Yogyakarta

Yogyakarta

We didn’t stay in Jakarta for long, it was a bit too chaotic and too big a city to want to linger in.  We decided to move onto Yogyakarta, a much smaller city and Java’s cultural capital.  It’s also very close to some ancient temple sights, Prambanan and Borobudur. 

Much like Jakarta, Yogyakarta had a back packer district a stones through away from all the action.  We took the train from Jakarta which was a pleasant enough journey.  When we arrived we were a bit late in finding a Guesthouse or Losmen as they are called in Indonesia, and most were fully booked.  We ended up settling for a really cheap Losmen for £1.50 a night each, with the view to moving somewhere the next day.  This never happened as Anda Losmen although being a bit grim, had a nice family atmosphere and it was super cheap.  It was so cheap in fact that when we visited Borobudur we effectively used the room as baggage storage. 

The next day we had an adventurous journey to Borobudur.  We had to get a couple of buses from near our Losmen to the main bus station.  We left our big rucksacks behind and travelled with a little day bag.  This turned out to be a good decision as the buses were jam packed.  It was quite a novelty for the locals to see a westerner on a local bus.  When the bus was a bit quieter and we got a seat I looked towards the back and every single person was looking at us at the same time with great interest.  It was relatively easy getting our onward bus to Borobudur, the minibus had the destination displayed on the windscreen.  We hopped on and immediately got chatting to some Indonesians  who invited us to join them fishing.  Again we had to pass on another chance to mix with the locals as we had a bit of a schedule top keep. 

We hadn’t booked any accommodation for our first night in Borobudur, so when we arrived we went for a wee wander.  We eventually found one guesthouse with an extremely friendly and helpful owner. 

Borobudur is a small town, probably about the size of my home town of Dingwall which has a population of around 6000.  Most people come to Borobudur on a day trip from Yogyakarta as it’s fairly close, so there aren’t that many guest houses or restaurants around.  We settled in and then decided to make our first visit to the Borobudur temple.

Borobudur is an ancient temple that was lost for hundreds of years and only recently discovered in the early 19^th century.  It’s an extraordinary temple, there is no other building like it on earth.  It has a square base and an almost step pyramid design with nine levels.  It’s a Buddhist/Hindu temple, the bottom six levels have incredibly ornate carvings telling the story of Buddha and his predecessors.  Our guide on our second day had a very good way of describing it as “the biggest story book on earth”.  You can imagine before paper and parchment, and with the low level of literacy, that the common people could come and walk round Borobudur reading it like a Tripitaka (Buddhist bible) picture book.  The top 3 levels have lots of stupas, each containing a Buddha, with a final grand stupa at the peak.  It really is some building.

Myself and Nev Going Native

The location is spectacular, surrounded by palm trees with an active volcano, Gunung Merapi, in the distance.  The temple is impressive both by its sheer size and by the exquisite nature of the sculpture work.  It also has a great story.  It was lost for centuries surviving many earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and the power of the jungle.  Standing at the top of Borobudur I liked to try to imagine what it would have been like for the Raffles expedition hacking through the wilderness with their machetes and stumbling upon this magnificent temple.  It really is the stuff of an Indiana Jones movie.  

We hired bikes and cycled around the area visiting some smaller temples.  We cycled around Borobudur and it looked really great from every angle.  While cycling around we passed many school children and were greeted with many choruses of “Hello”.   It was a great day until Nev’s chain broke and he ended up having to push his bike home.

Cycling Round Borobudur

The Manohara Hotel has Borobudur on its doorstep.  You get free access to the temple and can also access it before the official opening time.  We stayed in the Hotel for one night and got up at 4:30am for the sunrise.  There was a bit too much cloud cover to see the sun but it was cool being there before the rest of the tourists as it can get pretty mobbed.  It was also great having the approach in the dark, using torches to check out the carvings.  We left the next day to go back to Yogyakarta.

We decided to hire bikes the next day and check out Prambanan, the Hindu Borobudur.  The route suggested by lonely planet was to go by the canal.  We thought it’d be a nice quiet route with only cyclists and walkers but we were wrong.  The canal route was used by motorbikes and any cars that could fit down the narrow road.  We eventually did get out into the countryside by accident and got a wee bit lost.  At one point we had to carry our bike over a bridge in a paddy field with lots of the workers giving us curious looks.  We then found the main road and decided to stick to it and put up with the traffic.  We arrived and Prambanan and parked the bikes. 

Prambanan is a lot more ruined than Borobudur but still as spectacular.  There are lots of different temples each one built for a different Hindu God.  Like Borobudur there are lots of carvings telling the Hindu scriptures but they aren’t quite as ornate.  The complex of Prambanan is huge the amount of construction is on a grand scale.  The outer compound contains the remains of an estimated 244 temples which are mostly just rubble now.  The central courtyard has the big 8 temples and 8 minor temples which have been restored and look great.  Prambanan looks amazing, if it was fully intact it would be mind blowing, it seems that Prambanan has suffered a lot more from earthquakes than its Buddhist equivalent.

The Main Temples of Prambanan

 

After spending the afternoon at Prambanan we cycled home in the rush hour traffic.  I love ducking in and out of cars, finding small gaps to squeeze into, and having motorbikes around to compete for space made it even more exciting.  Nev on the other hand didn’t have so much fun.