On my second morning, I woke up at 3 for sunrise over Semtepu(?) Hill overlooking the Borobudur temples. Borobudur is one of the largest Buddhist temples in the world. It was built in the 9th century, abandoned around the 12-13th century, and rediscovered in the18th century by a a British colonialist who commissioned a facelift for it. As I got on the bus, I walked right into Jinder, the British guy I had met the day before, so we spent the morning exploring the temple together.
From the bottom up, Borobudur first has about 9 square levels, all lined with reliefs depicting Buddhist teachings and the story of Siddhartha's journey. Then there are 3 top circular levels lined with giant stupas encasing giant, mediating Buddha's. The levels are supposed to represent human life all the way up to nirvana.
Just as my second visit, the temple was full to the brim with tourists - double the normal amount because it was a national holiday. But Jinder and I successfully snapped some good photos. Also he's a fantastic photographer, look:
On the way back I sat next to the van driver, and oh man, did I witness up close the terrifying journey - the two lane highway was essentially turned into 4 lanes, with lots of honking and near-collision encounters. I was kicking myself for not bringing my gopro to mount in the car. But despite all this, I managed to have a good conversation with the driver. I learned many new Indonesian words from him, and also got an invite to see a puppet show and drink rice wine with him that night. Tempting, but I declined.
One thing I have to say is, as someone who looks Indonesian but can't speak the language and acts/dresses western, I get treated very differently here than other western tourists....Jinder pointed out that I get lots of looks wherever I go. And I get approached by many men in the streets. I won't tell you what they say/do, but it's at times flattering most of the times really uncomfortable.
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Hold up. The vanbus just stopped for the bathroom, and at this public bathroom they made us take off our shoes to go in. And the floor around the toilet was completely filled with water. It was like a wading pool toilet. It was probably all from the flush bucket (instead of a flush knob, they fill a bucket with water and dump it in the toilet to create the pressure to flush), but still, it was pretty disturbing. All the western tourists came out and started rinsing their feet off in the sink outside. The locals probably had a good laugh about it!
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Anyway, after the temple I took a nap, had a quick dinner, and went to yoga with Julia, a German girl I met at the hostel. Dinner was phenomenal and yoga was much needed!
Then we ran into Jinder again, and the three of us decided to join the festivities that go on daily outside the sultan palace, on the square with the banyan trees. Legend has it that the two giant banyan trees protect the sultans palace, and anyone who can successfully walk between them while blindfolded is pure at heart and will have their wish come true.
The three of us all squeezed into an ojek:
From blocks away we could see shiny things being launched in the air and hear fireworks. It was a great funfest! We also got one of those lit up helicopter spinny things to launch in the air for a while. Then, too cheap to buy blindfolds, we took turns closing our eyes to try to walk in between two banyan trees that are spaced no less than 15m apart. Easy peasy, right? But not really. The whole square was filled with blindfolded people inching in every which way, and family and friends following along, clearing paths and laughing when they walk in the wrong direction.
It took me 3 tries, so I don't know what that means for my wish, or for my purity. Here's a picture of us pure-at-heart victors:
Okay I'll leave it there for now.
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