As I was writing yesterday, there are two main monuments close to Yogyakarta, Borobudur, and Prambanan. There are of course a lot more temples around to go and discover around, but these are the two main ones, and most impressive. If you have more time than us, I think you should go and see more of them. If Borobudur is mainly Buddhist, Prambanan is a Hindu temple, and its architecture is very different from the one of Borobudur.
So, after we went to Borobudur on Saturday, we went to Prambanan on Sunday. Prambanan is about 16km from Yogya, and to go there with Grab, costs about 8 USD per trip. It is also a little less known, but many people still visited the temple when we went. The good thing is that when you arrive, you don’t get jumped on as much as in Borobudur.
The temple was built around the same era as Borobudur, during the Sailendra era. It was It is composed of several smaller structures, that are organized around a larger one. The view from far away may remind you of Angkor Wat. All the temples are ornate with carvings, and here, they represent animals and several mythological scenes.
Here are some pics.
The complex of Prambanan also includes three other temples, that in the same way as Borobudur, were forming the same structure, aligned on the same line. In this case, they are conserved together. There are electric vehicles to navigate the complex, but the distances between each structure are easily walkable. There are some small golf-cart-like vehicles joining them too. The most impressive of these is the farthest one, Sewu, which is still in restoration. Once again, the archaeologist’s job, in this case, seems mainly to be able to put together puzzles made of big stones, You can see that there, several stones are waiting to be classified, in order to try to find out what was their original place. It is impressive.
After our second day out, we were tired and decided to go back to the hostel to rest and be ready for a new week of work.
One fun fact, while traveling, I usually wear a hat bought in Peru, and it seems it was a lot of fun for people here. And, in Prambanan, people even wanted to take a pic with me… I’m not sure if that was flattering.
It makes for a small article, the next one will be about what we saw in Bali!
