After the lively debate on the validity of our hotel booking ended with the agent showing up, we were escorted to our rooms by a bell boy. Not even sempat to tell the bell boy no need to carry our luggage, the fella already back packed my luggage and dragged cousin Rain's trolley bag. Damn fast.. so end up we paid him a tip. Actually I don't really know if I should pay but we were thinking 4 star hotel, so we paid.
My first 4 star hotel room..
After bouncing on the lovely bed a few times we made me our way to the Ramayana Ballet. The agent graciously volunteered to send us to the theatre since it was his fault we missed the free pickup bus. Ramayana is a classic Hindu movie, eh no.. classic Hindu story. It was all over Sejarah Tingkatan 5. Unfortunately I don't remember this either ha ha ha... I only remembered Karma Sutra and I doubt they will have a Karma Sutra ballet anytime soon. A pity...
Before the show starts, you get to enjoy a buffet. Of course you need to pay extra for the buffet. Then you were escorted to this open air amphitheatre. The air is balmy but quite humid. Sweated a bit watching the entire show. Some where along the show some
Anyway, the movie started of with some gamelan that goes ting ting tong tong and some traditional singing which sounded like some ghost who accidently slam the car door on his fingers. Sorry, I really don't know how to appreciate that kind of singing. I preferred the Chinese Opera with the tok tok chiang anytime. After a while a narrator came out and brief us on the summary of the story. His role a bit redundant in my opinion because they actually gave handouts prior to show and the narrator has an accent worse than the 2 year old baby that my mother is baby sitting.
The stage..
The condensed version of the story is about Rama Wijaya in short Ramaya got a beautiful wife Shinta. As you know pretty woman sure bring a lot of envy and among those who are envious is the evil king Rahwana. So, one day when Mr and Mrs Rama went pak to in the forest with his brother, Laksamana, Rahwana kebetulan was there also. He turn one of his ma chai into a golden deer and go tempt Shinta. Being the typical woman Shinta ask Rama to kejar the deer. So Rama go kejar. After some time the brother also have to go looking for the older brother cause the older brother tak balik balik. Being the opportunist, that he is, Bahwana, the evil king took the opportunity to kidnap Shinta. So when Rama and the brother come back, girl was gone. So they went looking for Shinta and met the monkey king Hanuman. So they helped Hanuman and in return Hanuman helped them. This is call symbiosis. To cut the story short, they had a big war with lots of fireworks, evil king died and they live happily ever after, after Shinta prove her purity by sitting in the fire. Men... they fight to death for the girl then they don't want the girl cause they doubt her purity...
When you ask a Javanese what is Ramayana all about, they will tell you it's a Romeo and Juliet story. If you ask me, it's a totally wrong description, cause I don't remember seeing a talking monkey in Romeo and Juliet.
Anyway, the story itself was told in a dance, hence the title Ramayana Ballet. No one did any talking unless you count the wailing woman who was also known as sinden (gamelan singer). And the dancers are not full time dancers. The dance itself was actually performed by the art students from the Universities. Of course they have to be top of the class to earn the chance to perform and I gotta said, it's one damn good performance for amateurs. The effects aren't too shabby either especially the part where the Hanuman played with fireballs. Those are really fire. He got a big applause for the stunt too.
The cast, from left to right, Bahwana, Ramaya, Shinta, Hanuman
After the show I came to the conclusion that tube tops come from Indonesia.
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