It’s 5am when we set off on a seven hour tour to visit the temples at Panabaran and Borobudur in the countryside outside Yogyakarta. We are sharing a mini-bus with a Dutch couple on honeymoon and an Australian with his Javanese partner. Despite the early hour there is lots of chatter along the way as we swap travel stories. We stop just after dawn to take pictures of the smoking ‘fire mountain’, Gurung Merapi looming over the paddy fields. By the time we reach our first destination of Borobudur it already 6am; we have two hours before breakfast to look around what is claimed to be the world’s largest Buddhist stupa/temple depending on the source. Constructed around 750 AD, and measuring 118 meters square at the base, it comprising 55,000 cubic meters of stone it is an impressive construction by any standard. Candi Burobudur consists of nine superimposed terraces, six square and three round each smaller than the one below, symbolising the nine levels of the holy Mount Meru and corresponding to the three levels of existence. A steep central staircase rises up each of the four sides of the temple to reach the main stupa at the top. Hundreds of buddhas, many headless, sit cross-legged in niches around the first four galleries, the walls and balustrades of which are decorated with beautifully carved pictorial scenes of ships, elephants, trees, musicians, dancing girls, warriors and kings. On the three circular terraces there are 72 latticed stupas inside which sit partially visible buddhas. A huge, plain and empty stupa crowns the edifice. The mist pervading in the lush vegetation and obscuring the mountains beyond imbues the surroundings with an ethereal quality befitting such a spiritual place.
A couple of schoolgirls in jilbabs approach as we are about to a make our way to breakfast. Would we mind spending some time talking to them so that they can practise their English? And so we strike up a conversation with these two 17-year-olds who look about 12 and speak excellent English with perfect accents. Both intend to go to university (of course) one to study medicine and the other to become a teacher and are delighted to learn how much we are enjoying Indonesia. We could probably have spend half-an-hour or more chatting, but we have to hurry away as by this point we are already late for breakfast.
After breakfast we make for the temple complex at Prambanan, stopping on the way at the small temple of Mendut which filled by three enormous and impressive statues; a 3m high figure of Buddha unusual in that rather than sitting in the normal lotus position, he sits western style with feet on the ground, flanked by Bodhisattvas Lokesvara on the left and Vairapana on the right. We make another less welcome stop at a silver outlet which isn’t on the itinerary and is thrown into the tour so that the driver can get a kick-back. On the plus side, though Andy gets two rings cleaned with fruit soap. This amazing brown fruit which looks rather like a wizened nut produces a foam when rubbed with water which polishes gold and sliver to sparkling brilliance. If only they sold it in the shop the visit would have been worthwhile! We are delayed longer than necessary waiting for the Australian and his partner to purchase two pieces of jewellery. It later transpires that they didn’t have enough money to pay and unbelievably they had been allowed to leave with the purchase on the promise of payment to be collected from them at their hotel later in the day! Not only were the staff prepared to let them walk out with jewellery worth about £70, which is a considerable amount of money here, but they were prepared to send someone to Yogyakarta to collect payment!
Eventually we arrive at the temple complex at Prambanan. There are several temples of Hindu and Buddhist provenance spread across an area of the Prambanan plain which were constructed between 8th and 9th centuries AD of which the Candi Siwa is the largest and most important. A considerable amount of restoration work has been undertaken to reconstruct the temples and still continues although many still remain in ruins. The earthquake of 2006 resulted in further damage and whilst the main edifices are still standing they have had to been closed off to visitors So we have to be content to wander round the exterior of these magnificent conical monuments, admiring them at a distance. Disappointingly it means that we cannot view the statues of Siwa, Ganesha or Siwa’s wife housed inside or fully appreciate the detailed friezes that decorate the terraces.
There whole complex contains the remains of over 250 temples in varying states of collapse and reconstruction. In the immediate vicinity of Candi Siwa are two smaller temples, Candi Brahma and Candi Wishnu which are also fenced off and out of bounds. Only three smaller shrines facing Candi Siwa are open to the public and in one, Candi Nandi is a stone statue of the bull Nandi, the vehicle of Siwa and of any one of a number of children who scramble onto to it to have their photos taken. The rebuilding of this grouping of elaborate Hindu temples must have been a colossal task and result is breathtakingly beautiful.
The only other temple which has been reconstructed to anything like it’s original state is Candi Sewu about 1km from Candi Siwa. ‘The thousand Temples’ dates back to 850 AD and consists of a large, almost completely rebuilt Buddhist temple surrounded by four rings of 240 smaller temples of which all but a couple stand in complete ruin. The original grandeur of such a huge complex must have been quite staggering.
We are back at the minibus by 1pm to meet up with the others and go on for lunch before returning to Yogya. But only the Dutch couple have returned and due to a mix up over the arrangements have ordered lunch at one of the many warungs that surround the entrance to the temple complex. The other couple turn up 20 minutes later and we are now so far behind schedule that the driver won’t stop for lunch on the way back. Starving hungry we have to wait until 3.30 before we are able to tuck in at the Bedhot Resto which is just round the corner from our losmen and is one of several restaurants in the area that are popular amongst the western tourists. It’s owned by the same people as our losmen and sports the same zany interior decor, laid back ambience, good food and provides an English language newspaper. All of which make it a top spot in my book.
It’s time to think of moving on; we want to spend a few days on the coast on our way to Jakarta. So we visit the train station to investigate the availability of train tickets to Banjar where we will then need to pick up a mini bus to the seaside town of Pangandaran. It is a confusing and unsuccessful experience. We are not sure of the name of the train we want and that puts us at an immediate disadvantage. Someone helpfully explains the process and the train we should take. The next step is to consult a computer terminal on the counter to determine how many seats are available on any given train and then complete a ticket request slip. Easier said than done when people are milling around the monitor and the form is in Indonesian. From what we can understand there are no seats available until Monday. It’s a holiday period and everyone wants to travel. There’s a numbered queuing system to purchase tickets with 35 people waiting and things don’t seem to be moving very fast. We decide to consult a travel agent – it seems the easier option.