Kathleen
Yogyakarta and Borobudur, March 16, 2016
The day before our flight to Australia, we took an all-day tour to Borobudur. On the island of Java. It is the site of a 10th century Buddhist Temple of massive proportion. Supposedly it is the largest Buddhist Temple in the world. It has, of course, been reduced to rubble and rebuilt multimple times over the last 1,000 years but it is certainly a site to behold. In addition, we saw the secondary temple, Prambanan, took a jeep drive to see some of the destruction caused by the 2010 eruption of the nearby volcano, and got to see the town of Yogyakarta. We had a guide who picked us up from the airport and drove us around the sites all day. He was very informative about Indonesia and their way of life. We found the Indonesian people in Bali and even more so in Java to be extremely friendly. The infrastructure was good and although there is still a lot of poverty, there seems to be a burgeoning middle class and a sense of optimism that is lovely to see. After our day in Java, we couldn’t help but lament that we hadn’t planned more time to see Indonesia……perhaps next time….
