Borobudur & Prambanan

Borobudur & Prambanan visit are a must for any visitor that come to Yogyakarta wasn't it? At first, we plan to visit Borobudur during sunrise but this would actually cost much more compare to normal visit, and since we have experience quite a stunning sunrise during the visit via Mount Bromo, hence we decide to go for normal ticket.

One of John's friend, Puno is coming with us, hence he is riding with his motorbike and fetching John, while Kim and I will go on to rent a motorbike, and we are riding our self for today tour. The whole day motorbike rental is only rupiah 100,000, and I am surprise with absolute great road condition around city of Yogyakarta and also road towards these temples. Definitely a recommended way to visit these places if you are convenient to take motorbike.

AB 6788 DH.

As per plan, we start our visit via Borobudur first, the distance from the city is around 40km. It tooks us around an hour to reach the temple.

Puno is not coming in with us as he already visited Borobudur before due to the ticket is quite expensive. The combo ticket for both Borobudur and Prambanan is USD32, and local price is only around 10% out of this price, which is huge different!

Well we have some story to share here, John, which is having dark skin tones which looks like local, trying to approach the counter to try if he can get the all local tickets for us, guess what, his look convince the ticket sellers! However, when we approaching to the entrance, the lady guard saw us with the local tickets, asking us to show her our local Indonesian identity card. Well we definitely don't have that, and politely she escort her to international guests ticket counter for us to convert our 'local tickets' to the one that suit us. Puno end up did not follow us in, and he say that he will just spending some times reading a book outside. We wait for a while for the queue, and top up the difference of the ticket balance, which end up to be USD32 for a person. After wearing appropriate sarung as we did not wear long pant, we are ready to enter Borobudur now. We felt sorry with our effort to have a cheaper tickets, so as a friendly reminder, please do not attempt to this again, as it won't success in our opinion. :P

Ticket counter for foreigner.

Combo ticket to visit Prambanan and Borobudur in two days.

All three of us wasn't a real archaeology kind of people, but as a tourist, we kinda interested to know the basic information about this UNESCO World Heritage site, Borobudur before we get on board. Borobudur is the largest Buddhist temple, as well as greatest Buddha monuments in the world. It consists of nine stacked platforms, six square, and three circular, topped by a central dome. From wiki, i get to know that the temple is decorated with 2672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues. The central dome is surrounded by 72 Buddha statues, which each seated inside a stupa.

Borobudur is standing high right after these stairs.

Very impressive first view of the monument.

Circling on the lower platform before we moving up.

We did not hire any tour guide, hence we are exploring the whole temple by our self. We explore the temple by going surrounding a platform, then going a level up after complete a circle. Along the walk, we discover that the wall are crave with lots of drawing, which I believe it is kind of story on the ancient civilization. For the precise answer to what the drawing really mean, you probably should google it instead of listen to my thought.

One of the Buddha statue.

This will be heaven for archaeologist.

Buddha head missing claim to be due to theft.

View from 3rd platform.

Buddha overseeing the entrance.

You can use your imagination to interpret each drawing.

Close up.

Dancing show for the King probably?

Very spiritual craft that caught my attention.

Soon we make our ways towards the circular platform, and we also heard a rumor saying that if you manage to touch a Buddha statue here which reside inside each stupa, it will bring luck to you. Hence we did try to explore around the area to find our lucky one, luckily three of us manage to find our own Buddha status in reach! I did make a wish on the spot as well, hope it will be granted and the luck will remain.

The circular platform.

The only Buddha statue exposed at the platform.

The look from the circular platform.

Focus on the view.

My lucky stupa and its Buddha statue.

Praying sincerely to my lucky Buddha statue.

Panoramic view of Borobudur temple.

End up we spend around 2-3 hours exploring around Borobudur temple. The weather is extremely hot and not much shade to avoid the sunlight here, hence do make necessary preparation when you are here. Do bring enough drinking water too.

After meet up with Puno back to the entrance, we now on our ways to Prambanan temple. It is a long ride for around 55km, we did stop by some where near to airport to have our lunch before continue to the temple. Since we already have the combo ticket, we straight away walk in to the temple. Again, Puno will be waiting for us just outside of the temple.

The Prambanan temple is the largest Hindu temple of ancient Java dedicated to the Trimurti, the expression of God as the creator (Brahma), the Preserver (Vishnu), and the destroyer (Shiva). Along with Borobudur temple, Prambanan is also an UNESCO World Heritage site as well.

Prambanan temple first view.

Prambanan temple originally consists of 240 temples in total. Due to time constraints, we mainly just focus our exploration around 3 Trimurti temples and 3 Vahana temples on the main platform. 3 Trimurti are three main temples dedicated to Shiva, Visnu, and Brahma while 3 Vahana temples in front of Trimurti temples dedicated to Vahana of each gods; Nandi, Garuda, and Hamsa.