Day 89 - Solo: batik, murals and tofu - Unfinished Business

July 28, 2023

Day 89 - Solo: batik, murals and tofu

What's the etiquette in a cycling blog? I have wondered this several times on this ride. Should one go quiet on days of sightseeing to avoid offending those interested in distance ridden, average speeds, metres climbed, etc? Or is it fine to report it all, with days off the bike being part of the overall tour? If it's nothing more than a ride then I struggle to see the point. Surely, it's about seeing, with a bike moving at an ideal speed to see. For me, this adds a political angle to bicycle touring - poverty, disadvantage, advertising, garbage, pollution, traffic chaos, roadkill and, dare I say, elections.

One of the things I wanted to do in Indonesia was to have a day or two here in Solo. I wondered whether I was making a mistake as I rode into the chaos yesterday. But, I at least wanted to see the famed House of Danar Hadi batik museum.

It's just a short walk from Istana Griya 2 Hotel to the museum. Danar Hadi is also the largest manufacturer of batik, employing more than a thousand workers.

It's set up very well. You pay an entry fee and that includes an excellent guided tour through a dozen rooms containing exquisite fabric and clothing. We're talking of clothing that royalty wear at their coronation and fabric that dates to the start of batik in the 17th century. There's batik from different parts of Java and with differing influences - Dutch (lots of flowers), Chinese and even Japanese, a consequence of the occupation from 1941-5.

There's also a good display of the techniques - the only room where one may photograph and touch. One wonders who came up with a technique that demands so much time and precision. It's no wonder that genuine batik is now rare and expensive. Simple batik prints have replaced them.

An old copper stamp, one of the first methods used to speed production.

A piece of cloth in the first stage of production. The wax is a masking agent so that areas that are not painted with wax will receive whatever colour is being applied. After three weeks, the wax is scraped off with a coin and the process begins anew with the next colour.

Another piece of cloth further down the production line.

On the surface, Solo might look like another chaotic Asian city but it's pretty obvious that it's far more than that. The words art and activism come to mind. The murals alone convey that message. Here's a few examples from my short walk to the batik museum.

I love this one. I watched a gecko perch on Boris's head.

Ruwatan is a Javanese purification ritual to release an evil spirit.

That was my morning gone! I returned to the hotel and got talking to Wahyu, one of the staff. One thing led to another and he asked if I'd like to go to his relatives' tofu factory. As someone who has eaten a lot of tofu and made it, I leapt at the chance. I had no idea of the scale of the operation, the degree of mechanization and so forth. I'd find out!

We jumped on Wahyu's scooter and got among the traffic, eventually turning down a lane to his home. Everything in Asia seems hidden in lanes, including tofu factories. I always miss them when I leave.

Wahyu - another of these people who gets such joy from pleasing people. You should have seen the smile on his face when I told him that I have made tofu.

This factory, to my delight, was fully manual - a scaled up version of my apparatus. From about 8 until 3 each day, Heri turns 100 kg of soybeans into tofu. He's off delivering it to a market at 2 am. He laughed when I asked him when he slept. Here it is in pictures. It would be closed down yesterday in Australia!

The lane; the factory is at the far end.

Tofu requires heat. This powerplant burns garbage to heat a 200 L drum of water. The steam produced heats the soybean "milk". Burning plastic is not a good idea but neither is tossing it in the sea.

Heri and I standing in front of the grinder that's processing the soaked beans into soybean milk.

Boiling the soymilk with steam on the left, before straining it on the right. It's 34 C this afternoon in Solo.

Adding salt water to the strained milk to produce curds.

Transferring curds to trays for pressing

Transferring a pressed block of tofu to the cutting bench.

One of the rules of food production is that there will always be some waste, even in Indonesia. In this case, the waste recycling centre is adjacent to the factory. This may be frowned upon in Australia.

A late thought - a little something for you carnivores, if waste recyclers weren't enough.

You could dine in Solo and it would be just like being at home.

I leave you with my cyclist of the day and a note that I managed to delete my red tie photo from yesterday's blog. I have now restored it.

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Graham SmithIan I greatly enjoyed today’s journal update. Especially the tofu production.

This locally made protein source must cost a tiny amount compared to an equivalent weight of imported beef.
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9 months ago

Ian WallisTo Graham SmithGraham, pleased you enjoyed the blog. No doubt the tofu is much cheaper than any meat. It's well known that meat consumption increases with wealth. Ian
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9 months ago

Jackie LaycockHi Ian, from my "non-cyclist" point of view, it's the whole experience, not just the kilometres travelled. So please continue sharing your journey, traffic jams, days off, visits to museums and tofu factories - the lot!
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9 months ago