The evening was fantastic, and there was a feeling of instant friendship among all the professors & speakers. Were it not for the strange 10 minute rant from the vice Governor of West Java about how America is responsible for all the problems of the world in his closing ceremony speech, the whole event would have been blemish free. Maybe he was just exercised over President Bush’s planned visit to his province in 2 weeks.

No worries.
Prof. Wheeler and I had already hammered out most of the details of our follow-on trip through Yogya to Borobudur and Prambanan, with stops at the Kraton and the ancient Imogiri burial grounds for the Mataram kings (a lineage which continues through the current Sultan of Yogya and Solo.) Two of our new friends, Jalil Nozari (Iran) and Carool Kersten (Dutch) were interested in going too