Temple and Time Off

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Arrived here in Borobudur on a $36, 1.5 hour flight from Jakarta. $36! There was even a snack service!

Actually arrived in Yogyakarta, a 1.5 hour bus ride from Borobudur. Booked a Javanese style guesthouse which is a great relief from Jakarta. There’s still motorcycle noise, since motorcycles are the primary form of transportation here, but little traffic. The air is clean. The primary noise comes from calls to prayer which come from several mosques nearby. There are rice fields just across the street. Temperature is cooler, a nice relief from the hot weather so far since I left SF. Borobudur is just a 20 minute walk away.

Decided to get Borobudur out of the way the next morning at sunrise. 4 AM wake up. 4:30 AM at Borobudur.

Borobudur is a 9th century Buddhist Temple. It is mentioned as one of Asia’s great temple sights. Climbing it while still dark, it’s impossible to tell why. Even at sunrise from the top, the attraction isn’t clear. It is not until I walked down and around in daylight that the importance of the sight is clear. It is surrounded by almost 1500 narrative panels, many well preserved.

Borobudur was abandoned in the 14th Century, either due to an eruption of the nearby volcano or as a natural result of a shift in faiths. It was largely reclaimed by the jungle until the British rediscovered it in the early 19th Century during their rule of Java. It went through a massive reconstruction and preservation beginning in 1975.
After the Temple, there’s little else to do here, so it is a good place to relax after the craziness of China and Jakarta.

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