Day 19
Today I'm in: Seminyak, Bali, Indonesia
So I'm on Bali now, but I flew in last night and the majority of the day was spent exploring the Borobudur temple complex about an hour outside of Yogyakarta. It was an interesting drive through rice paddies, palm oil plantations and a lot of chaotic villages with (surprise) tons of motorbike traffic. The weather was amazing for a second day - no rain at all - and it was a pretty interesting trip.
Borobudur is one of the largest Buddhist temples in Indonesia. The archipelago was a mix of Buddhist and Hindu before Arab traders began spreading Islam in the 13th century. The version of Islam practiced in Indonesia traditionally incorporated elements of both pre-existing faiths, although this is changing as many mosques receive funding from Saudi Arabia and are beginning to take on a more fundamentalist tone (apparently the number of Indonesian women wearing headscarves has skyrocketed in the last two decades.)
Fortunately Borobudur survives and was the subject of a very intense renovation project in the early 1980s. The entire temple was dismantled stone by stone, cleaned, and re-assembled on a reinforced concrete platform that stands up against earthquakes and eruptions of nearby Mount Merapi. This is also why it's possible to walk on all of the temple's levels, which wasn't possible before.
Borobudur is laid out in the shape of a giant mandala, or Buddhist emblem, and was designed to be climbed in a clockwise fashion. The carvings on each level progressively symbolize the journey to nirvana, the Buddhist heaven - the lowest level shows unenlightened man struggling to survive, whereas the top level symbolizes an enlightened person's attainment of nirvana. There are more than 400 Buddhas carved throughout the temple.
In other news, my celebrity status was cemented when I was invited to be in four different photos with school groups at Borobudur. The kids would usually follow me around for awhile, then get one of their teachers to approach me and ask if I'd pose for a picture with them. By the fourth time around I recognized the pattern and cut out the 'middleman' teacher, which I think surprised the kids a little bit.
When I finished at Borobudur, the driver took me directly to the Yogyakarta airport, where I boarded a flight for the short hop over to Bali. My first impressions of Bali have not been very positive - the cab ride from the airport to my hotel (a distance of about six miles) took more than an hour as we crawled through slow-moving traffic in Bali's tourist hub of Kuta. What I saw of Kuta looked just like the rest of Indonesia - mass chaos on the streets and more than a little bit of pollution and poverty. The Seminyak area, where I am spending the night, is a bit more upmarket, but "upmarket" on Bali means contending with throngs of boorish Australian tourists, which pretty much describes my experience at dinner and while grabbing a drink at a nearby bar. I'm keeping an open mind - I'll check out the beach today and later on I'm moving up the mountain to the more forested and more culturally-minded Ubud area.
Today I'm in: Seminyak, Bali, Indonesia
So I'm on Bali now, but I flew in last night and the majority of the day was spent exploring the Borobudur temple complex about an hour outside of Yogyakarta. It was an interesting drive through rice paddies, palm oil plantations and a lot of chaotic villages with (surprise) tons of motorbike traffic. The weather was amazing for a second day - no rain at all - and it was a pretty interesting trip.
Borobudur is one of the largest Buddhist temples in Indonesia. The archipelago was a mix of Buddhist and Hindu before Arab traders began spreading Islam in the 13th century. The version of Islam practiced in Indonesia traditionally incorporated elements of both pre-existing faiths, although this is changing as many mosques receive funding from Saudi Arabia and are beginning to take on a more fundamentalist tone (apparently the number of Indonesian women wearing headscarves has skyrocketed in the last two decades.)
Fortunately Borobudur survives and was the subject of a very intense renovation project in the early 1980s. The entire temple was dismantled stone by stone, cleaned, and re-assembled on a reinforced concrete platform that stands up against earthquakes and eruptions of nearby Mount Merapi. This is also why it's possible to walk on all of the temple's levels, which wasn't possible before.
Borobudur is laid out in the shape of a giant mandala, or Buddhist emblem, and was designed to be climbed in a clockwise fashion. The carvings on each level progressively symbolize the journey to nirvana, the Buddhist heaven - the lowest level shows unenlightened man struggling to survive, whereas the top level symbolizes an enlightened person's attainment of nirvana. There are more than 400 Buddhas carved throughout the temple. 
When I finished at Borobudur, the driver took me directly to the Yogyakarta airport, where I boarded a flight for the short hop over to Bali. My first impressions of Bali have not been very positive - the cab ride from the airport to my hotel (a distance of about six miles) took more than an hour as we crawled through slow-moving traffic in Bali's tourist hub of Kuta. What I saw of Kuta looked just like the rest of Indonesia - mass chaos on the streets and more than a little bit of pollution and poverty. The Seminyak area, where I am spending the night, is a bit more upmarket, but "upmarket" on Bali means contending with throngs of boorish Australian tourists, which pretty much describes my experience at dinner and while grabbing a drink at a nearby bar. I'm keeping an open mind - I'll check out the beach today and later on I'm moving up the mountain to the more forested and more culturally-minded Ubud area. 
Agreed on Kuta not being my favorite place in Bali (or Southeast Asia, for that matter). However, one of my favorite spots in all of Southeast Asia is a place called Potato Head Beach Club in Seminyak. It's really great - you should definitely go there. Check out their website (www.ptthead.com). You can go during the day just to swim at the pool and beach or go at night to eat, have drinks etc. Their cocktails are to die for. Also, Ku De Ta in Seminyak is also pretty cool for cocktails.
ReplyDeleteTemple looks amazing! It was funny because this was the Wikitravel "Desitnation of the Month" for May and it looked so awesome. And then they picked Ann Arbor of all places for June's featured destination haha.
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