Indonesia: Prambanan

So, the reason I've been a bit quiet this week is that I've been writing an article on a specific component of my teaching practice for an Australian journal. Nothing too scary academic, because I don't have research results to publish or anything like that (ha ha, like anybody pays me to do research, funny joke ha ha). When it's published in September I'll link it here, just as I did with my story about King Boat Festival in How Does One Dress to Buy Dragonfruit? which, if you haven't read, you really ought to.

Anyway, writing that article took a lot out of me, so I'm abdicating today and putting up a few more pictures from our trip to Indonesia in February. I also have posts about recent trips to Tainan, Kaohsiung and Yunlin and a weekender to Hong Kong to write about - I haven't just been hanging out in Taipei these past few weeks!

So, enjoy Prambanan in the rain.

This was a side trip between Borobudur and Surakarta (Solo), on a part of our trip that had us mostly visiting old temples. The easiest way to do this is to hire a car and driver - which you can do remarkably cheaply - and have them take you not only to Prambanan but a few of the other smaller temple complexes in the area, including the Plaosan group of temples, some more temples to the south and, near the town of Kalasan, the stand-alone temples of Candi Kalasan and Candi Sari. More than anywhere else these are influenced by the Hindu dynasties that once ruled in Java, meaning that if you've ever been to India and seen crumbling temple ruins there, these will look quite familiar. That said, the occasional Southeast Asian artistic flourish does become apparent if you look closely, especially on window and door lintels through the temples, even as the main gods the temples were built to worship are entirely of Indian origin.

All of these temples were built between the 8th-10th centuries AD.

Doing this properly, including time to stop and eat, and exploring temples beyond the Prambanan main complex before heading to Solo will take you most of the day, but unless you're slowed down by heavy monsoon rains or your driver gets a bit lost trying to find your final destination in Solo (as ours did), you can be sure to get from Borobudur to Solo before nightfall.

This was an interesting monsoon-y day to visit Prambanan, alternating between sunshine with fluffy white clouds and sheets of pouring rain - and the photos reflect this! We got caught out in the rain more than once, and Brendan ended up soaked. We also met and chatted with a nice Taiwanese guy and his wife, and ended up eating with them - it was great to be able to break out the Chinese that week and communicate clearly with someone other than Brendan and our friend Laszlo in Surabaya!
















































Check out my other Indonesia posts:

Surabaya
Borobudur
Prambanan
Surakarta (Solo)
Baluran National Park

...and maybe someday I'll blog my 2008 Sumatra trip, which I took before even starting this blog!

Indonesia: Borobudur

Borobudur is such a popular destination - one of the top in Indonesia and absolutely the top in Java - that I don't have much to say about it that hasn't already been said.

But, a few impressions:

We got there by train - even our friend in Surabaya didn't know you could buy tickets online which you then print and redeem for the actual tickets at the station. The 5-hour ride to the nearest town (pickups are easily arranged through your hotel) cost a pittance, for a fairly good railway experience, as these things go.

Somehow I'd gotten the impression that you could walk inside it like a temple (this may be from pictures of the walkways on it, which, with carved walls on either side, could be mistaken if you are just viewing a photo as halls inside a temple), but it's actually a massive stupa.

A word of advice: don't follow the exit signs as they are posted. They lead you to some side exit that forces you to walk practically the whole way around the temple again through a neverending souvenir market that is absolutely not worth your time. Just go back the way you came.

The town itself is not nearly as unpleasant as a backpacker town with one major draw would normally be. For example, I loved the ruins at Hampi but I could take or leave the little town, which seemed mostly set up for foreigners. Borobudur has some of that, but outside of the aforementioned souvenir market from hell, the town itself is pleasantly devoid of souvenir shops and backpacker cafes. Mostly local eateries, and to get a cup of coffee we had to go to one of the fancier hotels. The only downside of it not being as fully set up for travelers as it could be is that there are several smaller temples on the outskirts of town (one of which is walkable) that you can visit in the afternoon after a sunrise trip to Borobudur. But hotels will try to set you up with a 200,000 rupiah horse carriage ride to do that - that's about $12 US, but still far more than you ought to be paying. We had to go hang out on the street and pick up one of those cycle carts for a fraction of the cost.

As these sorts of destinations go, though, I would say it's worth it. I wouldn't recommend skipping it thinking it'll be a let-down. It absolutely wasn't - even the very cliched 'sunrise visit' was absolutely lovely and absolutely worth it. Hotels will arrange to take you there on a scooter, where you enter through the Hotel Manohar and get a little flashlight for the walk up. There is a little coffee-and-pastry set-up in the waiting area before you can ascend that opens at 4:30am. You can bring your coffee and pastry up to the top - I watched the sunrise while drinking mine! (Take your trash with you of course).

I'd say, though, that I enjoyed the dawn light over the misty tropical landscape just as much as the actual stupa - it's Buddhist, in an very Indian style, and doesn't feel particularly Indonesian at all (the temples on the mountains near Surakarta/Solo feel much more attuned to local history and indigenous cultural aesthetics). It at times felt like a repeat of the many, many, many similar temples and sites I saw in India, Thailand, Laos and Myanmar.

A few more quick tips: you can buy postcards at the Manohar, and if you stay there you can get a discount on admission to the site. The Manohar also has a cafe where you can see Borobudur from a distance while drinking or eating - a great place to write those postcards. We didn't stay there though, because we're not rich (this was actually a 'we can't work anyway, so let's take a budget trip although technically we can't afford it right now' trip). An a smaller road off the main thoroughfare there is a guy who does satay on a long grill and it's excellent, and our hotel (Cempaka Villa) was great value for money with bathtub, hot water, Western toilet, wifi throughout and free breakfast, mostly Chinese-style food. In fact pretty much all of our Java accommodation with one exception was to a very high standard.

Enjoy!

Check out my other posts on our Java trip here (coming soon):

Surabaya
Borobudur
Prambanan
Surakarta (Solo)
Baluran National Park