Bali was my final destination after two or three weeks travelling all the way by land from Jakarta. As I crossed the Bali Sea on a boat from Banyuwangi, Gilimanuk and this greeted me:
I do not remember the name of this mountain. It could be Prapat Agung but looking at the map, the twin (even three?) peaks might suggest it is not.
When I first read of Prambanan, in my mind there was an amazing structure that overwhelmed everything. But my expectation of it proved too much. I felt too many words had romanticized blocks of big ancient rocks.
Please do not get me wrong. Prambanan, from afar, looks amazing, mysterious. It imposes itself on its surroundings.
It is just that the experience of actually being there erodes the very air that makes it out of this world. It likes being awed by a rainbow but once you have learned that it is merely an interaction between light and water vapor, it ceases to be mysterious. It becomes just physics. And here was Prambanan representing the gods of Hindu built by the Sanjayas, once rival to the mighty Sailendras and Srivijaya: a pile of ancient rocks.
It does not help that I have been to Siem Reap. There, reality was grander than anything I had imagined. Rightly or wrongly, experience informs expectation and Angkor pushed my expectation of everything else that came from that particular era of Southeast Asian history even higher. Whatever expectation I had of Pagan, Borobodur and Prambanan got pushed up no thanks to the Angkor temples.
My expectation was Icarus. Reality was the sun. Prambanan is not as impressive as I had first imagined.
But I am glad that I visited Prambanan anyway. As always, it is always good having something concrete to back up the stuff I read in books to reaffirm that things out there are not just some fancy imagination concocted by the human mind. They are real and once upon a time, they were the centers of the world.
I have not been updating this blog of mine as often as I would like to. I have been busy with work and life in general.
Still, I have lots to say but just not enough time to write. I partly blame Twitter for that, which allows me to blow some steam off so that none accumulates to make me really wants to write anything in full. It is surprising how 140 characters can do wonders sometimes.
The fact that I have stopped writing for The Sun and Selangor Times after the May 5 election does not help in pushing me to write more.
But there is stuff in the pipeline and I want to warm up before things get too fast on that front. So, blogging is a good way to give me a giddy-up moment.
Also, one thing with me is that I feel ashamed if I see somebody works harder than me. And here is a self guilt-tripping for me:
He is a farmer somewhere in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia, some time late in the morning. And he works way harder than me.
This was pretty far off from the main road. I was on a bicycle, exploring the place and took a nap somewhere under a coconut tree. It was an awesome in-between jobs vacation.
Okay. I want to take more holiday. Crap.
Prior to traveling to Java, I had never seen a volcano before. And I am happy to write that the first ever volcano I saw with my very own naked eyes were the mythical Mount Merbabu and its twin, Merapi on my early morning approach to Yogyakarta in Central Java. I actually got to the foot of Merapi. Time however was extremely short and so, I did not spend too much time there. Merapi last erupted in 2010 and there were signs of the eruption everywhere. Especially impressive was a crevasse which molten earth ran through downhill. It must have been a sight to remember.
Anyway… this one is not one of those two famous volcanoes however. This is Mount Lawu, I think, slightly to the east of Surakarta, or probably better known as Solo.
I kind of regretted for not spending time in Solo. Nearby are the ruins of Majapahit. Maybe, the next time I decide to have an adventure in Java, I will spend some time exploring Solo and its environs. And I will definitely spend some more time in Yogyakarta. Did I tell you that I love Yogyakarta?
The photo is not the greatest. I took the shot inside of the train, through the glass window. And I was on my long range lens, which allows only limited amount of light into the camera. But I love it still because it is the only concrete thing that I have to remind of where I was, if I ever grow old and lose my memory to become a old man some time in the late 21st century.
Or maybe, hopefully, some time in the early 22nd century. I still want to see my flying cars.
I have finally made it to Borobudur last December. At last, it was something concrete to back up all that I have learned about the Sailendras and Srivijaya. There it was, a concrete proof in the form of one of the largest Buddhist structures in the world, standing right in front of me. I do not have to imagine the words that I have read anymore. There is now a mental image in my head, full of details no word can ever describe fully.
Angkor Wat, checked. Borobudur, checked. Next, I think I want to see Pagan in Myanmar. We will see how that goes. Myanmar will definitely be more challenging that both Cambodia and Indonesia. Also, more adventurous.
What made me excited about actually being there was that I knew the history behind both Angkor Wat and Borobudur. I know exactly how both are linked. The Sailendras built Borobudur. Jayavarman who lived among the Sailendras, was sent to Cambodia to govern it. Once there, he rebelled against the Sailendras and founded the Khmer empire, the builder of Angkor Wat and other magnificent Angkor structures littered throughout Cambodia and beyond in Indochina.
Understanding the link made me all the more appreciative of history. I know that these are not mere stones. They are proofs of our history. Some might want to deny it but there they are, shouting, we are here.
I could not help myself comparing Borobudur to the mountain temples in Siem Reap. Somehow, Borobudur has not been conserved as well as the Angkor temples. this appears to be true for Prambanan temples as well, which are located about 50km to the east. Maybe it is just me.
Nevertheless, Borobudur was abandoned for hundreds of years before Stamford Raffles re-discovered it in the 19th century. Borobudur was buried under volcanic ashes. For Angkor Wat and others, many of them were working temples even as the Khmer empire was long gone.
Furthermore, conservation works on Borobudur were carried out pretty late compared to Angkor Wat. My guide told me even in the 1990s, villagers living on and around the temples. Suharto evicted them later.
This was especially true for Prambanan. Worse, residents took some of the stone blocks from Prambanan for their own purposes, whatever that might be. Sacrilege. In Yogyakarta, there is a ruin called the Water Castle, or Taman Sari. And there are houses around the ruins. I imagine it was worse for Prambanan some time ago.
Anyway, here is a typical relief of Borobudur. My guide at Borobudur was not as good as the one in Siem Reap. So, I did not get to learn the story behind many of the reliefs. But one has to notice those featureless cubes. The Dutch (or was it UNESCO?) placed them there because the originals are lost.
In fact, many features at the lower levels are unseen as they are behind modern stone blocks placed to stabilize the whole structure. I suppose, that is the sacrifice of saving Borobudur. I hope, one day, those conservationists will develop a technology to stabilize Borobodur and remove those modern stones so that visitors can see Borobudur for what it truly is.
Here is what I mean.
See the stone floor? That is not part of the original structure.