Friday, September 20, 2002

Borobudur and Prambanan, Indonesia

JAVA TO BALI
My last update took us through to Yogyakarta. We booked ourselves on the sunrise bus to Borobudur and even though we had to get up at 4am it was well worth the effort. In fact it was probably the scenic highlight of the trip so far, partly due to the brilliant sunrise and the awesome landscape around the temple. It’s the largest Buddhist temple on Java and we spent the best part of two hours just sitting there admiring it with large smiles on our faces.
Images from Borobudur





Next, we went to Prambanan – the largest Hindu temple on Java. Prambanan is much larger than Borobudur but there is still much restoration work to be done. It’s still a remarkable sight but it has the potential to be far more remarkable.
Images from Prambanan



We had really enjoyed Yogyakarta despite some early apprehensions. It was well set up for backpackers with plenty of cheap places to stay and eat. On our way out of the city we were serenaded by the guitar playing buskers at the traffic lights as we headed east towards Bali. We were joined in our minivan by three stereotypically blonde Norwegian girls, two German sisters and an Italian Swiss guy from Lugano. We spent much of that day in the van except for a brief lunch break and a 90 minute pit stop to repair a leaky radiator. At 10pm that evening we arrived at Mt Bromo and went straight to sleep because at 3.30am we were up again to see the sunrise for the second time in three days, this time over the glorious Mt Bromo.

Mt Bromo at sunrise




After breakfast we hit the road again, this time to Bali. Another long travel day saw us reach Bali late in the evening, where we headed straight to Kuta Beach for one night before bringing a close to Asian leg of our trip.

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