We are on a painting expedition moving between Borobudur and a hotel-restaurant called Puri Menoreh in Magelang. Borobudur because Kartika has never painted it before and she has long wanted to. She said that her father Affandi was able to make a painting of it, but she only now at age 80 feels ready to attempt it. The attraction of Borobudur, the massive, 9th century Buddhist stupa/temple - the largest Buddhist monument in the world - with its 2672 intricately carved stone, relief panels and its 504 statues of the Buddha, is obvious. The attraction of the Puri Menoreh hotel-restaurant less so, but there is a pond here with unusual lotus flowers that stay open all day (rather than typical lotus flowers that are only open in the morning) and Kartika has a vision of depicting Borobudur among these flowers. So we have been moving back and forth between the two locations which are about 4 - 5 kms apart.

We have stayed the past 3 days at a hotel on the grounds of Borobudur which was originally housing for researchers living on-site. Now the place resembles more a kind of international country club for well-heeled tourists, but it was certainly wonderful for me waking up in the morning just a short stroll from a magnificent, awe-inspiring, world-heritage monument with a full-access pass. Now we have taken up residence at Puri Menoreh where the people are very nice and the home-cooking is great, and which is surrounded on three sides by wet rice fields full of ducks and frogs, and the aforementioned ponds with lovely flowers, but which fronts on to a relentlessly busy and noisy road. I am sitting in their open-air restaurant right now, and the full-volume din of the Indonesian soccer on TV almost drowns out the traffic. Tomorrow morning we return to Borobudur where Kartika has stored three half-finished canvasses. And then I suppose we come back here for more work on the flowers. How long this process will go on nobody knows. I asked her "Why Borobudur among flowers?" She said "That is the way I want to see it."

First she sketched Borobudur, then she brought the quick painting here and actually placed it among the flowers, and started painting the flowers on a second, larger canvas. I asked her if she could work from photos, and offered to photograph the flowers, thinking to spare this 80-year-old who gets around with the aid of a wheelchair the bother of moving between the two locations. But she said that was impossible, she needed the feeling of the place. Today she returned to Borobudur and started adding the temple to the flowers on the large canvas. And she started a second large canvas with her face among the flowers looking up at the temple. So in three days she has started three paintings, and tomorrow we continue...

Special mention should be made of Kartika's daughter Lulu who cares for Kartika setting up shade-umbrellas and anticipating her mother's needs, and her husband Momi who stretches the canvases and chauffeurs the expedition, and who joins in himself painting while Kartika works. Without their affection for Kartika and enthusiasm for her work none of this would be possible.