March 22, 2016- Central Java, Indonesia: The Celestial Yardbird.

“So I’m working on getting over my fear of heights. Today I wandered into an abandoned prayer house which was built after “a man received a vision from God to create a giant bird as a place of prayer” besides that there isn’t a lot of history behind this quirky prayer house, lost in the middle of the jungle. Anyway, back to my fear of heights.. This church is massive, and it’s currently under construction due to the crumbling structure. The stairs are held up by bamboo and the basement (home to many bats, another fear of mine but I’ll get to that eventually) is in shambles. Inside of the beak there is an observation point, there’s also another ladder leading up to the crown. When I first approached the bird, the last thing I wanted to do was climb into its beak but after a few (extreme) pep talks and 20 minutes of white-knuckling the bamboo railings this girl made it to the beak and then crawled up to the crown.

TLDR: today I conquered my fear of heights after climbing a massive, godly bird in the middle of an Indonesian jungle.” 

Photo Credit goes to the Interwebz

Backstory: I was couchsurfing near Yogyakarta with a new host named Isa, he did not speak much English and my Indonesian was limited to the basics. With that being said, communicating ideas and plans was NOT an easy task. He explained that we were going for a short drive to a hostel near the site, and we would wake up early for sunrise. Next thing I know, I’m on the back of a motorbike for about an hour and we arrive at a small home stay way outside of town.

As we planned, we were up an hour before sunrise and we started to trek up the mountain towards a wonderful vantage point of Borobudur. My host kept pointing at something far off in the distance but I couldn’t quite figure out what he was trying to show me.

Fast forward to later that afternoon: After wandering around Borobudur for a few hours, I was absolutely exhausted. The Indonesian sun was merciless and I was definitely in need for some nasi goreng. He told me that he was going to take me to a church, I agreed and once again, we were off. The trail was entirely uphill and led into the jungle. We walked for about 20 minutes, I was hungry and drenched in sweat. I saw a giant blue and white structure appearing through the trees. I squinted a bit harder and it started to take the shape of a chicken. Was I starting to hallucinate?

Nope, within minutes I was standing in front of a massive prayer house taking the shape of a godly chicken in the middle of an Indonesian jungle. This is what my host was trying to explain to me and this was what he was pointing at earlier. A giant celestial yardbird.

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