Apart from Bali, Borobudur is maybe the most well-known cultural site of Indonesia, its iconic image is widely used to represent Buddhism or exotic of Southeast Asia which turned Borobudur to be a must-see place in this country. It was a dilemma that should we stay near Borobudur and join the famous sunrise tour or not, but since we visited Indonesia on monsoon season which normally has raining in the early morning and late afternoon, so we decided to stay in the city of Yogyakarta instead and made a day trip instead. On the late showering morning, our driver took us to Borobudur, when our van left Yogyakarta’s city limits the rain stopped and finally, we could ensure that our visit will be dry.

The first sight of Borobudur was a big surprised for us as we expected Borobudur to be gigantic likes Great Stupas in Anuradhapura of Sri Lanka, but the structure is still big enough and not totally destroy our imagination. The size of Borobudur reminded me lesser complex of Khmer Civilization of Angkor Wat or Pyramid of Maya in Mexico. When we approached near Borobudur, the blackish of the whole structure made we felt a bit bore on its overall visual design. The colors of tourists’ dresses who walked on Borobudur’s upper area were far more eye-catching! Then our guide showed us the first floor of the whole complex which full of beautiful cravings depicting stories of Buddha and many Buddhist legends. The quality of art is magnificent, really beautiful and in the same par of great mural of Angkor and Ellora. When we went higher and higher in each floor, more beautiful cravings could be seen including lovely Buddha statues and small stupas. One of the impressive structures are the four gates of each floor which seemed very fragile and prompted to collapse by just small push, but actually very strong structures. One of the unbelievable things we had in Borobudur was that during we saw those cravings on lower floors, we had not seen or encountered any tourists at all, and when we reached the top floor, we finally met all fellow tourists. To be honest for art quality, the top floor was quite boring with only two types of stupas, the Buddha statues inside stupas were hard to see except the one that seem to be intended not to be restored in order to show the Buddha image which became a must shot for souvenir photographs. However, the view of surrounding valley and the view of stupas were breathtaking and really photogenic. After walking around on the top floor, we decided to climb down, our guide explained to us that since the beginning of construction, the weight of the whole Borobudur complex made the whole structure to collapse inside as there is no strong fundamental underneath it. Ancient engineers had to build extra stone platform around Borobudur as the stone ring in order to keep the whole structure intact while hidden the lowest floor mural craving which representing the underworld, fortunately when archaeologists restored Borobudur, they decided to leave some part of this stone platform opened and show the cravings.

It was a hot and humid but lovely day to see this beautiful World Heritage Site of Indonesia. While Borobudur is not exactly what we expected, the complex is indeed beautiful and have outstanding value that deserved to be one of top three must see cultural historical sites in Southeast Asia apart from Angkor and Bagan. Together with the equally impressive Phambanan and Sultan’s Kraton Palace complex, Yogyakarta is a worthwhile destination. Also, the food here is quite amazing from Sultan royal cuisine to street foods, and the local special delicacies like fried chicken, Gudeg Jogja or Jackfruit dried stew and Bakpia, bean filled pastry are really delicious and simply the must.