Yogyakarta is famous for Borobudur. From the top, the view down is akin to a forgotten mysterious valley. With its mist, birds flying, trees. It’s not that high yet it’s not about going up the highest skyscraper to see the world. But to find a higher point in relative to the others. What it must feel like to climb up here as a pilgrimage.

What I Saw

Borobudur Temple Magelang Jalan Malioboro Yogyakarta Kraton (Keraton) Yogyakarta Merapi Volcano Yogyakarta Water Castle (Tamansari) Yogyakarta Flag of Indonesia Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia

Day 1

We arrived at the airport and headed straight to our Manohara resort right inside Borobudur. Taxis can be secured with a voucher from the Airport terminal. It’s a fixed price. Recalled it was in the range of around 225,000 IDR. It was a pretty bumpy 1 over hour taxi ride. The Manohara resort was really peaceful - really more like a retreat sanctuary than a hotel. Lunch at the restaurant there gave us our first glimpse of Borobudur. So imposing in a way that it is higher than everything around it with the mountains as a backdrop.

It looked cloudy and wasn’t hot when we first went in. Our resort allowed us free access throughout our stay through its own personal backdoor which was quite near our room 31. With the sarongs provided, we climbed to the top to take in the view. It wasn’t crowded but definitely nowhere near the peace and tranquillity in the early hours of next morning. Borobudur was not large, which made crowds even less bearable as there was no quiet corner to really disappear to.

Day 2

The first of our many early mornings. Woke up at 520am and was surprised that it was quite bright already. Didn’t go for the sunrise tour which was a good choice since it was so cloudy. We headed out and was at the gate 5:55am, waiting 5 mins for the gate to open.

It was still peaceful and quiet until it hit about 8am when crowds started to come. Borobudur was smaller than I expected since it was supposed to be the largest Buddhist temple. It’s history was also rather hazy, which I learnt from the AV from our hotel and constantly on replay in our room.

At a time when Yogyakarta was a balance both Hinduism/Buddhism? and Muslim, Hindu temples were found in many areas. How and when exactly Borobudur was built and for what reason remains unknown. There are guesses that the 2 temples a few KM away was part of a pilgrimage that believers took. From the first temple, they will mediate through a series of reliefs that reflected moral and learning like (trusting the strong might not be the best thing). Then as they went down the river and crossed it they will spend more time reflecting. Finally when they reached Borobudur they will go up each level and circle it eastwards.

The bottom layers had reliefs telling of Buddha’s story. How he was a prince and decided to mediate after seeing all the sufferings before he obtained enlightenment. As one went up, you learnt more about how he helped others and his reincarnations as animals. Finally u reached the level where square base gave way to a circular form and where there were many “bells” thathouses diff Buddhas. Those with triangular holes at the bottom and square holes the higher u went. The largest bell on top was empty - not sure if left intentionally or not. There was one unfinished Buddha found in the museum that could have been meant for there.

People believed that if you reach in the square holes and touched the Buddha, your wish will come true - I tried that!

On the lowest base, one section of the new base created during the restoration to ensure Borobudur doesn’t collapse is removed to reveal the original relief.

Next we check out the ship and museum within the grounds. Then it was back to our resort for breakfast. Our resort is also known as the centre of learning and I found its library! My fave place of learning. Read through a book chronicling how they had to clean up the Borobudur by hand after the volcano ashes covered the place. And as we went on to city, we saw more and more destruction created by the most active volcano in the world - Mt Merapi. It was a good inside into our tour the next day.

We then checked out and headed to jogja city. Most attractions surprisingly closed 2-3pm so we spend the rest of the day shopping and eating at Malioboro street which was a 10-15 mins walk from our hotel - hotel Phoenix. The hotel was really nice - but felt like a copy of our Singapore Raffles hotel. I guess since I wouldn’t ever stay I’m Raffles, this was a close choice.

Malioboro street was full of street vendors selling very similar things.T-shirts after t-shirts!! We happened to by chance walk into a lane which led us to one of the biggest indoor market like place. Also went to the Mall.

Day 3

We woke up at 245am to go for a sunrise mt merapi lava tour. It was really great! It was about a 45 mins ride to the base camp. The jeep was smaller than expected but really fun! The guide was also v nice, young chap eager to share. He brought us through an extreme route down what used to be a 100m deep river that got wiped out by lava and the lava had thickened to give a lava river now used by many trucks to harvest for fertile soil.

In darkness it just felt like a bumpy ride. We reached an ulu plain (which used to be a campsite next to an army bunker that 2 pple died stuck inside during 1 eruption) and waited for sunrise with hot ginger tea. It had a fantastic view of Mt Merapi too.

As the sun started to rise, the area started to light up. Could see more and more clearly Mt Merapi and the trail of destruction the eruption had left. We also passed some villages which used to house over 100 families that had their homes wiped out.

Breathing in the fresh air and just being in nature is refreshing enough. But it was made better by the imposing mt merapi sprouting smoke in the backdrop and the rising ball of red sun.

Mt Merapi erupted twice in the recent years, with the most recent being in 2010. With its frequency increasing, it appears that the next eruption will be in 2014 which makes you wonder how the people build their homes thinking that one day everything might be wiped out. Lush greenery gave way to barren greyness.

The rest of the tour brought us to some hot spots where the ground was hot and erupting smoke. An alien stone from mt merapi that looked like an human face and a museum at a person’s previous home and the remains left over.

Once the sun rose, (and it became abit warmer) the top of the jeep was removed and we could stand as the jeep rumbled on. Really - who needs adventure rides with natural adventures like these.

Next out driver took us to Prambanan. I didn’t read much about that place and so didn’t really expect much. What it turned out to be was what I felt was an Asian version of the roman ruins! After checking out the museum (pretty good AV again to recap on the history!) within the grounds and finding out more of its history, the whole place made much more sense.

Apparently the whole temple grounds was in ruins. They had to reconstruct back and have only made it through till the Prambanan temples. The remaining 3 others within the ground was still pretty much in shambles though one of them the eerie looking temple Sewu at the extreme end looked pretty nice.

Prambanan was made up of 6 main temples housing 3 gods and in front of them - their transport. The largest was Siva and his goat. The other 2 were Vishnu and brahma. The reliefs all around the 3 gods temples told the (very long) story of Ramayanan. (The story being told in the form of a ballet within the grounds but we didn’t watch since we saw versions of it in Bali).

Next was to the existing sultan’s palace (Kraton). It is currently the 10th sultan ruling and he only has 1 wife and 5 daughters. As such only the female quarter is occupied. The whole left male wing is not occupied and is open to public.

The grounds looked quite ok - about 14ha but the guide was so boring. It was rooms after rooms of showing batik (can’t appreciate) and some wedding rituals. Interesting to note how they take a mix of Hindu and Muslim and are not really strict Muslims. There was some wayang show in the hall too.

Next was quite a hilarious search for the water palace - Taman Sari which is where the 1st-3rd sultan stayed). It looked so nearby on the map but with many misguided directions we finally found it. Soon understood y though as the water palace was amongst alot of housing which apparently was rented out to people working for the palace at extremely low rates ( about sgd1.30 per year!). However they were wing relocated in may this year to make way for renovation and expansion of the water palace as part of UNESCO.

The place was more than surprising. The guide was entertaining and brought the place alive and the many underground tunnels where u reappeared somewhere else and in and out maze like entrances an exits made it fun.

The front part was a lawn area where the 40 girls (like 后宫 equivalent) will dance for the sultan. This was followed by them changing and swimming in the pool. The sultan will watch from a vantage point and pick 1 girl to swim with him in his private pool at the back. The pools are apparently opened to public every mon morn 5-7am.

Next was visiting the sleeping quarters. What was sad was how the original wooden frames with cravings of the doors, windows and bed frames were stolen during the earthquakes. Then it was the many underground tunnels which led to a praying area.

Totally tired out by then ( even though it was only 2pm but v hot) we tried taking the many keceks. Got a old guy who cycled and we felt really bad as he went so slowly and didn’t seem to have much slowly. Took us half an hour to get back our hotel which was so slow considering the distance but overall a good experience.

Dinner was KFC nearby. Was too tired to go other malls and didn’t feel like shopping.

Overall it was a great short trip where I experienced many new things once again!