Time to shop....

So it has been an entire week and other than food and beer I have not bought a thing! Time to get my eye in on the bartering and start helping the local economy! First we headed to a batik factory and then a silver factory......I will definitely need to post things home!

After lunch we headed to Borobudur, one if my main reasons for taking this trip. It is a World Heritage site, a Buddhist temple built in about 800 AD, so older than Angkor Wat and Bagan ( both if which I have been lucky enough to see). It was left abandoned and overgrown with jungle for many centuries, survived earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, and was rediscovered in the mid 1800's.

In accordance with Buddhist tho kings there are 10 levels to climb before you reach nirvana. Interestingly the reliefs at the bottom that show evil and greed are no longer on show. In a predominantly Muslim country it is not considered appropriate due to the carvings being somewhat pornographic!

It was amazing to see how well some of the quite deep carvings had survived, but ax it was a Sunday the place was mobbed by Indonesians, which kind of tainted any ethereal atmosphere. Also it was odd being at a Buddhist temple without any mold wandering around! The loud rabbit system that kept blaring out various messages didn't really help matters!

But we waited until the end of the day so that as many others had left as possible and we were able to grab the odd moment to ourselves. It is another tick on the list of Stevenson Objectives! And just to prove I really was there......