The End

Well, the internet difficulties finally stopped me from getting the last day in while we were over there, add a day and a half of travelling home and now it's Monday morning back home.

Ahhhh. A hot cuppa - I missed them!

My memory is fading fast, so please if you see me, talk to me about things, otherwise they disappear! I'll try to remember Thursday arvo as best I can, I took a ton (for me anyway) of photos.

What did we do on Thursday? We went to Borabudur temple.

For a better description: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borobudur and http://www.borobudur.tv/

It'll only take you a second to glance over the wiki post and will give you a better idea of what it was like (well, that's a bit teachery isn't it - I'll set homework assignments shortly).

We had a few pamphlets before we set out on the bus. One of them said it was two and a half hours from the city, but my favorite said that it was an hour by car or half an hour by public bus. We can't work out whether it was poor translation or a clever attempt to make people take the bus. In any case I reckon it was maybe 45 mins? Our tour guide on the bus was going to take us to a silver making place on the way, but with the light levels already being low we decided to go straight to the temple. He was very talkative. He had a microphone and didn't seem to ever bother turning it off. No matter what he was saying. Sometimes he was just sort of talking to himself, or to one person. Didn't matter, must be part and parcel of that karaoke gene.

We couldn't work out whether or not the person who owned the silver place was a relative of his or if he maybe get's a cut of any sales, but boy he was insistent about it! We told him that maybe we'd go on the way back. He actually called them up and told them (while on the microphone so we could hear) that we'd be coming back later at night. They were going to stay open just for us. Of course, they live there, so it's not totally guilt wracking. Just a little bit. More on that later anyhow.

Although that morning had been quite clear (I actually got a bit of sunburn during my swim - don't cry for me too much) it clouded over as usual and we got another nice thunder and lightning spectacular. Our hosts were a little upset because it was quite wet and miserable, but we all thought it made the temple more spectacular to have occasional lightning and the odd rumble of thunder.

Anyway, here's a shot from the bottom of the temple once we got there:

Wow, the picture, like, uploaded in a second! Over there I did my blogs with the TV and/or a book while waiting for uploads. Also it's kinda chilly here this morning, not sure if I miss that or not!

These shots really don't do the place any sort of justice at all. It's really, really massive! I know what people mean about places like this now, like the Pyramids. Pictures can't convey that feeling you get in your gut when something that big is looming over the top of you (especially when there's a crackle and rumble of thunder).

As we walked up to the fence/gate to enter we were constantly followed by five to ten "salesmen" who offered everything from umbrellas to wooden models (helllllo customs) to slide whistles. They were offering them all for "discounts" there was an "it's raining" discount. A "You Australian?" discount. A "It's late afternoon" discount. You name it, they were oh so willing to do a special deal, just for you.

We were sort of on a package tour called the "sunset" tour. We didn't really have any hope of seeing a sunset, it was more a "gathering gloom" tour. Because I'm not really a traveller you'll have to put up with the camera I have, it didn't capture these brilliantly because it was pretty gloomy, but the flash was a little too powerful up close. Anyway, enough excuses, here are some of the reliefs that cover the walls:

I think the guide said that if you were to walk around every level it would be a 5km trip, that means that there are about 5km of these stone carved reliefs! The temple itself was built in the 700s or 800s. There are lots of versions of the story out there, but in my opinion (like I'd really know) if you read past all of the biased stuff I think... I strongly doubt the original construction was Buddhist but it was obviously converted to that use. It was "mysteriously" disappeared for centuries until being rediscovered. I'd be inclined to believe that an eruption probably covered it, and I don't know if you've seen how fast jungle grows back, but it'd only take a couple years before even a massive structure like this one would just look like an overgrown hill.

Regardless of the history, it's stunning now, it's been restored a few times which must take one heck of an effort. All the way along the tops of the walls there are Buddhas in various poses, each level represents getting closer to Nirvana and as such all of the guys are doing different things at each level, here's one of the bottom ones:

This shot also gives you a better idea for the complexity of the whole structure. These alcove buddhas are often missing bits, but they don't seem to mind - I guess they're just very deep in meditation. One of the Indonesian fellows comes up to the temple at least once a week so that she can meditate. In a minute I'll show you a view from the top - it is quite awe inspiring and I can see that it would be a fantastic place to meditate regardless of your religion. Tari and I found a quiet moment to do just that.

The reason the top is the place you'd want to meditate from is because as well as the peaceful Buddhas you occasionally get one of these:

After climbing up the steps there is a lot of stuff to see at the top. The first thing you notice, though, are the stupas. These are kind of Buddhas in bells.

Those of you who click on the pics to see them bigger might notice that the stupas in the foreground have diamond shaped holes, the ones in the back have square holes. All over the temple there were small details that all had meaning of some sort. In this case, squares are perfect shapes, so are right up the top. I didn't really have the heart to mention that the diamonds are really just squares from a different angle rather than being a different shape.
Inside every single one of these is a free toy:

They left that one open so that you could see inside. There was one "lucky Buddha" at the top that local folklore claimed to grant you a wish if you leant up against the stupa, reached your arm right inside and touched his foot. The guide said that it was only local folklore and that there was no guarantee that your wish would actually be granted. Just as well he made that disclaimer huh. I couldn't help thinking that the guy above actually looked like a guard in a turret:

Tell me tie fighters shouldn't be scared of that!

Here's a shot looking back down (with Jacki in the foreground).

When you're right at the top you can (obviously) see in all directions. It was pretty cloudy so sometimes we couldn't see very far, but in the haze we noticed another big building in the distance...

It's a monastery apparently. These shots also give you some idea of the landscape around. Volcanic and hilly and jungly. Sure, from the air you'd be able to see Borobudur, but from the ground you can imagine if it was overgrown, you'd not have much chance of noticing it.

The last photo joins the no trumpets sign as being open to interpretation. Although it was wet and miserable weather wise there were still a couple sighting of mosquitoes. I guess if you're a Buddhist monk deep in meditation you might be annoyed by mozzies, so maybe that's what this sign is about:

Being good tourists, we didn't.

And before you email me, yes, it is to stop graffiti people from etching their names in the stone.

It was getting very dark as we descended the structure, part of the tour was a post walk spot of afternoon tea. And FINALLY we discovered about the bananas and cheese thing. Remember on the menu at the hotel it said that you could have bananas, ice-cream etc. with grated cheese on top? Well it's a real thing! Our afternoon tea was fried bananas with grated cheese! And no, it wasn't marscapone or creamed cheese, it was pretty much just grated tasty cheese. I don't really like banana (yes, that means there IS something I don't eat) but had a go anyway. Can't really tell if I didn't like it because of the cheese or the banana bit, quite a strong flavour though.

After that came a very welcome hot drink, a buffet dinner (they never do anything small here in terms of food) and two mexican singers. Well. They might not have actually been mexicans, but if you can picture "the Three Amigos" with their hats, clothes and guitars - that was these two guys. Except that they sang Indonesian songs (and some English stuff, of an elevator music nature). I made the tiny mistake of thinking that a salad might be nice amongst all the curries. How was I supposed to know that the little green bean was a whole chilli. I think that it worked out for the best, I'm convinced that (apart from feeling like my eyes were popping out of my head) it must have dried off my wet clothes. I'm sure I felt them steaming off of me. Note to self: eating whole chillis is a stupid thing to do.

After dinner it was back on the bus (ignoring all of the "special night time deals" that we were being offered) and to the silver factory. The guide again telling nobody in particular how the owners were staying up for us, that it was okay, they really wanted to show us some of the history and local culture (oh, and maybe, just maybe, sell us something too?).

Having picked a lot on the mercurial nature of things, we did actually end up buying some more silver stuff. You'll have to get us to show you in person though, the photos aren't working. Tari's got some nice stuff now though and I'm sure she'll happily show it off to you. Again, things were pretty cheap relatively speaking, but still have so many zeroes after them! It's hard to spend more than a MILLION on something, but also kinda cool hehe.

Apart from the trip to the temple, I can't really think of much else that we did. Lots of farewells (another breakfast of course) a last trip to the mall so that I could buy a half dozen movies (a buck fifty each, I really had to restrain myself from just getting one of everything). Oh, while at the mall I grabbed a drink "kopi soda" in a brown can, between the orange and yellow (orange and lemon?) sodas. I assumed creamy soda. Nope. Coffee soda. I guess somewhere, somebody thinks that this is a good idea. I'm not sure I could ever get used to cold, fizzy, coffee. It's as bizarre as (I'm sure you've all tried this at least once, right?) when you microwave coke to see what it's like when it's hot.

We restrained ourselves from buying lots of things that were cheap but that we'd never wear again. Indonsians look really great in their Batik clothing, but nobody else does! Tari wanted me to get something in the Posh Boy brand, but we couldn't actually be bothered enough for a once-off gag.

Oh, Tari just reminded me that at the hotel I had my first ever massage. Probably my last ever one as well! I'm sure if you're into strangers rubbing, twisting, poking, jabbing etc. your body then it's great. Too uncomfortable for me. There is now a total stranger in what used to be a very very small list of people who had touched my butt. The guy actually laughed at me a couple of times, you all know how crackly jointed I am. There were a couple of joints that made very loud cracks.

We ended up leaving the hotel (saying farewells to Alif, Istu and Santi who were fantastic - we reckon Alif will own the place next time we're back) at about midday. There was an always fun ride through traffic - it seemed especially heavy (Saturday traffic I guess). At one point a guy behind us beeped his horn a LOT and we wondered what the problem was until we noticed that he was trying to play a tune on it. Another couple of vehicles also beeped along for a little while until the traffic moved again. I think there was a three part horn harmony at one stage.

The flights were all a bit bumpy, lots of storms and stuff I guess. I didn't sleep until we got back home (first time in a long time I've got for more than 24 hours with no sleep). The coolest part of the flight for me was watching a really intense lightning storm at night from a plane. There was a mixture of proper lightning bolts and just flashes in the distance. It reminded me of war films where the horizon just lights up here and there periodically. http://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=1077381499&vw=g&b=0&pos=8&p=lightning+from+space+nasa&fr=yfp-t-501 will show a video from the space shuttle that shows some lightning from space.

Anyway, back home now and I guess that's about it! Kinda anti-climactic huh. Thanks for reading, and for commenting, it was great to still feel in contact while I was over there.

Make sure you have a chat to Tari too, she's got lots of stories also!

Sim.

**Edit - Borobudur isn't in a high res Google Earth map I'm afraid, but if you want to see the hotel it's at 7 deg 46 min 57.16 seconds South and 110 deg 22 min 5.72 seconds East