Yogyakarta and Prambanan

From Prambanan

Today started with a visit to the Kraton Palace, which is the current residence of the Sultan of Yogyakarta. The palace complex covers a large area of several square kilometers, but only a small part is currently open to the public. This, together with the fact that the daily dance performance was suspended over the New Year period, meant that there was not much to see. The parts of the palace that we were able to view were rather tatty and the whole thing was generally unimpressive. Time then to head off to Prambanan to see the Hindu temple.

This turned out to be a well thought out site, with an attractive park surrounding the ancient temples. The main temple was reminiscent of some of the temples in Ayudthia, but with a Hindu rather than Buddhist slant. Much of the site was still in ruins, but the central temples had been rebuilt and were an impressive sight. Yogyakarta suffered a major earthquake as recently as 2006, which caused extensive damage to many of the structures at Prambanan. Although much work has already been done since then to restabilise the buildings, some of the area was still closed to the public. The museum showed what the area had looked like back in the late 1800's before the Dutch started on their reconstruction efforts. Much of it was just a series of piles of rubble. The task of rebuilding each stupa must have been like working on a giant 3D jigsaw puzzle, with no accurate idea of what the end result should look like. An amazing achievement.

In the afternoon our driver took us on the 90 minute trip over to Borobudur, where we would be staying the night, in readiness for viewing that temple in the morning.