Buddhist monastery on the hill
Yogyakarta is a province of middle-java and is one of the most famous places to visit in Jakarta. A lot of tourist have visited the monuments of Yogyakarta, so we were very interested in the things we would see.
In one of our hotels we had found a brochure of Borobudur, nearby Yogyakarta, which we could visited with a local guide. We were very lucky because the hotel, where we slept that night, also organized these trips.
We woke up early in the morning, because we had a trip from a few hours. We arrived in Borobudur around nine o’clock. There were a lot of other tourists so we had to wait for about an hour before we could started our visit.
Borobudur or Vihara Buddha Uhr is the Sanskrit word for ‘Buddhist monastery on the hill’ and is rediscovered by the British in 1814. The exact purpose of its construction is not clear. One theory is that the temple represent Buddhism cosmology. This cosmology is represented in 3 different levels;
- The world of desire
- The world of forms
- The world of formlessness
The construction counts nine levels and each wall is adorned with Buddha relives. At each level the inhabitants had to do an exercise of meditation to reach the highest level. These days the local people use this place to pray and if you are a real crusader you walk 7 times around each level to show your believe. We actually saw some people walking around each level, we showed a lot of respect.
Happily we are no crusaders so we left Borobudur to relax on the beach. It was a hot afternoon, so we had to went into hiding.
For that night we brought our tents so we could sleep at/on the beach. We enjoyed the sunset and got a rest for the next day!
Eline
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borobudur
https://www.tmreizen.nl/indonesie/bouwsteen_java_west_reis.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txujqGtB_6g
