Rare Jewels!

The idea of seeing yet another set of ancient architectural wonders made me eventually decide to visit Indonesia, despite the very unfounded reasons I have enumerated in the immediately preceding entry.  The pictures of these magnificent temples alone are so unreal that I could not miss it for the world.

Next thing I knew, I was on a plane to Yogyakarta.

Yogyakarta officially introduced us to the wonderful Indonesian culture.  We came to this country with practically no knowledge of its culture and its people, albeit the mostly negative things we heard over the news and read on available articles.  We were surprised to be totally smitten by its very warm people that made us somehow question why we Filipinos think we're the most hospitable people on earth.

But to avoid inciting any debate, enough said about that subject matter.

Instead, let me share with you the photographs of two of the most fascinating jewels of Yogyakarta and, without a doubt, the world.

Prambanan, the magnificent.

A 9th century Hindu temple, this somehow resembles the famed towers of Angkor Wat, but it has no base structure where one can actually go in.

One of the great towers.  The details are astonishing!

They have successfully pieced the temple back together for us to marvel at ancient men's architectural superiority in the absence of technology.

I was surprised how sexual the depictions in the carvings are...

which shows how liberated their ancient culture was...

and how tolerant their society now despite being a predominantly Muslim country.

Borobudur, the majestic.

This on the other hand is a 9th century Buddhist temple.  The photo does not give justice to how massive this temple is...

that the tiny spikes that you see on top of the temple...

are actually stupas which are approximately 12 feet tall (I am 5'10")!

and they are all around the temple...

housing a buddha statue each...

which shows how devout the ancient men were to their religion, giving it all - materials and manpower resources - to build monuments to last over a thousand years!

At that moment, I believed in my heart that Borobodur toppled Angkor Wat in grandeur, even predating the latter by 300 years.  It is also widely believed that the descendants of the builders of Borobudur built its more renowned Cambodian counterpart.  The only advantage the Khmers has is that most of its temples are within one expansive complex, as opposed to Yogyakarta's which are scattered all around.

But I have no problem with that, a rare jewel is supposed to be "hard to find".

One more chance!

I have to admit, Indonesia was last in my list of places to see in South East Asia, mainly because I was dumb as 3825 to believe some of the bad things that have been written or I have been told about it.  You know, massive traffic jams, touts, terrorism and all.  Wait, did I just describe my own country? LOL!

Fortunately, my bosom buddy and default travel companion ETS, sparked the idea of going to Yogyakarta, a city Southeast of the capital Jakarta and which rightfully deserves a separate blog entry.  The lure of seeing yet another set of ancient temples was just too irresistible and the next thing we knew we were on a flight to Jakarta, having no direct flights from Manila.

Because of our initial misconceptions, we only intended to stay shortly in the capital city of Indonesia and there was no specific itinerary to follow.  For us, it was a necessary evil just to get to and from our intended destination.  And I must admit that I was so pleased to be proven wrong once again.  Disclaimer though, my observations are coming from a point of view of a person who lives in Manila.

The Soekarno-Hatta International Airport was HUGE, probably not the terminal itself, but the complex as a whole.

To some, the interior might be dated, but there's this certain character which I liked...

which differentiates it from better known airports I've been to which all look generic though modern.

Where's the legendary traffic jam?  And this was on a Friday nearing rush hour.

We asked our cab driver to bring us to the Museum Nasional, we were brought to Monumen Nasional (Monas).  We thought the museum galleries were underground.  Oh well, it was still good to see this landmark.

The Monas grounds.  It was clean despite the number of people around: vendors, homeless, tourists and bystanders alike.  I wish I could also say that of our parks here.

Streets were clean and traffic was orderly.

The elevated bus stops.

The skyscrapers.

The road that leads to...

the massive Hotel Indonesia Roundabout (Bundaran Hotel Indonesia).

This, I must say, was the biggest shock to a Filipino.  I swear I even saw one who had to back out for going past the line, and everyone behind him gave way.

This I swear, yet again, is never going to be our reality in Manila, or Ho Chi Minh for that matter!

I dare not to conclude that what I saw and experienced in Jakarta was what it is on a regular basis as I was only there for a very limited time.  But that left a very good impression enough to make me want to go back and really explore the city one more time.