I can no longer remember when I first learnt of Borobudur. It must have been at least two decades ago.  Nonetheless, I have vivid recollection of my first trip to Borobudur back in 2007.  It was a trip long in the planning.  A group of Buddhist friends was keen to visit Borobudur and we planned the trip ourselves, liaising with the Indonesian tour operator.

Arriving in Solo early in the morning, our first day in Indonesia was spent exploring the Yogyakarta Palace and the Water Palace.  The highlight of the trip began when we arrived at the Magelang, the town where Borobudur resided.  Our first view of the ancient structures was actually Vihara Mendut.  The intricate cravings and the statues of the Vairocana Buddha flanked by the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara and Boddhisatva Vajrapani got us to a photo-taking frenzy which would only later be overtaken by the photo-taking stint at Borobudur.  Thank goodness for the invention of digital camera!

Arriving at the Manohara Hotel (which sadly no longer accepted guests since late 2018) located within the Borobudur compound, we had dinner and did some last-minute discussions and readings on Borobudur before sleeping early. We would be waking up later for sunrise at Borobudur.

Waking up at 4am the next morning, there was a sense of excitement as we washed up, gathered our torchlights and followed the guide on a short trek to Borobudur.  As we were within the Borobudur compounds, we reached the Borobudur structure within 15 minutes.

It was still dark as we approached the structure and not much could be seen. With the torchlight, we climbed up the stone stairway and reached the apex of the structure. There, we waited patiently for sunrise and there it was!

Borobudur was built around the 8th century during the Sailendra dynasty. The scale of the works involved in building this huge monument suggested that the work took about decades (estimated to be 30-70 years) to complete. Unlike other Buddhist temples which were built to house monastics or as stupas, Borobudur is unique with its scale and numbers of reliefs and Buddha statues. There are 504 Buddha statues (432 statues on the lover five levels and 72 on the upper round terraces) and 2,670 relief panels depicting various aspects of Buddhism, including the life of the Buddha, Jataka tales and aspects of the Avatamsaka Sutra. There were also depictions of daily Javanese lives and culture from that era.

You know what they say – there are no words to really describe how I felt at that moment. It was like being home, a sense of achievement even though I was just a tourist passing by and did nothing exceptional.  The group gathered and we did a puja before dedicating merits. After that, with the morning sun up, we set about exploring the structure.  We went back to the hotel for breakfast before going back to Borobudur to study the reliefs in earnest.

It was fun trying to decipher the reliefs but the best we could do with our resource – the wonderful Borobudur Golden Tales of the Buddhas – was to guess at which reliefs depict which scenes from the life of the Buddha.  Some were very straightforward while others left us scratching our heads.  The Jataka tales were also difficult to decipher and the travels of Sudhana were literally impossible to understand.

But it was really enjoyable walking around (in the hot sun), staring at stone reliefs more than a thousand years old.  It was around then that I knew that I should be back, bringing more people to appreciate and marvel at this World Heritage site.  It took me ten years but here it is – Bodhi Travel Pte Ltd, Singapore’s only (to our knowledge) travel startup dedicated to Buddhist destinations.

Know more about our tour packages to Borobudur here: [CLICK]

Want to know more about Borobudur?

We would like to introduce this book to you: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1091678.Borobudur

MORE ARTICLE: Journey to Discover Thai Buddhism

MORE ARTICLE: Tips for Travelling Safely