Rotterdam arrives in Semerang harbour; it is overcast but hot and humid

Shack homes along the waterfront

Looking toward the “Beverly Hills” of Semerang

Squeek and Moss at the Ambarawa Railway Museum

The little meter-gauge train that would carry us into the mountains, a holdover from colonial days

Moss is VERY happy—he is beside a working steam locomotive

Rice paddies from the railway

While the vendors hawk their wares. . .

. . . our train gets a cog locomotive for the next climb

This cog rack allowed the small train to climb into the mountains

End of the line-- Bedono station high in the coffee-growing mountains of Central Java

Lubrication is a constant activity for steam loco drivers

Borobudor temple, the world’s largest Buddhist temple

Squeekie and Moss at Borobudor

While Moss watched from below with the telephoto lens . . .

. . . Squeek climbed up the steep stairs . . .

. . . made it to “Nirvana” at the top . . .

. . . and touched the toes of Buddha!

Afterward, on our coffee break, these girls danced for us

Through the rain on our return Rotterdam loomed in the distance

As Rotterdam stood out from the pier, families of our Indonesian crew waved goodbye


Day Thirty-nine (Friday, February 27, 2009)-- Shortly after sunrise this morning we arrived at our last Indonesian stop, the port of Semarang on the island of Java. Squeekie and I watched from our forward post on Deck Six as Captain Olav came into the harbour, turned Rotterdam “on a dime” and carefully backed into a spot on the pier just behind the ms Europa, already docked there. Semarang has been an important port from which to ship goods since the days of Dutch colonial control, and as such had railway operations from an early date.

The history lesson-- Semarang is Indonesia’s fifth largest city, and is located on the north coast of the famous “spice island” of Java. Although the fame of the so-called spice islands extends back into the dim past, the written history of the island begins in the ninth century AD, when it was known as Bergota. The influence of India extended to the Indonesian archipelago; both Hindu and Buddhist religious beliefs had reached the islands long before this time, and Islam reached the region by the eighth century AD. At the end of the fifteenth century AD, an Arab mullah by the name of Kyai Pandan Arang founded a village and an Islamic boarding school at this location, but the official date of the founding of the town dates to May 2, 1547, when the regional Sultan declared the elderly Arang to be the “first regent” of Semarang. In 1678 the regional Sultan promised to give control of Semarang to the Dutch East India Company in payment of a debt, and four years later the Dutch founded the Semarang state in Central Java. Dutch control over Central Java (and later the entire island) extended through the eighteenth century. The Dutch East India Company, and later the Dutch East Indies colonial government, imported non-native tropical trees to the region and established plantations to produce products for home consumption and international sale. The most important of these products were tobacco, rubber, and coffee. In the nineteenth century the Dutch built roads and railroads in the region (and throughout the island) to facilitate the export of the island’s products. In the 1920s the city became the centre of leftist and nationalist activism; the Communist Party of Indonesia was founded here, which led to Semarang becoming known as the “Red City.”

In 1942 the Japanese occupied the city and all of Java (and Indonesia); the famous naval Battle of the Java Sea was fought in the ocean waters about 150 miles northeast of the city. This battle, the first naval battle to be fought primarily by carrier-borne aircraft on both sides, was considered to be a draw because both the Americans and the Japanese lost a carrier each, but is viewed by military historians as important because it marked the first time in the Pacific Theatre of World War Two where the Japanese lost an important naval vessel. After the end of World War Two Indonesia received its independence from the Netherlands, and Semarang became the capital of the province of Central Java.

Our day of adventure-- Semarang proffered a busy atmosphere. There were ships loading and unloading cargos; cranes lifted containers on and off; and there was even a small but obviously busy electric generating station in the harbour environs. While many of the Rotterdam’s guests were taking tours today, many members of the Rotterdam crew were enjoying the opportunity to see their families—often for the first time in many months.

Our tour was of the interior of Central Java, and featured glimpses of coffee production, transportation, and local religious beliefs. The two-bus convoy left the dockside behind a siren-blowing polisi (police) car which escorted us through the traffic. I must say that I was surprised to observe the busyness of the traffic here, by far the worst we have yet seen on this trip (although much worse was to come in China). As we left the port district we passed through waterfront slums and then went into a hillside district our tour guide Kiki called “the Beverly Hills of Semarang.” Clearly the homes were of superior quality here, and for the first time I noticed the water storage tanks on their roofs which apparently indicate a degree of wealth in Asian homes. Many of these homes were of western design and included front and/or back landscaping. As we passed through this district we entered the highlands, where we saw evidence of the intense agricultural production that is typical of East Asia. We saw terraced rice paddies installed on every square meter of hillside, groves of bananas and coconuts, and other items, too. Before long we also saw rubber tree and coffee tree plantations as well, both of which were introduced to the island of Java by the Dutch during the colonial era.

It was this intense agricultural production which led to our first stop on the tour. In the highlands town of Ambarawa there exists a museum which preserves a good amount of the colonial-era railway technology that was used to carry the agricultural products down to the port at Semarang. This was one of only two times on our entire world cruise where railway museums were a part of the ship-sponsored tours, and I didn’t have to go off by myself to find and visit them; so it was with intense joy that I watched as our bus pulled onto the museum property. This railway museum preserves the old passenger station (where there was evidence of the racism of Dutch colonial rule in the separation of European and native offices and facilities), the old steam shed (read “roundhouse” even though it was not round), and nearly two dozen old steam locomotives which once ran on the meter-gauge (or perhaps 3-foot 6-inch gauge, I couldn’t tell the difference without a tape measure) rail system in Central Java. There is still some rail service on Java, but no longer up to the town of Ambarawa, yet there has been preserved an approximately 12 kilometer section of the old line which ran through Ambarawa up into the highlands district where coffee was (and still is) grown in great quantity. What makes this short section so interesting is that the last 3 kilometers of this line operated with benefit of a cog rack to allow the railroad to climb more steeply into the highlands coffee district, and this cog rack has been preserved.

I must stop here for a moment and say that I had a sad accident in our stateroom the night before last, when the regular 18-55mm lens for my Canon camera rolled off the table and bounced on the floor, causing it to jam up and become essentially unusable except at its longest setting. As those of you who photograph trains already know, you really do need a wide angle lens to take a picture of a locomotive (even narrow gauge ones), especially if they are in a museum where you cannot step far back to photograph them. Fortunately, Squeekie loaned me her wide angle lens for this day, and she also used her small ELPH Canon to take some of the pictures for me. Basically, the two of us thoroughly covered the contents of the museum.

At one point in my photographic expedition of the museum grounds, I came across a small tank engine with a builder’s plate that told it was designed by Richard Hartmann and built by the famous Saxony Machine Works in Chemnitz (Germany) in 1900. When I pointed this out to another tour member who seemed interested in the locomotives he became quite emotional; it turns out that he was one of the large group of Germans who were on the first part of the world cruise, and he viewed this locomotive as evidence of the former world greatness of Kaiser Germany. Well, OK, whatever keeps one liking steam locomotives and leading to their preservation.

After a time a small train pulled into the station. It looked a great deal like those LGB train models that were an important part of that toy manufacturer’s marketing line in past years. There was a small steam locomotive in all its steamy, smoky grandeur, pulling a mini-train of two wooden passenger cars. We all scrambled on board and off we went through the highlands of Central Java. It was very interesting to see this train still in operation under conditions quite similar to what it would have been like when the railway was first built.

After some kilometers (I think six or seven), we stopped at a siding. Almost instantly our stationary train was overwhelmed by any number of vendors offering all sorts of stuff for sale. There were vendors selling fans, pictures, shirts, hats, tote bags, puppets, post cards and all manner of stuff, and they were incredibly persistent. They did not climb aboard the train, thank heaven, but they accosted outside of each window (none of which had glass; they all were open to the outside) and each doorway. I and many of the people on the train did our best to ignore them, but “No” was a word they did not take at face value. After nearly a half hour of this unpleasant situation, during which time many aboard our train were beginning to wonder if this stop was done entirely to enable local vendors an opportunity to sell goods to the tourists, the functional reason for the stop became apparent. Except for the short passing siding at this location (and at each end of the line), the preserved section was single track, and there were two trains operating over the route. So we had been waiting for the train on the upper section to come down and pass us. More importantly, the upper section was the cog rack section, and the locomotive on the upper section was the only one which still had its cog wheel functional, so the trains not only had to pass, they had to exchange locomotives. At last this exchange was made and our train took off on the cog section, which appears to have been at about 12 percent gradient—very impressive! The cog locomotive was at the rear of the train pushing, so Squeekie was able to go up to the first passenger car doorway and photograph the cog rack, while I went to the rear car doorway to photograph the steam locomotive in all its energy glory. The train could not take this section at any speed above a brisk walk, and before long there were little boys from local villages running alongside the train just inches from the moving cars; dangerous, of course, but also interesting to watch as it appeared to be some sort of bravery and skills test for the boys.

The train concluded its journey over the cog rack section at the town of Bedono, apparently in the heart of the coffee growing district. Our busses were waiting for us and off we went for the next stop on the tour. Of course, I was thrilled by the railway museum and train ride, and thus needed no more to be happy, but others were more interested in what was coming next, a visit to the famous Buddhist temple at Borobudor. Adjacent to the grounds of the temple was a high quality resort hotel, where we stopped for lunch. There we met up with several other bus loads of tourists, both from the Rotterdam and the Europa. Squeekie did a bit of shopping and bought a batik shirt.

The temple was within walking distance of the hotel, but there were a number of steps to climb before we could get to the actual temple itself. The temple was built in the 8th and 9th centuries on the Kedu Plain near Yogyakarta by Buddhist kings possibly, according to the literature provided to us, “to enhance the image of Buddhism when Hinduism was growing in strength across the Indonesian archipelago.” We were told that Borobudor is the world’s largest Buddhist temple and later provided the example for the construction of Angor Wat in Cambodia. The temple consists of ten terraces, each of which symbolizes a step in the path to Nirvana. At the top is the Great Stupa, the largest carved stone stupa in the world. I was not going to climb up the many steps to the top, but Squeekie wished to do so, so I photographed her with my telephoto lens as she climbed. At the top she reached in through the openings in the stupa and touched the toes on the right foot of the Buddha, an action supposedly giving good luck to a woman.

Shortly after its construction, the temple was allegedly deserted when the Hindu Majapahit Empire overthrew the Sailendra Dynasty around 850 AD. Dense jungle growth hid the temple until it was discovered in 1814 by Sir Stamford Raffles (of Raffles Hotel fame in Singapore). It took over 100 years to restore the temple, and it has experienced some terroritst bombing actions recently, but it is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

After Squeekie made it back down to ground level (and not a moment too soon as there were the rumblings of thunder in the near distance), we reboarded the busses and returned to the town of Bedono where we had a coffee break. Samplings were offered of locally grown coffees and teas (kopi and teh in their language). The coffee was way too strong for Squeek to even dare to sample, so she tried the tea which, although strong, tasted good. While here we were entertained by some Javanese dancers, and Squeekie bought a set of angklung, the Indonesian musical instrument made from bamboo.

The drive back to the port through the rain and westering sun was quite an adventure. Our police escort really had to struggle to get our two-bus convoy through the complex traffic patterns, and there were more than a few close shaves as other drivers tended to ignore the police sirens until the last possible moment. Back at the port, Squeek and I visited the vendor stands in the port terminal to dispose of most of our remaining Indonesian “rupiyah.” Squeek got a batik shirt for Fabian and a doll for her own collection, and we selected two masks for Leslee’s collection.

Many of the Indonesian crew of the Rotterdam were able to spend today with their families, and we had hoped to meet the families of our cabin and table stewards, but we were so late returning from our tour that we missed that opportunity, although a few families were still waiting outside the security gate dockside. The sailaway party was held on Deck Three tonight, and I sampled an Indonesian beer while Squeekie had some kind of sweet drink with hard liquor.

I confess to having found Indonesia to be more interesting than I had expected, and would like to come back and discover more of it. I would like to sail past the island of Krakatoa which is all that remains of the volcano which blew up in 1888. But now we are looking forward to discovering China.