Borobudur temple, Yogyakarta

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Borobudur temple is a Buddhist temple about 45 minutes away from Jogja ( Yogyakarta). We came by the cab we rented for the day but there are a number of buses available. We were lucky that the temple was open since after the Merapi explosion, the temple was closed. It just opened to the public again few days ago.

I initially expected something huge but then it was not as big as I expected. Keep aside around 1.5 hours at the temple to fully go around the temple and take pictures. The entrance fee is USD 15 for tourists. We got a guide and we paid the guide around USD 7.

Gautama Buddha never actually came here. It was the traders that brought the Buddhism to Indonesia. It was an Indian architect that designed the temple.

Local Indonesians seem to be huge fans of Shahrukh khan and the Hindi movie kuch kuch hota hai. Unfortunately, they hadn't heard of the Superstar Rajnikanth. They also knew Amitabh Bachan.

The stairway going up the temple is called "the stairway to heaven" (Led Zep....? ) there are different stages in the temples foundation which depict the pathway to salvation.

Currently there is a lot of restoration activity happening at the temple to protect it from future earthquakes! Lot of the temple is already damaged by past earthquakes. There was also a lot of volcanic dust in the temple premises.

Well worth a visit. Next stop Prambanan.