We made our way to Borobudur by sailing to Semarang and taking land transportation to Borobudur. As always this turned out to be an adventure.
We arrived at the busy port of Semarang. All the sudden we were looking for a parking spot in between the big guys. It was like parking a smart car at the truck stop. From there we took the shuttle to Borobudur.
Welcome to Borobudur, a Unesco World Heritage Site. We made our way to the temple right at sunrise.
Borobudur is the biggest Buddhist temple in Indonesia as well as the busiest tourist attraction in the country.
The temple is the illustrated classroom of Buddhist teachings. Carved in stone are multiple stories about Buddha. Here we see Buddha in a previous reincarnation as a monkey. The story involves greedy humans trying to kill the monkeys in order to keep the fruit and Buddha saving his fellow monkey friends by letting him escape on his tail.
As we ascend the top of the temple we find stuppas.
Having reached the higher levels of enlightenment in the upper level stuppas you find and enlightened human Buddha.
However the very top stuppa has nothing inside of it. In true Buddhist form the ultimate enlightenment has no desire.
I found it striking that while this is a religious temple it is not a temple to a God. The Buddha is anyone who has found enlightenment, however they are not expecting another one for about another 4000 years. Hope you enjoyed the tour of Borobudur with me.
From Borobudour we headed to Karimun Jawa and we meet two new crew mates. Now we have enough crew to make things on the boat fun and night watches easy.
Now we head to Kumai, a town that has promises of Orangutans and quaint villages. For now I leave you with another Indonesian sunset.
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