Jogja

Jogja is short for Yogyakarta, the city where we've spent the last three days. After chilling on day one, we had planned on visiting the city on day two and spend time touring its ancient temples on day three, which we did.

Regrettably all points of interest were closed on Monday, so we basically walked up and down the main boulevard, in sweltering heat, catching the vibe, but seeing little.

Political rally

Yesterday however, was a whole different story.

Planting rice behind our place

There are two major ancient temples in the area where visitors flock to. Borobudur and Prambanan. There are others as well, but time was limited.

Borobudur is the largest single structure Buddhist temple in the entire world. It is massive; it was built in the 7th and 8th century.

The irony is that only 2% of Indonesians are Buddhists, mostly those of Chinese origin, but it was a different story before Islam and Christianity arrived.

Borobudur lied hidden under the ashes from one or more eruptions of Mt. Merapi, the world's most active volcano, which has lamentably been hidden behind clouds for our entire stay. It was discovered by an English explorer in the 1800, after having been taken over by wild vegetation.

An hour away from Borobudur is Prambanan, which is a conglomerate of Hindu temples that at one time rivaled those at Angkor Wat.

Relatively few structures remain of the over 250 that stood originally. Prambanan was built in the 800s (9th century) to counteract the Buddhist influence that had taken over Java.

We wanted to stay until full sunset, but the gates closed at 6pm. Sunsets here are really brilliant, although they don't last long.

It is now the morning of the 14th, election day in Indonesia. We'll be leaving our little paradise, heading north to a new town in a few minutes. Until the next post. Thanks for tagging along.