Adrian Vickers' Indonesia blog

Went to the wonderful Gondng Baru sugar mill and sugar museum at Klaten today. I thought that viewing all those fabulous Dutch photographs of the interiors of sugar factories would have prepared me for the experience, but it was truly awesome. This is one of the very few working sugar factories left in Java, as many closed down during the Asian Crisis. As readers of G. Rodger Knight will know, this factory dates back to 1868 (that’s what it says on the chimney anyway), and all the old Dutch machinery is still working. Apparently they even have people come out from Europe from time to time to service it (to be more correct, some of the machinery is French and English, the trains for pulling the cane cars were made in Germany, Ornstein, Berlijn-Amsterdam-Batavia). With the usual Javanese ingenuity, machinery is patched up, and some things are very run down, that is some of the machinery has thick coatings of sugary grease. But still the milling goes on around the clock.

Occupational health and safety? What’s that? You walk along the gantries past all the moving parts (keep your hands in your pockets), churning pistons, massive wheels, grinding teeth of giant cogs, while everyone else is walking around with bare feet. No wonder they have to have big selamatans with slaughtered buffalo, reyog dancers and other offerings (I refer everybody to the article by John Pemberton in the festschrift for Ben Anderson if they want to read more on that subject).

Down below the furnaces are people standing all day in smoke-filled chambers removing ash and throwing water on it from a channel of water diverted past the area. The place was peopled by characters so colourful they put Johnny Depp’s pirate in the shade. In the crushing areas the smell is almost vomitously sweet, but it improves over the other side where the refining goes on. It’s stunning to see so much steam-driven machinery in operation, a kind of decadent industrial setting, with rusted old hunks waiting on the side to be refurbished to replace other parts, and a machine shed out the back with solid old working lathes.

Highly recommended for a visit, just on the road to Solo. You have to actually find the juru kunci to get into the Museum and get the guided tour, but well worth the trouble.