Yogyakarta's Temples and Terima Kasi Indonesia

I flew from Manado to Yogyakarta on the island of Java and arrived in the evening.  Hopping into a cab to the city, we arrived at our hostel to find that we had booked ourselves into, what appeared to be, a youth Muslim hostel.  There were tons of kids hanging around in small groups, presumably between the ages of 16 and 19; boy did I feel out of place, a 30 year old at a teen religious hostel.  I checked in and looking around a bit more, it seemed as though maybe there was just some sort of high school group staying there, because I did notice a few international backpackers sprinkled around.  I was pretty tired, so just settled into my room, showered, and went to bed to figure out plans the next day.
There was a free breakfast at the hostel, so I enjoyed my fill of fried rice and coffee before heading to the front desk to figure out a plan.  The hostel could organize transportation to the two main attractions in Yogyakarta, Prambanan and Borodudur, both religious temples on a massive scale.  Neither are located directly within the city of Yogyakarta, so I arranged for a driver for later in the afternoon to beat the midmorning heat and hopefully the early morning tourists.  I walked around the city area a bit, past motorbike repair shops, food vendors and convenience stores, grabbing a coffee along the way to sit at the sidewalk tables and people watch.  After a few hours of killing time, I headed back to the hostel and met the driver.  It was about a 45 minute drive through speeding traffic and mopeds out of the city to Prambanan, a huge collection of Hindu temples and the largest in Java.  As the car approached, I could see the peaks of jagged stone towers creeping closer over the tops of trees lining the streets.  We pulled into a parking lot and hopped out to buy tickets.  As I approached the main walkway, the view of the massive main temples showed themselves.  We were approached by two young girls with their heads covered in saris; they said they were local history students and would like to give us a guided tour of the temple complex for free as a student project they had to complete.  I was siked!  A free tour of a temple that is clearly laden with religious symbolism and centuries of history was exactly what I never expected and always wanted!  The two girls were very nice and very well informed, pointing out mosaics, statues and intricately carved reliefs laid into every inch of the temples, explaining the different sections of the epic Ramayana.  There were three temples, layered in tiers with edges like a crown, stabbing up through to the sky.  Each temple contained an inner sanctum, with statues representing their specific religious icon.  The center temple Candi Lara (Loro) Jonggrang, was the tallest and dedicated to Shiva.  The two temples flanking to the right and left of Candi Lara, Candi Lumbung and Candi Bubrah, were dedicated to Vishnu and Brahma (not necessarily respectively).  The girls explained that the temple complex had been abandoned for centuries when the political and religious center of Java changed locations.  Evidence of many other smaller temples were scattered to each side of the main three temples’ complex.  Unfortunately, after an earthquake destroyed the temples ages ago, locals, who had at that point completely forgotten the significance of the complex, began using the materials for constructions and looting the statues to be used in their homes.  Who knows if someone in the area has a garden statue of Shiva that dates back to the 9^th century!  What a find!  At the end of the tour, the girls had us fill out a small survey to complete their assignment.  I was very lucky to have them and their guidance while exploring the remains.  I walked around a bit to two smaller Buddhist temple sites, which were closed off to tourists’ entrance and mostly still in ruble.  The entire site is still in its restorative phase.  I finished touring around just as the clouds started to roll in, so I booked it back to the driver and we made our way back to the hostel for the evening.
I woke before the sun rose the next morning, and met a driver again who brought me out to Borobudur to watch the sunrise from a nearby mountain.  The trip was a bit farther, though traffic was pretty nonexistent at that hour.  Upon arrival, I met many other vans pulling up to the “parking lot” as well.  It seemed as though it was really more like someone’s backyard, and we were all trudging through a family’s property.  They had clearly set it up for tourism though, so I grabbed a quick coffee before starting the short climb up stairs to a lookout point.  There were several people along the way with flashlights, and I used my phone to help guide me.  The sky started lightening up, just as I reached the lookout, but I couldn’t even tell which direction exactly I was supposed to look toward.  More people arrived and everyone was trying to pick out the best vantage point to, as of yet, a still hidden Borobudur.  Lighter the sky got, yet still I could see nothing and spotted, as I strained my eyes against the dark, the thick fog blanketed over the entire valley below.  The photos I’ve seen of sunrise over the Borobudur temple are quite dramatic, but the longer I waited and the more lit the area off the mountain became, the less hope I had of seeing anything.  Finally, the sun was clearly well up in the sky, though I couldn’t actually see it, and there was no temple to be seen below, so I gave up and made the walk back down to the van.

  We drove to Borobudur, and thankfully arrived before most tourists.  Borobudur is a single huge Buddhist temple, with hundreds of bell shaped sloping stone structures, which give off a much softer smoother appearance than Prambanan’s jagged regal peaks.  Borobudur is the world’s largest Buddhist temple, and, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, “has the largest and most complete ensemble of Buddhist reliefs in the world”, it is also the single most visit tourist attraction in Indonesia!  The first think I did was go straight to the top, to try to get a few photos without having to fend off tourists.  The view from the top was quite dramatic, with the fog surrounding it still lingering, snaking through forests and streets in the distance.  The top level houses the most bell shaped structures, which actually represent upside down lotus flowers.  Each was constructed from square stones angled so each one only touches the corners of the next, instead of laying side by side.  A few were actually somewhat crumbled, and I realized from those, that every single lotus flower contained a depiction of a sitting Buddha.   The temple had several levels, each running all the way around the entire periphery, so after exploring the top level with all of its lotus flowers, Buddhas and the amazing 360 degree view, I made my way down level by level, each time walking around the entire circumference of the temple, admiring the over 2,000 carved reliefs, dragon heads, and countless sitting Buddhas, many missing a head, facing out presumably watching over the city below.  The reliefs were quite interesting to explore, because they seemed to depict both religious stories, as well a daily life, carvings of markets, ceremonies, and, my favorites, sailing ships!

  The lower I got, the more tourists I noticed arriving.  By the end, I think I actually skipped about half of the lowest level because of the amount of hassling I received!  I understand I stick out a bit, but, by the end, groups of tourists, mostly young students but also adults, were literally grabbing me to take photos with them, and then wanting to chat with me to practice their English.  With the students, I tried to oblige as best I could, but eventually, every student wanted to have a 2 minute conversation and there were hundreds of students!  It took me 45 minutes just to walk from one side of the temple to the other; a walk that would normally take two minutes.  I was pretty flustered and a bit irritated by the time I was able to break free, and just looked straight at the ground and walked quickly despite hearing countless people calling for me to stop as I walked by.  It was outrageous!  Totally unacceptable.  I’ll happily do it for 10 minutes or something, but people were literally grabbing at me from every angle.  I finally made it back out to the parking lot, just in time to leave.  On the drive back, we brought some extra people, and stopped at a few small locations along the way, like a very small market, and a lotus temple, before arriving back to the hostel.  I grabbed lunch close by and tried to relax out of the heat for a bit.  That evening, there was a traditional Indonesian ballet showing at the Prambanan temple complex’s open-air theater.  I hopped in with another driver who brought me out to the temple.  The open-air theater is actually a bit off location, but the three main temples were visible, all lit up, and there was a magnificent view of them from the theater.  The main cast of the show made an appearance out front to allow spectators to take some photos, and see their elaborate costumes, headpieces and makeup.  The show itself lasted about 2 hours, and told a story from the Hindu epic Ramayana.  Unfortunately, I was not able to take any good photos during the show, but it was full of princesses, princes, scary tyrants, and magical ninja monkeys; all culminating in a happy ending.  That was my last evening in Yogyakarta.  I flew to Jakarta for a few days after, but unfortunately was not feeling very well.  I had a few plans that I ended up having to skip out on, including my most anticipated moment of the entire trip!!  Getting to see my family’s old house L.
I IMMENSELY enjoyed Indonesia, and absolutely must go back, as there are several islands I never got to explore, but the time I spent there, my first time in an Asian country, was everything I had hoped it would be, including language barriers, ordering from menus when I had no idea what I might get, the markets, the music, the religious temples, and so much more.  It was just a taste of Asia, but a great one at that, and something tells me I might have more of Asia in store in not too long ;) 

But FIRST…somebody’s gotta pay for these BILLS BILLS BILLS, and so off I go back to my FAVORITE place, and the most consistently beautiful location I’ve been to yet, New Zealand!