Nirvana
Trip Start
Mar 26, 2009
1
44
58
Trip End
Jul 18, 2011
Borobudur, Central Java, Indonesia
Monday, January 24, 2011
everyone's list. It had been something that i had been looking forward since our
arrival an today was the day to visit her.
The plan
was to get there as early as possible to avoid the crowds, escape the heat and
most of all get the best light for the photos. We took the local bus to arrive
there, a relatively easy operation taking the government run bus to the station
and then making a change to a long distance beat up looking number to the
temple. The recent wet weather had left a bit of a trail of destruction behind
it and on the way we had almost abandon the journey as passed through a stretch
of road where the river had burst its banks due to the strong rain. The whole
trip perhaps took just over an hour and by 9 we were in the complex. At Bagli
the temple entrance had been shambolic, hawkers everywhere trying to rip you
off with just about everything they could, here was very different all together. A fine
air-conditioned reception awaited us to buy the tickets ($10 for students;
Thank you student flights for the card) along with a complimentary chilled drink
of water and coffee, happy days. There was a large fence around the area which
housed finely kept gardens and an exclusive hotel at the outer rim, the temple
was right in the centre and could quite not yet be seen from where we were. We
decided to decline the little train to arrive and also passed the more
advantageous elephant ride opting to arrive as the worshippers would have done in
their day, by foot.
It was soon it sight, right before our eyes she grew larger and larger. A gaint grey
pyramid of statues gleaming in the morning sun. Borudubor has been restorated
to its former glory just in the 70s, prior to that it had been involved in
other projects but it was only with the inclusion of UNESCO that they brought
it back to life as it had diterated quite severelyh. It has the largest numbers
of buddhs in any one place which in their varing states, adourn the seven
levels of the monument which represent the path to holy divinity, nivana. Each
level has a corridor that runs the whole span with fine stone carvings
displayed on each side. The monument is both a shrine to the Lord Buddha and a place for Buddhist pilgrimage. The journey for pilgrims begins at the base of the monument and follows a path circumambulating the monument while ascending to the top through the three levels of Buddhist cosmology, namely Kāmadhātu (the world of desire), Rupadhatu (the world of forms) and Arupadhatu (the world of formlessness). During the journey the monument guides the pilgrims through a system of stairways and corridors with 1,460 narrative relief panels on the wall and the balustrades. So this is how we explored the place as it was
meant to be done walking around the seven levels clockwise to follow the
ancient story. As always in these types of places you have to wonder about the
work that goes into creating something so grand. There would have been countless
hours spent on the carvings alone which amazingly detailed and then there would
have been the actually construction. I wouldn't even like to guess how many
lifes it would have taken as the endless disciples created this grand display of
their faith. Even now to this day it is constantly being treated and kept to
preserve it to its full potential. I was supried to see a team of around 50
people who were meticulously dusting and cleaning the sculptures to aide its
longevity. On the seventh level there is the most iconic section which is
instantly recognisable. There are many bell shaped statues which have a selection
of seated buddhas around them, some inside, some not. All of which surround the
final section of the path with is a stone shelter which contains nothing as
this is the purity of it after the cleansing of the climb. Unfortunately we could
not get to look at that as this section had been closed due to maintenance. A
great shame indeed but you have to accept that things like this will happen,
its only the law of average. What did keep ourselves entertained though on the top
level was the amount of locals that had begun to follow us with us being exotic
westerners their cameras were soon pointed in our direction. This soon was
cranked up to full effect as a bus load of school children entered the arena
and made a beeline for us, pushing their friends over to ask for photos with us
which opened the floodgates. It really is a weird feeling being asked to appear
in so many photos with complete strangers, it makes me wonder what they will do
with it and how will thay explain the story. Dont get me wrong though, for me
it was a unique experience that i was more than happy to do and besides it gave
me the perfect excuse to ask them for a photo in return.
We eventually managed to get away from the session
as everyone got their snap and we decided to get some food from the marker just
outside the main entrance. After fuelling up we returned to look at some more of
the ruins that had been extracted from the dig, to be fair after the monument
they were always gonna get the rough end of the stick and was bored quite
quickly with my thought returning to what we had just seen. The rest of the
guys didnt seem to interested in returning for a second look at the monument so i went it alone
arranging to meet them in an hour or so. This time there were very few people
which made it an all together different experience. The long corridors seemed
all that more mysterious as i walked alone through them back to the summit. When i
arrived again to the top i was again faced with the barrier that shielded the
steps to the final lever. Temptation though was too much to resist and with hardly
anyone around jumped over to be able to get a view of the rest, after all when
am i going to be back here again? It was not a life changing experience but it
did give me the chance to get the photos that i wanted of the buddhas up close
in the half cut bell. I didnt make it up to the empty room as i heard something
over the tanoy system which made me think it could be an idea to get back over to
safe land.
I met back up with the rest of the guys to get the bus back to Yogja. The bus ride home was a little bit more eventful than the first jouney as now flooded road had become completely in-passable meaning that we had to take the back routes, This involved some serious off roading through some back villages that was very unforgiving on your arse with the hard leather seats. Low point being when as i was taking a sip of water from the bottle we hit a massive pot hole that sent my drink flying all over me much to the delight of the other passagers... what can you do but laugh.
Back at the hostel the evening rain once again crept in leaving us to sit in the little sheltered garden and make friends with the latest addition to the hostel,. A Spanish guy from Madrid who had been over in Indonesia for around a month and was more than happy to off load all his travel trales to us as he had spent the last month without being able to speak in his native tongue. He was entertaining as Spanish people usually are with some very animated stories, one of which was his tale of Sumatra of where he had been trekking with orangatangs, an amazing adventure that he could not recommend enough, This was backed up with a photo that he had on a camera of him and a ginger beast sitting in the jungle with the chimps arm firmly around him. I was sold and set about looking at the guide as we went to bad to make a small amendment to our Indonesian leg.
