29 and 30 September – Borobudur and Mendut Temples, Yogjakarta (Indonesia)

Another stinking MADVENTURE dive again! After travelling for nine and a half hours, most of it on the train and having been taken to the wrong station by the taxi driver in Jakarta, to arrived at the Indonesia Hotel in Jogjakarta. It has now got to the stage that there is no use complaining as the usual refrain ‘it’s a budget trip and you have to take the good with the bad’ will no doubt be the answer to everything. Recommend Madventure – NEVER. The place was full so there was no spare room to go to after the sewage smell in the room given to Derrick and myself. The temperatures here are over 30C and here is only one small desk fan mounted on the wall to keep us cool. Every room is like this so it seems. This is another so-called hotel/hostel where no top sheet is provided as no-one expects it to be cool enough to need one. There is no wifi here as well, unimportant in itself but important to people like ourselves who are travelling so much and need access to the internet to keep in-touch with families and book tickets and hotels for further travel after we finish the trip in Sydney. May the end come quickly now is what a number of us are saying. Twenty four people were on the trip with the expectations of finishing in Sydney. There are sixteen of us here in Indonesia and it is expected that only twelve will arrive in Sydney. I think that this speaks for itself as to how the trip has progressed.

Disregarding the above I went with Tim, Seamus and Derrick to see the Borobudur Temple, the Mendut Temple and Monastery, and the Prambanan Temple complex.


BOROBUDUR TEMPLE
Borobudur is a 9th-century Buddhist monument consisting of six square platforms topped by three circular platforms and is decorated with 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues. A main dome, located at the centre of the top platform, is surrounded by 72 Buddha statues seated inside a perforated stupa.

An aerial view of Borobudur 

There is no written record of who built Borobudur or its intended purpose. The construction time of 75 years has been estimated by comparison between carved relief's on the temple's hidden foot and the inscriptions commonly used in royal charters during the 8th and 9th centuries. Borobudur was abandoned for an unknown reason, then lay hidden under layers of volcanic ash and jungle growth to be unearthed in 1835.  The popular belief is that the temples were disbanded when the population converted to Islam in the 15th century. Borobudur was badly affected by the eruption of Mount Merapi in October 2010. Volcanic ash up to 2.5 cms thick fell on the temple complex killing off the vegetation with the possibility that acidic ash might damage the statues and stonework. The temple complex was closed to clean up the ash fall. More than 55,000 stone blocks comprising the temple's structure were dismantled to restore the drainage system which had been clogged by slurry after the rain. The restoration was finished in November 2011.

A view along the outer walls

A stone tower showing the original stones

The was a Buddha or carving inside every stone tower

One of the four entrances, north, south, east and west.

A stone relief over the entrance way

A stone relief

A stone relief

A stone relief

The relief carving over the entrance ways

A gargoyle water spout

Monks praying in the temple

My friend the Buddha

Students wanting to practise their English on tourists

They asked to have their photograph taken with me, honest!

                                                    
MENDUT TEMPLE
Built around early ninth century AD, Mendut is the oldest of the three temples including Pawon and Borobudur. The inscription dated 824 AD mentioned that King Indra of Sailendra has built a sacred building named Venuvana which means "bamboo forest". In 1836 it was discovered as a ruin covered with bushes. The restoration of this temple was started at 1897 and it was finished at 1925.

The three statues inside the ninth century buddhist temple. At the centre is a 3 metres tall statue of Dhyani Buddha Vairocana, at the left is Boddhisatva Avalokitesvara, at the right is Boddhisatva Vajrapan.

A stone relief

An old banyan tree in the grounds

        
MENDUT BUDDHIST MONASTERY