Mega Monuments Mixing With Morals

I was still feeling rather like crap when I woke up today but hopefully I'll be feeling better soon. My symptoms keep changing so it's been hard for me to figure out what's wrong. Still, confusion and ambiguity doesn't stop me from doing a little self-diagnosis, and so at the mo' I'm pretty sure I have malaria, dengue fever, *and* perhaps a little cholera. Either that, or I've got a cold. (the lines are blurred...so hard to tell...you know how it is.) I guess we'll see what tomorrow brings in the Health Department, eh?

After breakfast we made a b-line to the train station and were soon on our way to our next city - Yogyakarta. I'm actually a little disappointed that I didn't had a chance to explore Jakarta at all. I had heard so many awful things about Jakarta that I decided not to factor in any time at all to sightsee in the capital. From both other tourists and Indonesians I was told over and over again to "get in and then get the hell out" of Jakarta, so naturally I had imagined the worse.

Picturing something like Medan, but times ten and with even more pollution and urban grime, I was surprised to find Jakarta to be rather...green, clean, and so-not mean. Most of the major streets were large tree-lined boulevards flanked by lots of modern glass buildings, and there were tons of flowers and fountains all over the place. Granted all that we travelled was the airport-train station-backpacker's ghetto route, but still...it doesn't seem so evil like everyone said it would be. I fully expected to see car jackings, gun fights, and casual rapings on every street corner, but yet the capital simply seems to be a lively and well-kept place. Hmmm...next time around I'll have to give the city a proper chance.

Our first class train ride was quiet and uneventful, and we pulled into Yogyakarta in the early evening. The city's name is pronounced "Jogjakarta", which yes indeed does sound an awful lot like "Jakarta." Not sure the reasoning behind the similarity/unoriginality there. Jogja is Indonesian's self-professed 'culture capital' and we found it to be a lovely place with lots of quiet alleys and lanes to be explored. We only spent two nights here, and most of our time was actually spent checking out sights outside of the city. Again, I'll have to leave more time for Jogja next time I roll through Indonesia, as it seems to be a pretty cool place.

Our raison d'etre for stopping here was to go and see the world-famous Borobudur, a ginormous Buddhist monument that is Indonesia's single biggest attraction outside of Bali. We took a day tour that started with Borobudur and finished up with Prambanan - a massive complex of Hindu temples.

Borobudur, next to Cambodia's Angkor and Myannmar's Bagan, is Asia's biggest temple/monument for the ancient gods. And, like so many other major attractions, has had quite a history of its own. Built to mirror the universe and a tribute to Buddha, Borobudur was shortly abandoned after completion in the 8th Century. The powers that be in Java at the time were in the middle of switching over from Buddhism to Hinduism and so Borobudur was rather "so yesterday" by the time the massive structure was completed. Less than a century after this, the nearby massive Mt. Merapi blew it's top and the volcano buried the monument under a thick layer of ash. There it lay untouched for several centuries until it was rediscovered by a farmer digging on a hill ("Hmmm...that's not a rock under my shovel...Oh My Allah!...I just found the world's largest Buddhist monument! Crikey!")

Dug up and cleaned off by a team of very-excited archaeologists, Borobudur soon became a pilgrimage site and Numero Uno Tourist Attraction in Java. However, Borobudur's troubles were not over yet. In 1985 a Java-based group of terrorists (angry with the national government) planted a series of bombs which exploded atop the monument and caused a great deal of damage. The damaged chedis atop Borobudur were later repaired, and in recent years engineers have fixed the slumping foundation which had been threatening a complete collapse of the structure, so now once again Borobudur has been returned to its full glory. Yah!

Borobudur looks sorta like a giant black pyramid with giant upside-down bells on top (they're called 'chedis') and with it being situated atop a hill it has a very commanding presence over the local countryside. It was a bloody hot day when Janelle and I explored the monument with a guide, but certainly a beautiful one, and the monument's grandeur did not disappoint. We took the chance later to touch the 'Lucky Buddha' inside one of the chedis (girls are supposed to touch his ankle, and boys his ring finger) and walked around the highest level clockwise three times for good luck. We left Borobudur just as it was getting rather crowded with other tourists.

We continued next on to Prambanan, and although it's not quite as awe-inspiring as Borobudur, it too has its own fascinating history. Local legend says that a man fell in love with a beautiful princess (or some local hottie who had it goin' on apparently) but unfortunately she didn't feel the same way about him. Not wanting to turn down his offers of love directly (she had no balls), she told him that she would marry him if he was able to build a thousand temples for her in a single night (Hello, can we say 'High Maintenance?') The man had special powers (cause didn't like everybody have magic powers back in the day? Sigh, why couldn't I have lived back then...) he ran around super fast building all these beautiful temples of every shape and size to prove his love. Seeing that he was almost finished and not wanting to marry him, the chick made the sun rise earlier that day, or she made the local volcano explode and turn the sky red making the man think that it was morning already, or she did something sneaky and bitchy anyways to get out of her promise. Because of her actions, the love-sick man had only finished building 999 temples, and so she was able to escape her offer. However, knowing that she had cheated, the guy was more than a little pissed off with her (Hell, I'd be too! God why do some chicks keep on insisting on always frontin' on men?) so he turned her into a statue, and her petrified stone body became the final, one thousandth temple. (Haha! Take *that*, biatch!) Just goes to show you that you shouldn't break your promises, cheat when you know you're about to lose, or piss people off that can turn you into a statue! Yes indeedy, Prambanan is a lesson for us all! ;-)

The rains were starting to come by this point but Janelle and I did manage to see a few of the larger temples in the 80-hectare complex. (And there's actually only 243 temples, not 1000!) The temples were very beautiful with their ornate carvings, and each of them were devoted to various Hindu gods, like Shiva, Vishnu, and oh...I forget the name of the other one who's one of The Big Three. (Hey, a guy can't be expected to remember *everything!*)

After returning to Jogja we did a litte shopping, had some dinner, and then checked in early for the night. We've a loooooong travel day ahead of us tomorrow, but if we can make it all the way to the end, we'll be rewarded with one of Indonesia's most spectacular natural landscapes...

Stay tuned for more tales from Project Wanderlust, a subsidiary of The S2H World Tour! :-)