Borobudur - Temple of Indonesia

Borobudur, located near Yogyakarta on Java Island, is the oldest and biggest temple I have seen so far - and my first Buddhist one! . It was built in the 9th century... !!! It's a massive stone structure made of 6 square shaped levels and 3 round shaped levels with a dome on top. I was up at 3am, soon on my way to see the sunrise over Borobudur. You need to hike up too many stairs for 4 in the morning -Haha!- but the view from Setumbu Hill is breathtaking.You can see Mount Merapi, a perfectly shaped volcano and the whole jungle valley that slowly reveals itself from the foggy morning. Then comes that magic egg-yolk-like sun that rises up above the faraway mountains. At first, you can barely see where the temple is and as soon as you think you see it you realize it's something else. I still haven't seen the bell shaped temple clearly. Apparently some people go 5 to 10 times before they see the perfect sunrise over Borobudur. I think those who say so are difficult, lol. It was perfect. Period. Best very early waking up of my life!

Now, the temple itself. It's very impressive. I spent a good 2 hours walking around it, looking at the details of every levels and then sitting on the very top, admiring the view between all the big 'bells'. As I say about almost every touristy place I visit... I wish there would be less people. But then again, just pretend they aren't there, find yourself a little corner and meditate...

What do you think about, sitting on such a masterpiece ?

I was thinking about my theory that humans -or at least not all of them - are not from earth and looking at this huge temple, built so many centuries ago... I was wondering how that theory could be wrong. Today we can barely build a house that lasts more than 10 years... when centuries ago they were able to build THIS big thing... something that is still up today. More recently, in the 17th century, we built monuments in Quebec, Canada, that are still up today. Will they still be standing in 5 or 10 centuries? Anyways, I don't believe that there will be humans left to see it. But that's another story...