven easier than before since we did the hardest work previously. As we’ve seen, though, it isn’t a one-time job, and it isn’t just about “stuff.” Decluttering is also the emotional process of honoring your memories while making space for life’s next stage — space in your heart as well as in your home. Letting go makes it easier to grab whatever lies ahead, just when you thought it was safe to keep holding on.
A big smile for the camera doesn’t cut it anymore. These days you need to strike a series of elaborate poses, as we saw recently in Southeast Asia.
Malacca, Malaysia
Do the woman in the window, above, and her friend with the camera have Instagram sites? I’d guess so. Are they “influencers” with sponsors and large audiences? Probably not. But one thing I know for sure: They weren’t unusual.
Jakarta, Indonesia
Simple snapshots have given way to performance across Southeast Asia and beyond. Posing has become a new kind of visual literacy, with people tilting their chins and curling their fingers into hearts, just as in a K-pop music video. Everyone has a smartphone and social media accounts, along with selfie sticks and face-retouching apps.
Tanah Lot, Bali
There’s nothing new about young people expressing themselves; fashion, music, slang and dance have always evolved. Now they’re expressing themselves through images that are elaborately designed, posed, cropped and filtered. We have lots of wannabe Kardashians in our own country as well and I’ve seen them in other parts of the world, too.
Ulu Petanu Waterfall, Bali
What I saw in Asia took this to another level. Many of the young tourists who crossed our path seemed more interested in posing than in learning about where they were visiting. Was this because their countries have a tradition of presenting a carefully curated public self? Was it due to Japanese kawaii culture, with its aesthetic of cuteness, or to Korean beauty influences, or something else?
Penang, Malaysia
I can’t explain why it’s become so prevalent, but it has, and I found it interesting. After noticing it repeatedly for about a week, I began quietly snapping the photos you see in this post.
If you hadn’t already noticed this trend yourself, I guarantee you will see it the next time you travel, especially if you go to Southeast Asia.
I hope the people I photographed won’t mind that I shared their poses with you. They clearly wanted their photos to be seen and, well, it didn’t seem like they’d get cheesed easily.
I don’t usually write about partisan politics on this blog but I’m making an exception to share what we heard about President Trump during our recent 6-week trip in Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.
When people first learned we were American, they were invariably polite. If we asked what they thought about our president, they usually avoided answering. But when we assured them we really wanted to know, without sharing our own opinions, we got an earful.
Why did Trump launch a war that was raising energy prices, they asked us. Why did he impose so many tariffs? Doesn’t he know or care they’re struggling to support their families?
Why does he treat America’s friends so rudely?
And most frequently: Why is the United States supporting Israel as it kills Muslims in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran and elsewhere? We heard this last one repeatedly, especially in Malaysia and Indonesia, which have complicated relations with the Middle East but are nonetheless Muslim-majority. We saw war news often on our hotel televisions, like this one in Indonesia.
As I wrote in my last post, most people in these countries don’t follow every twist and turn in American politics. They are more focused on their own lives. But everyone we met was aware of the Iran conflict. Some of them, like the Malaysian taxi driver I recorded in this video clip, were following it closely. If you listen to the audio, you’ll hear a vastly different narrative from what Americans are told on CNN, much less Fox News.
Champa and I have gotten used to hearing such criticisms. We decided after the last election to spend more time outside the United States and we’ve been on the road a lot since then. No matter how far we’ve traveled, though, we can’t escape the chaos back home.
We toured the Balkans with the five Brazilian guys you see in the above photo. We initially avoided discussing politics with them but, as we got to know each other, they shared their concerns. These were well-traveled, educated men with moderate viewpoints but they all were disturbed by the recent turn of American policy. They expected Brazil to strengthen its ties with China as a result.
At a ceremony in Frankfurt to commemorate the 35th anniversary of German unification, above, the chorus sang “We Shall Overcome” and other songs that celebrate tolerance and diversity. I struck up a conversation with a local doctor holding a candle near us in the plaza and she said she was sad to see these values under attack in the United States.
We visited the southern Caribbean shortly after the United States invaded Venezuela. A guide in neighboring Curaçao, above, told us the invasion had hurt his business. Tourists were avoiding the region, he said, which meant fewer tips for him.
We returned home from Asia shortly before President Trump traveled to China to meet with Xi Jinping. I’ve been wondering since then what people in Taipei, like those we saw praying at a temple, think of the reports that Trump may now be hedging on American military support.
All of us who live in the United States have felt this administration’s actions most directly, whether the issue is immigration, health care, inflation or something else. But make no mistake: The rest of the world is affected, too. They don’t understand why America has changed. They worry about what’s happening to us and fear what it means for them.
I’ll conclude with a final photo, of Ari, the Indonesian driver who accompanied Champa and me across much of Java. He works incredibly hard and barely ekes out a living, even with the generous tips he gets from tourists like us. He sleeps in his car to save money. Now he’s facing rising fuel costs. Ari is among the many millions of people across his country, and billions more around the world, whose lives have been affected by our country’s actions. In Africa and other places that relied on USAID, the result has sometimes been deadly.
As I wrote in my last post, traveling abroad has reminded me that the United States is not the center of the universe. But its impact is still profound. We Americans remain capable of being a true world leader and of helping others, as I saw in the Peace Corps. But right now we’re flailing, and the ripples are churning in every direction.
Top photo: Historical diorama at the National Monument (Monas) in Jakarta, Indonesia.
I learned a lot during our recent trip to Taipei, Malaysia, Indonesia and Manila — not only about these places, but about our own country, too.
Here are six things I now understand more clearly:
Bandung, Indonesia
America is not the center of the universe.
Our country has been so powerful for so long that it can seem like the universe revolves around us. But it doesn’t.
Many Americans are obsessed now with our political turmoil, and for good reason. When you leave home, though, you’re reminded that most people around the world are far more focused on other things.
As I wrote while serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer several years ago, my Moldovan friends didn’t “care about American politics unless it affects them personally, which it rarely does. At least they know where America is, which is more than most Americans know about Moldova.”
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Did people ask us during our trip about President Trump, the war with Iran and other issues? Yes, and I plan to share some of those conversations in an upcoming post.
But we were asked far more often about our family and other matters that had nothing to do with American politics. The television in our hotel was more likely to show a badminton match than CNN.
Recognizing this doesn’t mean our American passions are unimportant. It’s just a reminder that others generally don’t share them with the same intensity.
Taipei. Taiwan
Countries are complicated.
Is Alaska the same as Texas? Obviously not. Yet Americans often blur entire regions, such as Southeast Asia or Africa. They use phrases like “developing” to obscure immense diversity within places.
The four countries we visited turned out to be significantly different. Taiwan is technologically advanced, orderly and democratic. Malaysia is striking for its multiculturalism and welcoming form of Islam. Indonesia has a huge population with diverse islands. The Philippines has strong cultural ties to both Spain and the United States.
We saw many other differences within and across the countries as well. They can’t be reduced to sound bites and neither can other countries around the world.
Sandakan. Borneo
They have their own histories.
America has been dominant not only in terms of its military, economy and political power, but also in its cultural imprint. Taylor Swift and LeBron James are more famous than many world leaders.
It’s humbling, therefore, to come to a place like Southeast Asia and be reminded that they had sophisticated civilizations and complex histories long before Europeans arrived, much less McDonald’s. They were shaped by trade routes, empires and migrations that had nothing to do with us.
Penang, Malaysia
The interactions among these countries were far more important until relatively recently. When Champa and I were in Malaysia, we stayed in a hotel that was once the mansion of a prominent Chinese businessman in Malacca. He and other Chinese immigrants played critical roles in the development of that city and others. The emigration of families from Taiwan centuries ago changed the face of the Philippines. Muslim traders reshaped Indonesia and Malaysia. The region’s majestic Hindu temples are reminders of India’s influence.
Once America did enter the picture, its impact was mixed. We liberated the region from brutal Japanese occupation during World War Two and provided essential economic and military assistance, notably to Taiwan in recent years. But we also employed scorched earth tactics to keep the Philippines under control in the early 1900s. We supported dictators like Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, Taiwan’s Chiang Kai-Shek and Indonesia’s Suharto.
Taipei, Taiwan
There are far more people in Asia than in the United States.
Southeast Asia is among the most densely populated places on Earth. Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines have more people than the United States and Canada. Jakarta has more people than New York, Los Angeles, Chicago , Houston and Phoenix combined.
If you add in Vietnam, Thailand and other countries usually included in “Southeast Asia,” the comparison is even starker — and vastly more so if you include India, China and the rest of Asia.
Yet many Americans cannot place these countries on a map. Their visibility to us doesn’t align with their actual human scale. We regard our own lack of curiosity about other countries as normal and make jokes about it. Viewed from afar, our insularity is less amusing.
Harina train, Indonesia
Their economies are growing fast.
The United States is generally wealthier than Southeast Asia, in some ways dramatically so. We saw heart-breaking poverty in several places.
But we also saw new rail systems that operate efficiently. Most of the airports were modern and immaculate. Smartphones were ubiquitous. Mobile payment was common. Skyscrapers were everywhere. Many parks and other public spaces were spotless. Taiwan has the world’s leading computer chip factories and other countries in the region are also moving fast in the tech world. Millions of people are highly educated and middle class, or more.
So are we still ahead of them economically? Overall, yes … but that’s for now.
Manila, Philippines
Travel gives us perspective.
Probably my biggest take-away from this trip wasn’t about Southeast Asia per se but about travel generally.
Champa and I have been privileged to travel widely. We’ve seen repeatedly that what seems true and universal in the United States — our politics and assumptions about the world — are culturally specific rather than inevitable.
Especially at this moment when bombast and nationalism dominate our national conversation, it’s been therapeutic to view America with more distance, more nuance and less chest thumping.
Yogyakarta, Indonesia
I love my country. I’m proud to have served it twice overseas. But I’m also proud to be part of this larger world, which lately feels saner in many ways than my homeland.
We can learn a lot from other countries, even those that are “developing,” if we approach them with open eyes and open hearts. They remind us not only that the United States isn’t the center of the universe; it’s not even the center of our own small planet.
Manila, the capital of the Philippines, is overflowing with people. To grasp how dense it is, consider that the biggest city in my home state — Charlotte, North Carolina — has around 2,500 people per square mile. Manila is 45 times denser.
It has more people per square mile than New York, Paris, New Delhi or Hong Kong. In fact, depending on how you draw the lines, it’s the most densely populated city in the world.
We just went there for several days and were awed by the traffic. Manila is one of the world’s few megacities without a subway system, although it’s building one now. The average Manila driver loses more than five full days a year sitting in gridlock.
We experienced this ourselves while exploring the city with Grab, the local version of Uber. We stayed in Makati, one of the 16 neighboring cities that comprise “Metro Manila,” and had to allow bountiful extra time to drive anywhere else. These 17 separate city governments have no unified authority, which is a big reason why the infrastructure is so difficult to fix.
We spent only four nights there, just long enough to get a quick look and break up our trip home. Metro Manila occupies less than one percent of the Philippines land area and, despite its density, accounts for less than 15 percent of its total population. We were very aware it doesn’t represent the entire country. We wish we’d had the time to visit more of its 7,641 islands, which stretch a distance the same as Miami to New York City.
Still, we were able to visit Intramuros, the historic center of Manila. We explored Fort Santiago — the photo shows Champa descending into its dungeon — the beautiful Manila Cathedral and the old San Agustin Church, below.
We took a guided tour through the Chinese-Filipino Museum and wandered around Binondo, the world’s oldest Chinatown. We also visited the Ayala Museum, where we especially enjoyed its 60 intricate dioramas and other exhibits depicting Philippine history.
We kept hearing about the city’s giant malls so, even though we usually avoid malls, we went to two of the biggest. Both were modern and filled with shops offering every brand imaginable, plus diverse food options.
Needing a break from the tourist sites and commercial bustle, we took a (slow) Grab ride to the Arroceros Forest Park, a small urban riverside forest that serves as a green oasis for the city. It was lovely, even with the sign warning of snakes.
We spent our last day at Bonifacio High Street, a long boulevard lined with dining and shopping options.
Manila was the final stop of our trip that also included Taipei, Malaysia and Indonesia, so we celebrated our last night at an outdoor restaurant, watching the sun set over this immense, crowded, fascinating city. We would never want to live in Manila but we were glad to have visited it.
For many people, “Bali” evokes an image of Julia Roberts cycling through emerald-green rice paddies to visit her spiritual mentor, a traditional medicine man named Ketut.
The 2010 film Eat Pray Love, based on Elizabeth Gilbert’s novel, helped establish Bali as a global destination for spiritual exploration, wellness and self-discovery.
We just spent a week in Ubud, in central Bali, where many of the film’s Indonesian scenes were filmed. Everywhere we looked, we saw yoga classes, meditation sessions and organic cafes.
But we also saw overbuilt hotels, crowded streets and rows of shops selling souvenirs to tourists.
Foreigners praying at Tirta Empul Temple
An influx of Western spiritual seekers and other visitors has strained the authentic Balinese identity that attracted them. It’s hard to be an exotic backdrop for Western personal growth while adapting to the complex challenges of modernity.
Some U.S. cities, from Sedona to Asheville, also attract visitors seeking personal transformation. So do Kathmandu and other cities around the world. But Bali felt to me like the crown chakra of spiritual tourism.
When Champa and I took a class there on how to make incense sticks, our teacher began by chanting and sprinkling us with holy water. Only after we’d all meditated could we begin. When I asked him how many sticks I should make, he said: “Whatever your spirit says.”
Not exactly what you’d hear at Target.
Tourists posing with monkeys
We used Ubud as a base to visit waterfalls, a coffee plantation and a forest where monkeys perch atop willing tourists. We saw several temples, including the iconic Tanah Lot perched on a massive rock in the crashing waves of the Indian Ocean.
Tanah Lot Temple
We splurged on our hotel, the Puri Saraswati, which features a beautiful water temple and nightly dance performances. We ate breakfast beside its lotus ponds. We got massages and dressed up in Balinese clothes to take photos beside the temple. We strolled beside tranquil rice fields and sampled the excellent nearby restaurants.
We then left Ubud for a seaside hotel close to the airport for two nights before our next flight. The vibe there was decidedly different— more beach town, less ethereal. But it was still Bali, which felt almost like a different country than Java, the island where we’d spent our previous ten days in Indonesia. It was like going from Detroit to Nirvana Disney World.
Taman Ayun Temple
Bali is primarily Hindu, beautiful and bountiful in tradition. Java is predominantly Muslim, historically rich, vastly more populated.
Bali is smoother and easier for Western visitors, as well as more expensive. It’s the simpler choice for anyone new to Indonesia, which is why it attracts as many foreign visitors as all of Indonesia’s other islands combined. If I were on a honeymoon or a spiritual journey, it’s where I’d go.
Ulu Petanu Waterfall
As I wrote in my last post, though, Java was also compelling in its own way and we were very glad to experience it. My advice to anyone seeking cultural insight into Indonesia along with personal growth would be to visit both islands, and maybe more, if possible.
Don’t take it from me. Listen to Ketut, who told Liz in the movie: “To find the balance you want, this is what you must do.”
The Indonesian island of Java has more people than Russia, Japan or Mexico. If it were a country, it would rank ninth in the world, with more than 150 million people packed into a space the size of Alabama.
We just spent ten days traveling across much of Java and saw crowded villages, towns and cities blending into each other. Traffic was intense, notably in the capital city, Jakarta, which has more people and vastly more motorcycles than New York, Los Angeles and Chicago combined. The traffic around our Jakarta hotel was so relentless that we were unable to cross the street without someone helping us.
We couldn’t cross the street in Jakarta because of the traffic but we could walk safely to this neighborhood restaurant for dinner.
Yet Java is also home to some of Asia’s most beautiful temples and cultural sites. It has lush rice fields, tasty food and natural beauty. It’s far cheaper to visit than neighboring Bali, where most foreign travelers head in Indonesia.
We enjoyed exploring Java with a local driver, Ari, who showed us lots of interesting places and took good care of us — all for a very affordable price.
As shown on the map, we started on the western side of the island, flying from Kuala Lumpur to Jakarta. One full day was enough there to see the main sites, including a national monument where we learned a lot about Indonesia’s complicated history.
From there, we drove to Bandung, which has “only” 2.5 million people, stopping along the way to visit the Tangkuban Perahu volcano, above, with its grey craters and steaming mud pots. Our hotel in Bandung surprised me with a cake for my birthday.
Next we took an all-day trip on a modern train to Semarang on the north-central side of the island. We spent most of the ride staring out the windows at endless fields, mosques, motorcycles, shops and schoolchildren. While touring Semarang, we met the students you see in the top photo, at a train museum. We were especially impressed by the Sam Po Kong temple, an ancient Chinese complex that has been extensively restored. We drank some refreshing fruit shakes while there, above.
The highlight in Yogyakarta was its two famous temples. Borobuder, above, is the largest Buddhist temple in the world. It features nine stacked platforms in the shape of a giant tantric mandala, all decorated with more than 2,600 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues.
Several miles away, the Prambanan Temple is the largest Hindu temple site in Indonesia, with an array of imposing structures whose stone carvings depict the epic Ramayana. We also enjoyed an outdoor dinner at a nearby restaurant with a breathtaking view of the temples lit up at night, followed by an excellent ballet performance of the Ramayana, above.
We also visited a sultan’s palace, a museum and other sites in Yogyakarta, including workshops for producing traditional shadow puppets, above, and batiks, below.
Yogyakarta was our favorite place in Java. It felt cosmopolitan but relatively livable.
We’re glad we traveled to Java even though parts of it, notably Jakarta, were a bit overwhelming. Java packs a lot of diversity, history and people into a corner of the world that gets little attention from Americans.
Bandung
I’ll be posting next about Bali, which is far more familiar to many travelers. Yet Java has more than 30 times as many people as Bali. As we saw for ourselves, it’s not just its numbers that are so impressive but its beauty, people and overall vibe.
We were hiking beside rice paddies, pineapples and lemongrass in rural Indonesia when we were startled by a small homemade sign beside the trail.
It was for a coffee shop located just above where we were walking.
Really? Here amid rice fields on the slopes of Mount Sumbing, on the island of Java, as far from your neighborhood Starbucks as you could possibly get?
We climbed some dirt steps to look and there was a stylish open-air cafe offering locally grown tea and coffee along with fried bananas, boiled cassava and other snacks.
The cafe was also selling colorful packages of roasted local coffee beans and herbal teas. It had free wifi and accepted credit cards. The scenic view and fresh mountain air were free.
The young owner, Dodik Yudiantoro, above, opened Selogriyo Coffee in 2019 after attending tourism school — just in time for the pandemic. He reopened two years later and has been serving tourists and a growing local coffee culture ever since.
Our barista, Joko Utomo, above, said they’ve been working with local travel companies to attract tourists visiting the nearby Selogriyo Temple, below, a beautiful Hindu structure set in a natural basin. We were among the tourists who combined a hike to Selogriyo with a trip to Borobudur — the largest Buddhist temple in the world — and other attractions near Yogyakarta.
The cafe charges about US$1.75 for a latte and other drinks, which is expensive for the local trade but far less than a similar order in Europe or the United States. You also have to pay a small fee to hike the trail to the temple.
We enjoyed chatting with Joko and thought both the coffee and tea were excellent.
If you’re ever in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, do give it a try. It’s the most unexpected — but memorable — cup of Java you’ll ever have.
