Wax, dye, wax again. What a week in a Yogyakarta workshop teaches you about patience, and about why hand-drawn batik costs what it costs.
Batik tulis, hand-drawn batik, is made with a canting, a small copper pen that holds molten wax. You draw the parts you want to stay uncoloured, dye the cloth, then draw again for the next colour.
A single length of cloth can take a skilled maker two months. Once you have spent an afternoon failing to draw one clean line, the price tags in the shops on Malioboro start to look very different.
Kotagede, the old silver quarter southeast of the Kraton, still has working studios that will take visitors for a morning or a week.
Bring clothes you do not mind ruining. Everyone says this. Nobody believes it until the second day.
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