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Published: February 20th 2007
Mystic Sunrise
over BorobudurA white mist shrouds the plain and the first birdcalls across the valleys announce the imminent arrival of another dawn. Slowly the mist dissipates in the rising sun to reveal the spires and Buddhas that meditate in bliss and gradually the forms coalesce to unveil a temple that many who have seen it, consider to be the finest example of Buddhist architecture ever raised to the sky by man - the magnificent temple of Borobudur.
Few sights on this planet can compare to the misty sunrise over Borobudur, the world's largest Buddhist temple, one of the three wonders of Southeast Asia - along with Myanmar's Bagan and Cambodia's Angkor Wat.
- Yogyakarta - Kumiko and I left the Tengger Caldera Plateau and returned to Probolinggo (the city of mangos), where we decided to split as Kumiko was going directly to Jakarta for arranging an onward flight to Sri Lanka and I was heading for Yogyakarta and the infamous Borobudur temple. So we said goodbye at the bus station, not knowing that we would meet again in less then an hour.
I bought a bus ticket to Yogyakarta and Kumiko was going to take the bus to
Morning
Borobodur Surabaya and then continuing by train to Jakarta. But out of the sudden a man came to me and told me to come with him as my bus to Yogyakarta was not coming, and that I should take a bus to Surabaya, so when I got on the bus there was Kumiko sitting and joking: "Are you missing me that quickly!?"
Anyways, we ended up taking a train together from Surabaya to Jakarta via Yogyakarta, where I finally bid farewell to Kumiko and continued my journey alone. Kumiko was a nice travel companion, I enjoyed my time with her, so that it felt a bit strange to be a solo traveller again, but then the show or in this case, the journey must go on.
Yogyakarta (some people call it Jogja, Jogjakarta, or Yogya) is a city with outstanding historical and cultural heritage. More than the cultural heritages, Yogyakarta has beautiful natural panorama. Green rice fields cover the suburban areas with a background of the beautiful Merapi volcano and natural beaches can be easily found to the south of the city.
The speciality of Yogyakarta is based on its culture and belief. Even though Islam as the
Blue
Borobodur major religion most of festivals are descended from Hindu. Nearby you will find the greatest Budha and Hindu Temples (Borobudur and Prambanan). The Javanese people believe that the centre of universe replicated into their kingdom and surounding. The Palace, sea (Segara Kidul), mountain (Mt Merapi) and elements of nature were a system that create a balance and protect each other.
Most Yogyans and Javanese are Muslims, but their faith remains peppered with mystical beliefs, which ware reflected in Wayang kulit - shadow-puppet shows.
Shadow Puppet performances have become a part of Indonesia’s cultural heritage. The puppets are lovingly handcrafted out of buffalo or goatskin with moveable limbs that are worked by a highly skilled puppeteer from behind a backlit screen, casting the shadows of the puppets into a spellbinding story. The puppeteer is usually the director, producer and main narrator of the shadow world. The stories have their origins in classic Hindu mythologies and Ramayana tales and are narrated in the local dialects.
So before I came to Indonesia, I really wanted to watch one of the shows. But it turned out to be one of the most boring things I have ever done. At the beginning
of the show there were about 30 people (tourists) in the audience. Then at the end, after just 2 hours instead of normally 5-7hours, there were just 2 left, a Japanese guy who fell asleep and me. I think it's difficult for foreigners to find the beauty in Wayang kulit, as you don't understand what the puppeteer is talking and what the choir is singing about, and you have no idea about the story and the mythology. so sometimes the puppets don't move like for 5-10minutes. In short, it's quite a task for people to stay in a show until the end - nevertheless an experience I don't want to miss.
After the show I walked around the city and bumped into three guys from Israel and Spain and 2 girls from France. They told me that they were going to climb the Merapi volcano, leaving in about 2 hours at 1:00AM so that they can make it to the peak for watching the sunrise. As I have seen some marvelous pics of the sunrise from Merapi, I decided to join them and to climb that beautiful volcano.
- Merapi Volcano - "Can we climb this mountain!? I don't know. Higher now than ever before. I know we can make it if we take it slow. Let's take it easy, easy now, watch it go... We're burning down the highway skyline, on the back of a hurricane that started turning when you were young... when you were young...!!!" ("When we were young" by The Killers)
The Indonesian Archipelago is a very rich country because of its volcanoes. There are 100 volcanoes; among them 35 are active. Mt. Merapi is Java’s most potent mystical symbols of life and its truly one of the world’s most beautiful volcano’s, it is also one of the most active and destructive volcano’s in the world.
Our plan was to climb and hike through the depths of Kaliurang tropical rain forest through valley, gorge and river, enroute to the slope of Mearpi and catch some glimpses of bright orange lava fire.
The climb began in the middle of the night. We started from Selo, a small village on the northside of Merapi. It was the easiest route which should only take a few hours to get to the summit. But the weather was bad, after an hour it started
to rain heavily and we could hear thunders rumbling and see vivid flash of lightnings breaking through the night sky like sparkling giant snakes. We weren't really sure but now and then it felt like that the ground under our feet was shaking as if the storm had waken up the volcano, but then it could have only been the thunder rumble. We weren't sure, but somehow it felt like the world is going to fall apart into a million of pieces and then gonna be washed away by rain.
I had been in Indonesia for 10days and even though it was rainy season, I was lucky that it was actually the first time that it rained.
One of the Israelian guys brought his MP3 Player with him and waterproof, huge powerful speakers. As we decided to hide under a big tree for some shelter from the rain and the thunder, he turned on some music and it was banging through the darkness of the stormy night. It was odd but it turned out to be a music listening session in the middle of the night, in the middle of the jungle, sitting under a tree on the
northside of an active volcano...
When he played a song by The Killers we all sung along (or better screamed as loudly as we could):
"We're burning down the highway skyline, on the back of a hurricane that started turning when you were young... when you were young!!!" After that one of the French girls (who could speak German) said that she has a German song which she recorded from French (!!!) radio and that it would fit perfectly to the situation. I was curious to hear what she was going to play and then she turned on a song by Tokio Hotel, a German teenie rock band and probably the most succesful, most loved and most hated band in Germany these days. It was their first hit and the most sold single in 2006 an acoustic version of "Durch den Monsun" (Through the monsoon)... and we sung along:
"Ich warte schon 'ne Ewigkeit, endlich ist es jetzt soweit. Da draußen ziehn die schwarzen Wolken auf... - Chorus: Ich muss durch den Monsun, hinter die Welt, ans Ende der Zeit, bis kein Regen mehr fällt, gegen den Sturm, am Abgrund entlang, und wenn ich nicht mehr kann Misty
Borobudur denk ich daran, irgendwann... laufen wir zusammen... durch den Monsun... dann wird alles gut."
English Translation:
"I've already been waiting for an eternity, it's finally time now. Out there black clouds are gathering... - Chorus: I must (go) through the monsoon, behind the world, to the end of the time, until no more rain will fall. Against the storm, along the abyss and if I can´t (go on) anymore, I will remember... (that) one day we´ll run together... through the monsoon... then everything will be fine..."
I've never thought that I would ever sing along or write about a Tokio Hotel song, but actually it was the perfect song indeed.
Anyways, our singing was obviously lousy and didn't impressed the weather god at all, as the rain didn't stop and became even heavier, so that we finally made the decision to back off and to return to the city. The rain was so heavy that it made it difficult to climb on through tropical rain forest and muddy soil. In addition the danger of landslides which would just barry us alive, convinced us to let it be.
Therefore, I am sorry I can't offer you any
View
Borobudur marvelous volcano panorama sunrise pics.... as the volcano had spoken and denied us the access to its peak... call it bad luck or call it destiny - or simlpy the will of the volcano god!
- Borobudur - Another reason for coming to Indonesia was the marvelous and mistic Buddhist temple of Borobudur. It is a a stepped pyramid with a base measuring 120 metres square and a height of 35 metres, surrounded by an idyllic landscape of incomparable beauty of rice-terraced hills and overlooked by four volcanoes.
In the period 600 AD to 800 AD there was a golden age of temple construction throughout India, Ceylon and South East Asia. It was a time when Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms flourished and men raised magnificent monuments to heaven in praise of their gods with a burst of frenetic activity of cultural expression and devotion. After their periods of glory they sank into oblivion, either as a result of military conquest or natural disasters and their monuments were reclaimed by the jungle and lost to mankind for almost a thousand years.
Borobudur was built to resemble a microcosm of the universe and its purpose was to
Buddha
Borobudur provide a visual image of the teachings of the Buddha and show, in a practical manner, the steps through life that each person must follow to achieve enlightenment. The pilgrim to this shrine would first have been led around the base and shown the friezes, which illustrate the consequences of living in the World of Desire. In this realm ruled by Greed, Envy, and Ignorance, man is a slave to earthly desires and suffers from the illusions that are caused by these unfulfilled yearnings, a state regarded as hell by Buddhists. After completing this circuit, the pilgrim was then led in a clockwise fashion through five levels in a gradual ascension of the pyramid. Here he was shown how to conquer desire and attachment by viewing 1300 panelled friezes that illustrate the life of the Buddha and his previous incarnations. These levels were called the World of Form and correspond to the earthly realm in Buddhist symbology. The passages of both of these realms followed the square shape of the pyramid but above these two lay the World of Formlessness where the right-angled, heavily decorated passages gave way to a round unadorned summit where meditating Buddhas and saints sit in
Skyline
Borobudur supreme bliss contemplating a view of exquisite beauty. In the centre a bell shaped tower, or stupa, points to heaven, a blissful realm beyond form and concept, known as Nirvana.
Encompassing the totality of existence with its representations of heaven, earth, and hell in this metaphor of stone, the monument was abandoned after a severe earthquake and a large eruption of the volcano Merapi in 1006 AD until it was rediscovered by the West during colonial times. One of the miracles, perhaps equalling the miracle of its construction and craftsmanship, is that the monument still exists and can be seen to this day. This area of Java is one of the most earthquake prone regions in the world as well as one of the most volcanic. From the top of the temple, the volcano Merapi is easily visible, and had erupted on more than a few occasions during the last millennia.
Borobudur can truly be called one of the wonders of the world, one of those rare places where the compassionate, aesthetic beauty of mankind's nature can be glimpsed, a place where that centre of peace and stillness within us all can be felt, and a symbol of
Temple
Borobudur the imagination and industriousness of the human race.
Along with Myanmar's Bagan, Borobudur was the archaelogical highlight of this trip...
To be continued… next - The last Chapter: Philippines - The gentle Giants...
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James
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STUNNING Photos!!!