Days Seven & Eight: Yogyakarta and visiting Borobudur Temple

When Rich and I were planning our holiday this year, we knew we wanted to visit South East Asia - but WHERE? Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos? There were lots of amazing things to visit in ALL these countries, but nothing really sparked our imagination.

That was until a friend posted a "top ten placed to visit in 2014" list on facebook - she tagged Rich and I in the post as Christchurch was number two on the list (this friend is in the USA - so she always thinks of us when anything NZ related pops up). We read through the other places on the list, and one of the places that caught our attention was Yogyakarta, Indonesia - I will admit it, I hadn't really thought of visiting Indonesia on our trip. I guess a lot of Kiwis go to Indonesia to party it up in Bali which isn't my scene. However when we read about Yogyakarta it sounds amazing - temples, palaces, so much history! That was it, we were sold! Yogyakarta was added to our list of places to visit in 2014.

I didn't take many photos on our first day in Yogyakarta because - my camera ran out of batteries. However, I did snap a few pictures before it died, I loved this little guy. There was a bunch of fun street art in the city.

On our second day we got up early for a visit to Borobudur - this is one of the two main reasons we chose to visit Yogyakarta.

Borobudur is an 9th Century Buddhist Temple - that alone completely blows my mind.

As you can see,  it was an EXTREMELY hot day - sensible people wore hats and had parasols. But not me "who needs shade when you hair is BLACK?" - I should have TOTALLY had a hat or parasol!

I've visited quite a few different Asian countries and visited a lot of Buddhist Temples, but Borobudur was unlike anything I've ever seen. The most obvious thing being - you can't go INSIDE Borobudur! It's a large stone structure and you can walk along the different levels, but there is no inside.

Each layer of the temple included a lot of different reliefs that told different stories. Climbing up the levels wasn't difficult at all - but the heat was kind of brutal for folks like us that are from a very mild climate. The higher you climbed, the more amazing the views became.

When  we finally reached the top of the temple it was amazing, there really are no words.  It was one of those moments that reminded me why I save my pennies to travel.

On our way back to the hotel, our driver took us to visit a second temple (the name of this temple escapes me right now). It wasn't as big or impressive as Borobudur - but it was still impressive!

 Also Rich had the chance  to swing on a tree - tree swinging isn't for me, so I was the group photographer!

So how were our first couple of days in Indonesia? Completely, mind blowing and amazing and there are so many more Yogyakarta adventures to come!