While we were out in the Yogyakarta countryside near Borobodur, we made a few local excursions, one of which was to the pottery village. We weren’t really sure what to expect, or even necessarily where to go. We simply saw on a map that was provided to us that there was one and that is was free to go.

Edit – We would have never found this place had we not stayed with our host through Airbnb. This place was not advertised, just locally recommended. Another great reason to avoid hotels and stay with the people who actually live where you’re visiting.

Pottery Village Yogyakarta

Venturing Out Into Authentic Java

This far out from the main city, we really were in an area of cottage-industry. Individual villages specialized in various textiles and goods, and they traded amongst themselves and to the local markets for a living. We borrowed a motorbike from our hosts and off we went. The drive was pleasant and charming, driving among rice paddies and farms, while jungle mountains towered around us.

We began to think that we had missed it, or that we had gone the wrong way after driving for around fifteen minutes (the hand-drawn map made it look closer), but we finally came across a sign that said “pottery village” and pointed right. The road didn’t look very promising, but we decided to give it a shot.

Just Pull Off To The Side

What we found once we made it down, was a road lined with homes and the residents were all out in their yards or homes making pottery. The village was literally a pottery village. We felt a little uncomfortable wandering around, but most of the locals were quite friendly. Some ignored us and went about their work, and one woman even offered to show Briana how to use a throwing wheel. Briana declined but did ask to take a picture of her working.

Pottery, The Traditional Way

It was interesting to see the numerous pots fired. They did not have a kiln to work with, so instead, they laid down a large mat of straw, placed the pottery on top of the straw, then covered it in more straw.

Promptly lighting the straw ablaze and fanning the flames with some sort of cloth fan, the heat quickly rose. They continued to add the straw and adjust the fire until the pieces were fired. I’m sure it was a much longer process than we witnessed as we were only there for about twenty minutes.

We would have liked to purchase a piece, as it did look like it was good quality, but we just don’t have the ability to carry around heavy pieces of pottery nor ship it back.

Don’t Be Afraid To Explore

We had also wanted to visit the tofu factory on this visit but decided to skip it. While we were able to deal with watching people in their yards from the street – we just couldn’t bring ourselves to go to the tofu “factory”. It appeared to quite literally be someone’s home from which they made tofu, and we really didn’t want to just walk in and be like “Hey, show us how you make this.” All in all, though, it was a fun and interesting adventure to see the daily life of rural Indonesians.

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