Day 4: Ancient Temples and a Palace

Despite being on vacation, our alarm rang quite early today. We had an appointment with our tour guide in the hotel lobby at 7:30 AM.

We traveled by minibus to the Prambanan Temple. This Hindu temple actually consists of 230 individual temples. The three largest are dedicated to the gods Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma. By 9 AM, it was already 30° C, making the visit feel like a sweaty climbing tour. However, the many reliefs and decorations in the ancient stones are indeed impressive.

On the way back through the park to the parking lot, we paused briefly at Candi Lumbung. This temple complex also consists of many small temples, each with two guardian figures at the four entrances.

From the temple, we drove back into the city to the Sultan's Palace, Kraton. There, we were shown the main parts of the palace complex in a one-hour guided tour. However, only a small part is open to visitors, as the current Sultan still resides in the palace.

After leaving the Kraton, we exited the city. We drove through small rice fields. Lunch was at a small (tourist) restaurant.

On the way to our next visit at Borobudur, we stopped at the Luwak Coffee Farm. Here, the famous 'cat coffee' is produced. In addition to the coffee, there were also cocoa and jackfruit trees.

Shortly before reaching the actual temple, we stopped at a small Buddhist monastery.

At Borobudur, the largest Buddhist temple, we received new footwear: since the last renovation of the over 1000-year-old temple, visitors may only enter the ruins wearing bamboo flip-flops. So, we exchanged our shoes for these stylish sandals. Then we were allowed to visit nine of the ten 'levels' of the ancient structure. Again, there were plenty of ancient reliefs and stone figures here. On the upper levels, there are 76 stupas, each housing a Buddha figure inside.

We were back down just in time for the temple's closing time.

We took the minibus back to the hotel in Yogyakarta. As it gets dark quite quickly here near the equator, we traveled the majority of the return journey in the dark.

Upon arriving at the hotel, we made a quick visit to the supermarket next door to stock up on drinks. Then we had dinner at the hotel bar.

Statistics:
Walked: 8.5 km
Overnight: Melia Purosani Hotel Yogyakarta