Borobudur – The biggest buddist temple of Java

Yogyakarta –

Since the main train station is right in front of our hotel, we decide to get the tickets (Executive Class) for the ride to Jakarta tomorrow early on – our trip comes to an end. The it’s time to visit a pharmacy: I’m in desperate need of something for my sore throat: So I get something similar to Dobendan, but way stronger – my whole mouth gets numb taking one of these. Crazy.

That taken care of, we can get on our way to the UNESCO world heritage Borobudur. Compared to Prambanan you have a bit longer ride to get there: First, we get into the Trans Jogja Bus 2B (3000 IDR (0.21 USD)) to Jombor Bus Station.

Jombor Bus Station

From there, we have to ask for the ongoing bus: Most of the minibusses (Bemos) are quite similar to the slightly bigger Latin-American colectivos. Yet, not all of them got their destination written on them, so you cannot be sure where they are actually heading to – you also get approached by private drivers quite quickly, having a “private tour” for you in mind – also quite expensive of course .

I’m really surprised by the tiny seats they managed to put in the Bemos. Somehow we manage to squeeze ourselves into them, and the bus is about to start – right after some musicians get in to play some songs for a handful of change – quite similar to Latin America . You’ll have to pay a money collector for the ride constantly going back and forth the bus for recently hopped-in guests. Prices are a bit “adjusted” for foreigners but you won’t pay more than 25000 IDR (1.73 USD).

Borodudur –

We get off at the last stop and get immediately approached by rickshaw drivers offering a ride to the temple – yet this is actually not necessary. After all, you can get to the entrance in just about 10 minutes. As we already have our Combitickets we bought yesterday and Sarongs ready, so we can go past the ticket booth.

The temple area seems huge, same as the temple itself – multiple staircases lead up to the terraces of the building, all of then being decorated with reliefs. Yet, before even having the chance to get up the first one, we get approached by some Asian tourists wanting to take photos of and with us… Yeah, they seem to have totally forgotten about the UNESCO world heritage and we palefaces become the main attraction all of a sudden. We don’t want to spend much time here though – it almost seems the folks are getting in line to take a photo…

Arriving on the top of the temple we can see many stupas containing budda-statues, all facing outwards. I get to see a teenager trying to touch the hands of one of those statues through the diamond-shaped openings of the stupas. According to legend you get a wish if you manage to touch them – perhaps the builders of the temple took the slender figure of the natives into account, since it is rather difficult for him… After feeling caught he gives me a smile and I grin back :).

It starts getting dark slowly and we get to meet Tom and Phil from our “interesting” trip to Yogyakarta again.  They also decided to visit this temple today. The atmosphere starts getting more calm, als there are less visitors… We decide to also get on our way to the exit – there is a “souvenir village” quite to the one in Prambanan we have to walk through, yet, all merchants are about to close their booths and have no interest in approching us.

Arriving at the busstation: Damn, the last bus was at 17:00. It leaves before sunset… and we were the last non-natives leaving the temple. To our luck there is an internet-cafe nearby, so we get in to get some information on how to get back. It looks like… everyone here knows everyone here – the employee just has to make two calls and has to grin: Even if we had caught the last bus we wouldn’t gone far. It just made it about 200 meters from the station and broke down. Yes… we kinda start to get used to all mishaps with buses in Java .

Saying thank you, we leave the cafe and walk to the bus where we get greeted by  Tom and Phil. Well, all that was an unexpected blessing in disguise, since the bus company manages to organize quite quickly 2 vans to get all passengers to Jombur Bus Station . From there, we get into the Trans Jogja Bus to the city centre.