Yogyakarta
Yogyakarta was our last stop before heading to the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta, to catch our flight to Borneo. There are 2 sets of temples in the region, and again we were back on the bike to go visit them.
We arrived in Yogyakarta on the Sunday and discovered that on Monday’s all the temple sites were closed, so we headed into the city to see the Tamansari Water Castle.
A Place for Princesses to Bathe and be ‘Hunted’ by the Sultan
https://www.indonesia.travel/gb/en/destinations/java/yogyakarta/tamansari-water-castle
When inside the small complex you could have been standing in a building in southern Spain or Morocco. I love that Indonesia has such a diverse cultural and architectural history. For example, the temples we were going to visit over the next couple of days were Buddhist and Hindu.
Day 1: Borobudur Temple
Our journey was about a 2 hour ride on the bike, and this wasn’t a particularly scenic ride as the city extends way out into the surrounding area, so avoiding trucks, taxis, and other motorists randomly pulling out in front of you was the main focus!
However, after about an hour the endless buildings gave way to farmland. If not urbanised most of Java’s countryside appears to have been developed into food production, and this seems to be mainly rice or sweetcorn.
Borobudur temple is the largest Buddhist temple in the world (however, the guide then said that it wasn’t technically a temple as there are no inner spaces?), and like lots of historical structures in Indonesia it had been rebuilt due to damage by volcanic activity.
Now I’m not sure how I feel about buildings that have been reconstructed and if you should see them as time has left them, but there we were — and it was an impressive sight.
Access to the structure itself was tightly controlled, you were issued with sandles to protect the soft volcanic stone when walking around the temple structure, and you had to follow a guide to ensure you didn’t go rogue and start climbing all over it!
The temple is covered with hundreds of carvings of animals
and social scenes or religious figures.
With a lot of them having amazing detail remaining on the carvings, considering they are over thousand years old.
Day Two: Prambanan
This temple complex is the largest Hindu complex in Indonesia (can you see the theme here!).
We’ve been to Angkor Wat in Cambodia and the style of the temples visually appeared the same, but here the reconstruction due to volcanic activity has been much more significant, and the areas around the structures have been cleared, giving the site a very odd feel, more like a museum than an historical religious site.
The reconstruction work continues at the site and there are still many more individual structures to be restored. At the current pace of reconstruction it will take 200 years to fully complete the restoration.
The inner larger structures are fully restored and you can enter the temples, where there are figures of Hindu gods…
…and I was happy to see my faviourte Hindu god was there, Ganesha.
This site was more open and you were free to wander around the structures and gardens alone.
Again the structures are covered in carvings
There are also 2 other sites within the complex and although it was topping 35c we did the walk to have a look.
So after a very hot and sweaty Yogyakarta we headed for Jakarta on the train to get our flight to Borneo. Indonesia is so much more than Bali and it’s definitely worth making the time and jumping on a boat and discovering the other islands.
