Before coming to Singapore I had never even heard of the Borobudur Temple which is a Buddhist monument in central Java and another UNESCO World Heritage Site. I kept hearing about it in glowing terms and as it is only a 90 minute flight away I was keen to make a visit there.
Recently it was the end of Ramadan or Hari Raya Puasa (also known as Hari Raya Aidilfitri or Eid depending on which part of the world you are in) therefore a time for celebrating and another public holiday so a good opportunity to go away for the weekend.
We flew to Yogyakarta and were met by the hotel car and driver who asked if we would like to stop on the way to the hotel to see a temple, we of course said yes thinking it would be a brief stop to a minor temple. We were wrong, the Prambanan temple complex was spectacular and huge.
Built around 900AD it is the largest Hindu compound in South East Asia and has 3 main temples for Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma, 3 smaller temples and is surrounded by 224 Perwara (shrines)
The sculptural detail is incredible
Close to Prambanan Hindu temple and in the same grounds lies Candi Sewu, a Buddhist temple dating from the 8th century, also under restoration from the damage it sustained in the 2006 earthquake
The whole site is in the shadow of Gunung Merapi. This 2930m mountain is still an active volcano and regularly erupts. The last eruption was in 2010, 30 people died
After a couple of hours we were hot and tired and ready to go to the hotel, we walked through the souvenir stalls selling many products made from the local lava stone
and past shops selling food and drinks
Our hotel; Villa Borobudur, had come highly recommended as a calm oasis with stunning views, perched high up on the hillside overlooking Borobudur, Mount Sumbing and Mount Merapi. It was perfect. The road up to it was incredibly steep, so much so that our driver apologised when he had to turn the A/C off to give the car more oomph to make it to the top
All the dining areas are open plan and even in the bedrooms A/C is not required as the breeze keeps visitors cool-well relatively so.
The dining area is beautifully decorated with local furnishings and art works
and local musical instruments
and tigers on guard
All the buildings, called joglos, are made from hand carved teak. Our bedroom was beautiful and had an open air bathroom with dragon head shower!
All meals are included when you stay here and the food was delicious and plentiful so it was probably a good thing that we had quite a bit of exercise climbing up and down the steps every time we went to our room, the dining area or the pool
As soon as it started to get dark loud bangs could be heard and frequent fireworks seen below us, the locals were celebrating the end of Ramadan, we also could hear the 'call to prayer' from at least 5 different mosques, all these sounds lasted until at least 1am!
The next morning we were woken at 4am in order to drive down to the valley, walk through the temple grounds in torchlight and climb the steps to the top of the temple to watch the sunrise
It was a watery sunrise and too cloudy to see the volcanoes clearly in the distance but it was certainly worth the effort of getting up so early
As it got lighter we were able to explore this huge site. Borobudur was built about 800AD but was abandoned soon after completion and lay forgotten until Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (him again) in 1815 ordered for the site to be reclaimed from the jungle. Restoration did not commence until the early 20th century and UNESCO sponsored a US$25 million restoration project in the 1970-80s.
72 Buddha images are partially visible through the lattice stupas, 1has been left uncovered
432 more Buddha images sit in open chambers above sculptured panels
Borobudur is built from 2 million blocks in the form of a massive stupa wrapped around a small hill. As this hill had become waterlogged over the years and the structure was collapsing the restoration project in the 1970's involved dismantling most of it, stone by stone, adding foundations and a drainage system and replacing all the stones in the same place-what an incredible feat
In 1985 further damage was caused to Borobudur when political activists exploded bombs on the upper terrace and then in 2010 Merapi volcano erupted again covering the monument with a thick layer of dust and blocking the drainage system. It seems like this temple needs constant repairs and restoration!
By now it was getting very hot and the hordes of day time visitors had arrived so we headed back to the hotel for breakfast and a bit of relaxing but I soon got bored and decided to go for a walk. Behind our hotel was a path, I was told it went to the top of Menorah hill.
It was really steep the whole way up and hard, sweaty walking. Near the top was a small village
Behind the village the path continued up, it had steps cut out of the soil and went to the top of the hill
The views were far reaching and almost 360 degrees, Mount Sumbing is just visible through the heat haze
clearly visible were the patch work rice paddies and other fields in the valley
On my way back down (which was almost as hard work as the path was so steep and slippery) I met this man who kindly agreed to me taking a photo of him with fodder he had just cut for his livestock, he seemed to take little effort in walking up the hill
Back at the hotel I was now ready to relax!
In the afternoon NT was keen to go into the village of Borobudur to visit some art galleries as they have a reputation of having good local art.
The driver took us back down the steep track to the valley. The result of the bangs we had heard last night could be seen all over the place-the homemade 'bombs' explode firing out bits of paper. Alongside the road there were also trays of cloves drying in the sun
...and fields of tobacco I hadn't realised that Java is such a huge producer of tobacco
We visited several galleries, met some interesting people including a man that had a house full of dogs, cats and even a caged monkey, he had tried to release back into the wild but it came back!
He had a pretty garden area with this lovely Passionflower and a sweetly scented tree he called the Ghost Tree, he gave me some seeds to try growing at home. We hadn't found any art work we liked enough to buy but at least I have some seeds which if they grow will be a good memento.
On our last night the hotel put on a celebration meal for all it's guests. We had a selection of delicious Indonesian specialities normally only served at weddings and celebrations. They also surprised us with a lovely cake for our anniversary
After dinner there was a display of local dancing, a deck had been specially laid over part of the swimming pool. The dancers were not wearing costumes that had been painted green!
On our final morning I woke up just in time to catch the sunrise from our verandah and this time there was a very good view of Mount Sumbing rising out of the mist.
We really enjoyed our time in Java and left wanting to return another time to see more of this beautiful and fascinating country. I would love to climb to the top of Merapi volcano which I'm told is possible unless the it starts showing signs of erupting again.
Looks amazing! :-)
ReplyDeleteAli x