Wednesday, 12 June, Yogyojakarta
Today, I reached Nirvana... at least, I was assured I
had, as a result of climbing the up all the levels of Borobudur temple in
Central Java.
The steps looked more than a bit daunting to me, but by taking it relatively
slowly, I made it to the top. I was just a little chastened when I realised
among the thousands of other tourists there today, there were many who had
carried infants all the way up. Now that would have been hard work, and they
did deserve Nirvana.
Last weekend, at the final weekend of the holiday Aidilfitri
celebrations, I'm told there were 50,000 visitors to Borobudur each day, and
that today wasn't as crowded. It only seemed that way.
The temple is of course, impressive, but it's not a temple visitors or worshippers can actually go into. It's solid volcanic rock, and the worshipping is achieved by the walking around each level and the climbing the steep steps up to the next. When you reach the top, you've arrived in Nirvana. I won't pretend to understand the spiritual theory behind it, and simply recognise it as a splendid sight.
Its story is fascinating – buried for centuries by volcanic ash, and uncovered by the founder of Singapore, Sir Stamford Raffles in the early part of the 19th century. It has been hit at least once one more time by volcano ash, and rebuilt by UNESCO in the 1970s-1980s.
Once again, Dave's appeal to other tourists resulted in half a dozen requests
for selfies.... and one girl even came back for a
second go, after she rounded up her extended family for another photo.
I can't begin to understand the
reasoning. It must just be the sheer novelty of white faces there.
One girl was so excited about asking for the photo her hand was
shaking, and she apologised to me for being nervous about it.
Strange.
The area around Borobudur has something of a carnival or side show/market
atmosphere. This extends to rides in horse and carriages, or tourist style
trains around the park. We made do with just walking. It wasn't very far to the
huge temple.
We heard something of the history of Borobudur, but I'll once again have to use Wikipedia to remind
me of everything we were told.
right: Dave at the top
far right: on one of the lower terraces
The next item on our list was very different. Lumch at a small village some 15 minutes
drive away could have been 100 kilometres away, for the change in atmosphere. Very peaceful, with just subsistence farming going on at an eco co-operative
in the village of some 2000 people. Being taken around the village in a horse and cart
was a mixed experience. The carriage was so tiny I struggled to get in, and
eventually decided the front seat next to the driver was best for me. The comic
highlight came when the guide gave Dave a lesson in traditional music...the
pity of it was I could not find the movie button on my camera, so we have no
record for posterity of Dave's musical talents.
At one point, we were taken
to
a farm house,
where soya processing was involved.
Our
guide's
English wasn't
quite good enough to explain what was going on
here, and the state of the dirt-floored
room didn't give us any enthusiasm for finding our more.
****
A couple of side notes from this morning's breakfast –
in an unusual touch, a small
band was providing live background music, but what was really eye-opening was
that some people actually came to breakfast in the hotel dining room/restaurant
still in their PJs.
However, one woman in
pink satin pyjamas had taken the time to put on her make-up, if not her
clothes.
Tomorrow: a temple which eclipsed Borobudur