Borobudur

Good news: reaching Borobudur from Yogyakarta was easy peasy and cheap! Finally a journey without any mishaps! We took two city buses for 3,000 rupiahs to the terminal in about 30 minutes, then another bus for 20,000 to Borobudur which took around 1 ½ hours! Door to door it took 2 ¼ hours with no hassle.

Our guesthouse is nice, with an oversized room overlooking rice fields and the mosque. We went for a nice jog around the surrounding villages. For dinner, I tried a local specialty of fish with sambal sauce, an extremely spicy dipping sauce which luckily came on the side!

In the morning, we woke up at 5am to visit the UNESCO world heritage site of Borobudur temples. We debated whether to pay extra for the sunrise visit, but decided against it because of the grey and foggy weather. We paid 230 000 rupiahs and we were second in line for the official opening at 6am which was great! A bit of fog still clouded the scenery which made for a mystical atmosphere. We got there before the crowd and were able to experience the stillness and quietness of the site.

Borobudur temples and its stupas (domes)

Borobudur temple

One of the many Buddha statue 

Relief carvings representing the life of Buddha

As the largest Buddhist temple in the world, Borobudur displays both Indian and Javanese architectural influences. I especially enjoyed the relief carvings on the walls and the symmetrical domes (stupas).

After our visit which lasted about 2 hours, we packed up and got ready for another long journey North of Java, through the misty mountains and winding roads.