Even in Indonesia, a country where traditional religion often blends with superstition, the Javanese village of Solo stands out as the host of a strange pilgrimage. Once every 35 days, devout Muslims flock from across the archipelago to a hilltop shrine to commit adultery with strangers in the belief it will bring them good luck. Rebecca Henschke was there.

Solo, Java is the birthplace of radical Islamic preacher Abu Bakar Bashir, but it's also home to a very different face of modern Islam in Indonesia. Gunung Kemukus is a hilltop Islamic shrine near Solo where, every 35 days, Muslims from across Indonesia flock to conduct a ritual that involves adulterous sex.

As darkness shrouds the hillside, candles are lit and people sit on mats around the sacred dewadaru trees and the twisting roots of massive fig trees. There are lots of women standing by themselves and men in groups.

The single grave here is believed to hold the legendary prince Pangeran Samodro, son of a Javanese king, and his stepmother Nyai Ontrowulan. Legend has it that they ran away together and lived at Gunung Kemukus. It is believed that if you do something even more shameful there, like have adulterous sex, then you will be blessed with good fortune. It must be done on the auspicious day of Jumat Pon, when the Friday on the Gregorian calendar intersects with one of the five days of the ancient Javanese calendar.

They are small business people and if you ask them, they say it works, that before business was slow and now it's good. This is the work of Allah, through our traditional ways. Pak Slamat, pilgrim

The ritual involves first prayers and offerings of flowers at the grave of Pangeran Samodro and Nyai Ontrowulan. Pilgrims must then wash themselves at one of the sacred springs on the hill and find a stranger and have sex with them.

'The ritual at Gunung Kemukus is people have sex with someone who is not their husband or wife, it has to be a stranger, someone they have never met before,' says Koentjoro Soeparno, professor of sociology at the University of Gajah Mada.

'They need to do it on Jumat Pon and they need to do it seven times. That's every 35 days, so it's a relationship that lasts around a year. So the couples have to make a significant commitment to each other.'

'They need to exchange mobile phone numbers and addresses and decide where to meet again, so they can complete the ritual. Most people who do the ritual are small business owners. They hope that if they carry out the ritual their business will improve and they will make good money and be successful.'

At 8 pm it's become quite smoky inside the shrine. Pak Slamat is wearing a leather jacket and glasses, he's partly balding on top, has a moustache and is reading from the Koran. He's married but hasn't told his wife he is here because she wouldn't let him come. She thinks he has gone somewhere to pray.

'In all the rooms around here there are couples,' he says. 'They are small business people and if you ask them, they say it works, that before business was slow and now it's good. This is the work of Allah, through our traditional ways.'

'I am keen to do the ritual; it's just a matter of finding someone who wants the same thing. It's an agreement between two people. I am concerned about what's inside their heart; it's not just about their appearance. Our inner motivation must be the same.'

Ibu Winda is a grandmother in her early sixties and is dressed up in a gold jacket with flowers, a short mini-skirt and leather jacket. For makeup she wears bright red lipstick and has powdered her face. She runs a small food stall in her home town and has been coming here for 10 years to meet one man, Pak Haji from Semarang.

'He said that if I was with him here for at least three years then he would take me to Mecca with him to do the Hajj pilgrimage. He even came looking for me in my home town,' she says.

'But I have a family, so we just talk on the phone. When we come here we act like husband and wife. Ever since I have come here to be with him business has been good, praise be to Allah.'

But tonight she sits in a corner of the shrine staring off into space. Pak Haji hasn't turned up and she can't contact him.

By 10 pm it's very dark and near the area around the grave of Pangeran Samodro is full of older people, some women with headscarfs, others with barely any clothes on and a lot of middle aged men in leather jackets. Everyone is starting to pair up now underneath the trees and they will spend the night here.

This ritual isn't Islam as most would recognize it. Instead, it's Kejawen, a mix of Islam with earlier Hindu, Buddhist and traditional beliefs that is typical in Indonesia and especially Java. What is truly surprising, though is that even while Indonesia steadily shifts towards more orthodox Islam, the ritual on Gunung Kemukus is exploding in popularity.

'Indonesia is amazing because whatever religion comes into Indonesia it changes its colour,' says Koentjoro Soeparno. 'The Islam is not just Islam like it is in Arab countries, Hinduism is different here to what it is in India, Buddhism is different from China, the Catholic Church is different from in Rome.'

In recent years local government officials have been trying to promote a G-rated version of the ritual that is more in line with mainstream Islamic beliefs. According to M. Suparno, the co-coordinator of tourism at Gunung Kemukus, the government would prefer if people forgot about the sexual aspect of the ritual.

'This is a religious tourism site; religion is about beliefs and traditions including the beliefs of our forefathers.'

Traditions here move with the times. Since the 1990s Gunung Kemukus has also developed a red light district. As the night wears on people are heading into karaoke bars along the alleyways next to the shrine and the grave. In one bar six men sit on a sofa watching a woman sing and dance in a very sexual way.

'It used to be very different,' says Professor Koentjoro. 'Before people would really have ritual sex, but they were having sex out in the open and the local government decided that was not a good idea so they built bamboo huts around the shrine. But as a result prostitution grew.'

Professor Koentjoro estimates that about half of the women who show up on the mountain are now commercial sex workers, while another 25 per cent are part-timers like 27-year-old Liat.

'I have just come here on the ritual night with my three friends,' says Liat. 'A friend of mine told me about working here. They said you can make around one million rupiah in a night, I need that kind of money, so I tried it and found out that you can make quite a lot.'

Each man she sleeps with pays her around $10. On a good night she goes home with $100.

'I am just a normal housewife I have a three year old daughter but my husband doesn't earn enough to support our family, we are always fighting,' she says. 'So I decided to do this. My husband is a builder in Jakarta and only comes home once every two months, so he doesn't know what I am doing. I would never work like this in the city, I do it here because this is a special place.'

Mystic Mountains Sunday 23 March 2014 Javanese Muslims have ritual sex with strangers at Mount Kemukus because it brings them good luck. More

Since the fall of the Suharto regime in 1998, religiously-minded authorities have cracked down on many legal red-light districts. Gunung Kemukus has come to be seen as a safe place. When word got out recently that a radical vigilante group, the Islamic Defenders Front, was going to conduct a raid from Solo, the police showed up in force to protect the hill.

The shrine is too valuable to shut down, since local villagers levy a charge on every vehicle that enters the area. Pilgrims also pay 50 cents to the local government's tourism department, adding up to around $20,000 a year.

A few weeks ago the local government opened a health clinic in the nearest village specialising in sexually transmitted diseases. It also hands out free condoms and does HIV/AID tests.

'You have a tradition that has been around for years, you can't get rid of it, so you just have to deal with it, it's a tradition that's loved by lots of people,' says Mohammad Rahmat.

'Then prostitution grew out of that tradition and I thought we needed a clinic to deal with this. In the past official's tried to close their eyes to it and that's a negative response. I am proposing that with the clinic we turn a negative into a positive.'

In the ritual adultery of Gunung Kemukus, there are many ways to reach your goal. Women like Dian don't need to pay. Wearing a bright pink head scarf and jeans, she is surrounded by a group of middle aged men in leather jackets cloaked in a cloud of smoke.

She's brought with her the extra attraction of a meal of home cooked fried chicken and rice to share. She already completed the ritual, but has come back to give thanks.

'I came here because in the past my life was really hard,' she says. 'My husband left me and I have three children, two adopted ones and one that is ours.'

'My friends told me if I came here then my life would become easier. After coming here lots of things have changed, I feel like things are really easy now, not like before. There has been a result.'

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