10/17/2013 - Borobudur Birthday

A few months back I had asked Sarah what she wanted for her birthday and received the usual response “Something good.”  At that point in time we already had some fun trips lined up and given the limited space in our living quarters we have not been accumulating too many new toys so this was becoming a sticky wicket.  Inspiration struck though, when we found out Tiger Airways was starting Friday evening flights from Singapore to Yogyakarta.  Temples and the opportunity to get more use out of the camera was too good of an opportunity to pass up.


We arrived at the airport a little earlier than normal and after clearing immigration I was reminded that there was a Tiffany’s in the airport and it did offer duty free shopping.  Hmmm, we ultimately bypassed that shop and settled in for a birthday donut instead.   It was a good thing we had that little birthday snack beforehand because getting through the Yogyakarta airport reminded us with a slap in the face how lucky we are to travel through Singapore so often.  First there was a line for your visa, then there was a line with 3 people working in it for immigration with a final line in place to have your luggage scanned again.  The entire process took a least an hour and stomachs rumbling, we hoped our driver would still be waiting for us.  Little should we have worried as Yano, our friend and guide for the next 48 hours, was grinning from ear to ear and whisked us away into the infamous Indonesian traffic.


The first question he had for us was “Do you like mushrooms?” This seemed a bit odd, but yes we did, so we started winding through first city streets, then jungle roads, to finally little village roads to arrive at a famous mushroom restaurant for dinner.  We thought that each dish we had was going to feature mushrooms, we didn’t realize that 90% of each dish would be mushrooms.  Mushroom satay, deep fried sweet and sour mushrooms, mushroom curry – we were impressed.  Full of fungus, we hopped back into the car to continue on to the Saraswati hotel.  It was Sarah’s birthday after all, where else would we stay.

Apparently it was low season so we nearly had the hotel to ourselves.  This didn't really matter as Yano would be back to pick us up in the morning at, gulp, 4 AM, so we could get to Borobudur temple for sunrise.  Luckily we were only a 10 minute walk from the temple, so if he overslept we would have been fine, but there he was the next day, looking just as tired as us and joking how he was going to take another nap while we went on the tour.  I had to admit, at 4 AM, even I was questioning our sanity.

Tickets in hand and fully garbed up in required sarongs, we traded Yano for a new guide and began following the army of flashlights to the top of Borobudur.  It was still quite dark when we reached the top, but wasn't long before the black turned a shade of grey and various roosters throughout the valley had a competition to see who could be the loudest.  15 minutes later, Mount Merapi became visible and you hoped that since the sleeping giant blew its top 3 years ago it would be OK keeping a lid on in it for the rest of the weekend.   Suddenly the red orb started poking its head over the mountain range and everyone became silent, even the roosters seemed to comply.


Too many pictures later, we began our descent down the hillside while learning about the history of the temple.  Earthquakes had destroyed much of it before being painstakingly restored through the help of UNESCO.  Even good old Mr. Raffles had stumbled upon it in his exploring days before making his way to Singapore and having a hotel named after him where we now have the pleasure of being able to purchase overpriced Singapore Slings.

At the bottom, we recharged with coffee and banana fritters for breakfast before heading to Prambanam Temple and switching from Buddhists to Hindus.  This temple had been completely destroyed by an earthquake and the work to restore it is still ongoing.  You could walk up the stairs and into the temples for Brahma, Siva and Vishnu, however, to see Sivas home you had to put on a hard hat.  Upon closer examination, the sign claimed that it was relatively stable and safe to explore.  Relatively seemed like pretty loose terminology, but if it is good enough to communicate safety then I think I’m going to start working it into my daily vocabulary, like “that food was relatively good, the house is relatively clean or my work is relatively complete.”  Even after taking our lives into our own hands, we survived and celebrated with some coconut juice.

The ride back to the hotel was a replay of the prior week with a lot of head bobbing and nodding off.  At this point we had been up and roaming about for 12 hours and were pretty beat, but reached down deep for some final shopping energy.  Our persistence was rewarded when we found the exact souvenir we were looking for at a local stone shop and procured a miniature lava stone stupa for 75,000 rupiah.  This also qualified as a new birthday record as how often does anyone give you a present that costs 75k of something?  A nap by the pool, followed by some local Indonesian treats for dinner capped off the day, another Asian birthday success story in the books.