candi burobudur and prambanan, indonesia (take 1)

I know it’s only the third week of the new year – but I bet you guys are already suffering all sorts of wanderlust, aren’t you? (I know I am).

we traveled to yogyakarta late last year, taking drives out to candi (which translates to temple) burobudur and candi prambanan, a javanese buddhist and hindu temple respectively. both very popular tourist attractions in their own right, they make a majestic picture with their scale and dark-stone facades.

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the wiki pages on these places are rich with information, but these old temples have a long history that dates back to the period of the Vikings – and it’s almost surprising how well they’ve held up, considering the fact that they were both abandoned for a long period of time (before being revived as tourist attractions).

we went during the attractions’ off-peak period, and there’s a quiet that settles amidst the compounds, rendered more poignant by the headless statues and worn-away stairs (and possibly even more so by the selfie-stick carrying tourists mucking about).

the prambanan temple is of a slightly smaller scale – and in seeming worse condition, since it was ruined literally by a earthquake sometime in the 16th century. there are parts of it that resemble nothing so much as piles of stone stacked precariously high, but it’s pretty amazing that a couple buildings still retain their impressive carvings.

it’s a flat compound of buildings which start to look the same as each other after a while, seeing as how most are just tapered dark-stone facades with doors you enter to see mainly nothing.

still – it makes for a nice change from the skyscrapers we see day to day, and its large-scale grandeur is nothing to scoff at.

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just in case:

1. burobudur temple: 40km from yogyakarta
2. prambanan temple: 17km from yogyakarta