Week 12 -- Borobudur Temple and Yogyakarta

I was glad to get away from the office last weekend since I've been stressing myself out over finishing the website. I made plans to meet Lis, a former employee of LATIN, in Yogyakarta in Central Java. Called Yogya for short, it's like the cultural capital of Indonesia. There are a lot of universities and colleges in the city, as well as musicians and artists. Although I was only there for two days and one night I could feel that this was a very cool city and I would love to spend more time there.

I took an overnight train from Jakarta on Friday night. It was an "Eksecutif" train, but third class, which meant that our seats reclined and there was A/C, but just about everything else was broken. Even though everyone was sleeping under their tissue-thin blankets they still left the lights on for the whole trip. I knew I wouldn't get much sleep, so I had a book to read.

The first thing we did once I had arrived in Yogya was head to Borobudur Temple. I've always liked Buddhism since I visited the Deer Park in Sarnath in India, where the Buddha gave his first sermon, so I really enjoyed visiting such an important Buddhist temple. Unfortunately it was very crowded since it was a Saturday. Most tourists just used the main staircase to get to the top as fast as they could, but we took the proper route which is to circle the temple clockwise one level at a time until you reach the top. The sculptures along the walls tell a story and you can only follow the story if you follow this route. On our way up we had time and space to look at whatever we wnated, but once we reached the top the crowds made it difficult to see everything or get a photo without a bunch of tourists in the frame. On the way out we had to go through a maze of souvernir stalls that seemed endless until you got to the end. We were also invited to attend the festival of a million candles that was happenning that night, which we graciously accepted before heading back to Yogya. It was easier to just not show-up then explain that we were actually planning on going to a performance at another temple on the other side of Yogya.

Now I can check off another of the Wonders of the World from my list of things to see. I've seen four of the Forgotten Wonders from the list hyper-linked above, four of the Modern Wonders and one Natural Wonder. Post a comment and tell me how many you can check off.

After lunch we headed for the next temple, this one was Hindu and there was supposed to be a musical performance going on but we were too late. We had to sneak in to get a look at the temple before the sun went down and then security kicked us out.

That night I found a nice restaurant near my hotel with a band playing while I ate dinner. There were a few other foreigners there and the menu had both Indonesian and western food. I had a steak, my first in months, and a couple of beers. The whole thing cost me less than US $5 before the tip. I was hoping to check out the nightlife in Yogya but I found myself dozing off in my chair at the restaurant so I headed back to my hotel and crashed out.

Lis and I spent all day Sunday in Yogya visiting the King's Palace and the shopping markets. Apparently Yogya has a king and visitors can come to his palace. The markets were pretty crowded with shoppers and merchandise. I bought a batik shirt and some other stuff, as well as oleh-oleh (= gifts) for everybody back in Bogor. I got 2.5 kilograms of salak, a fruit with a snake-like skin. Uti mentioned to me that the salak from Yogya is very good so I figured they would appreciate me picking some up. It has a taste that reminds me of Jolly Ranchers, not any specific flavour just the sweetness of Jolly Ranchers in general.

Eventually it was time to hop the train back to Jakarta, which was surprisingly on time. I got into Jakarta at 5:30 am and then another train back to Bogor and I was home at 10am Monday morning. After dropping off my film to get developed and dropping off the oleh-oleh for my friends at the office I was in need of some serious sleep.

For more pics from my day at Borobudur Temple go to my online photo albums.