Photo: Justine Hong (CC BY 2.0)
Culture and heritage · Indonesia
Borobudur at sunrise
The world's largest Buddhist temple, built in the 9th century, seen as the mist lifts from the plains and volcanoes around it. A quiet morning of history.
Yogyakarta · Indonesia
The experience
Borobudur was built in the 9th century in central Java and is the largest Buddhist temple in the world: nine stacked platforms crowned by a central dome, their walls carved with thousands of stone reliefs. It lay under volcanic ash and forest for centuries before it was rediscovered and restored, and UNESCO inscribed it on the World Heritage List in 1991.
We leave Yogyakarta about an hour and a half before dawn for a hill facing the temple, where the sun rises behind the volcanoes Merapi and Merbabu while mist lifts from the forest. It is one of the finest moments of any trip to Indonesia.
After sunrise you enter the temple grounds with a guide who explains the reliefs and their stories. Access to the temple platforms is now by timed tickets in limited numbers, so we book them for you in advance.
You are back in Yogyakarta before noon, leaving the rest of the day for the sultan's palace or for Prambanan at sunset.
Indonesia
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