Borobudur

Day 12 - Borobudur

Borobudur

Borobudur is really unbelievable. We left the room at 6 AM and walked to the temple. Borobudur is a Buddhist temple. The Prambanan Temple is Hindu. The temple are very different but somewhat similar. Borobudur is much larger and grander but there is only one temple on the sight instead of 200+ like Prambanan Temple. There are two other temples associated with Borobudur but they are some distance away from this complex. There are 10 levels to the temple. Each level is a contains a complex number of relief carvings that tell stories.

Each story is new study in the character of people. As the pilgrim to the temple studies the carvings and attains understanding on one level they may move up to the next and start the process again. When the reach the 9th level there are few carvings and enlightenment is near. There are more than 200 statues of Buddha contained in the temple. Many in different poses indicating levels of understanding. We spent more than two hours here and didn’t begin to comprehend all that was going on in this temple. Restoration of the temple is an ongoing process. Many of the stones with relief carving on them have been lost or destroyed over time and are filled in with blank stones of a similar look. The same happens with stones from the ramparts. I am in awe of what people have been able to do through the millennia without the benefit of modern technology.


Returning to the hotel, we ate breakfast (which was very good). Got everything ready to go and checked out about noon. Rizcky went to pray and Bonnie, Finanda, and I went to see a video about the temple. It would have been better to see the video before we went to the temple but, oh well.

Finanda and Rizcky were heading back to Bekasi this evening so we went back to The 101. The hotel we stayed in earlier in the week. It was nice and a known commodity. We left Finanda in tears from our parting. We will see them again the last weekend we are in country. We had dinner in the hotel and made reservations for a hike on Merapi volcano for the next morning.