Part way through our stay in Jepara we went on a trip down to the temples of Borobudur, this was our main reason for stopping there. We had organised a tour from Jepara and the bus took around 4-5 hours to get there through the crowded Indonesian streets.

Borobudur is a 9th century Mahayana Buddhist temple in Magelang Central Java.

It is built as a single large stupa but has a total of 9 levels, the most impressive i think being the top level. The top level has 72 individual Buddhas each inside a perforated stupa.

Strangely there is no written record about who built Borobudur or for its intended purpose.

It is the worlds largest Buddhist temple.

Borobudur

Borobudur

It contains approximately 2670 individual decorative panels, each  carved in stone all telling a story. Together they are over 3000 meters in length.

The top level contains the 72 stupas each containing a Buddha figure in a seated position. Sadly virtually all of them have had their hands smashed off.

Don’t forget the nearby temples of Prambanan too ! Built again in the 9th century it is the largest Hindhu temple site in Indoensia and another UNESCO world heritage site.

Lots of building and restoration work still to be done !!

Of all the temple sites i’ve been to including Angkor Wat Cambodia, Chichen Itza Mexico, Tikal Guatemal, Shwedagon Pagoda Myanmar, etc, its my second favourite and most impressive. Angkor Wat sure is hard to beat because of the sheer scale and area it covers but Borobudur sure is mighty impressive !

SimonTheSailor