We left yesterday around noon from our hotel in Yogyakarta. We took a private car & driver to the ruins, ($20 for the 90 minute drive). I had reserved a room at the only hotel on the grounds, Hotel Manohara. The service was excellent -- when we arrived, we were served javanese tea and a snack, and then showed to our room. Hotel guests get unlimited access to Borobudur; so we headed over (about a five minute walk). We walked around the ruin(clockwise, as is the Bhuddist custom), and then up to the top. It was later in the day but still pretty hot (30C+), so we didn't stay long.
Back at the hotel, we figured on a nice dinner at the outdoor hotel restaurant which overlooks the ruins. We ordered a large beer to share and settled in for dusk. Unfortunately we forgot that open air + rainy season + dusk = mosquitoes and bugs. (We didn't actually forget, as we had brought bug spray, but didn't think about it when we were thinking of a nice dinner). Being city folk we didn't much care for the bugs, so quickly ate and retired to our room for the night.
We had to be up at 4:00am to catch the sunrise from the top of Borobudur. Our internal clocks are still messed up, so getting up early wasn't a problem (we had fallen asleep at 7pm). Sunrise access is only available to hotel guests (the main reason I wanted to stay at Manohara) (for an extra $11). The "Sunrise Tour" ticket is a nice souvenir; we also received complementary flashlights :)
There were less than 15 of us on the sunrise tour, which was nice as the ruins are more mysterious when there aren't hundreds of other tourists. We all settled in at various vantage points at the top to watch the sunrise. It's hazy this time of year, so we didn't get the colours of a sunrise, but it was beautiful with the mist and haze. The mist was slowly burnt away by the sun, finally exposing the countryside. Busloads of tourist arrived shortly after 6am which broke the spell. I spent a couple hours taking pictures, and then Heather and I headed back to the hotel for breakfast.
After breakfast, we went back to our room and took an unplanned two-hour nap. Woke up and went to see a video in the "audio-visual room". The video was filmed in the 70s, but did a great job of explaining some of the bas-reliefs that surround the first few layers of Borobudur.
Around noon we took a private car back to Yogyakarta, and checked into the Ministry of Coffee (I had reserved the room prior to going to Borobudur). It's one of the nicest hotels I've stayed at while traveling.
We had lunch at our favourite restaurant (Deja Vu), then ran some errands (dropped off laundry, booked the trip to Prambanan for tomorrow, picked up our plane tickets from Denpasar to Jakarta, bought some water).
Tomorrow we're off to see Prambanan, which is a complex of Hindu temples (Borobudur is Bhuddist) (both built around 1200 years ago). We've once again booked a private car & driver ($25 for five hours).
No comments:
Post a Comment