After visiting the holiest Buddhist temple complex, Borobudur, yesterday, we went to the east side of Jogja and to the Prambanan temple which is only about 18 kilometers away. It is the largest Hindu temple complex in Indonesia and was built in the 9th century. Its structure highly differs from what we have seen the day before. While Borobudur consisted of only one but exceptionally large temple in the shape of pyramid, Prambanan was built out of several smaller temples, each with its own bas-reliefs.

All temples were built with the, for Indonesian architecture typical, black stones. The temple complex additionally consists of three more temples next to the Candi Prambanan, while two of the them still have to be fully rebuilt after the complex was significantly damaged during an earthquake in 2006.

The second finished temple situated in the Prambanan temple complex is the Sewu temple on the other side of the area. Its entrance is guarded by the warrior statues. (By the way, the dress Svenja’s wearing on the top image is a traditional robe from Flore.)

While the first temple, the Candi Prambanan, is visited by many tourists, the Candi Sewu is almost deserted, although included in the same ticket.

The drawback is the distance you have to walk through the park to reach it. We decided to make our trip during the morning so we would have time to visit some places in Jogja itself during the afternoon. Unfortunately, after seeing the Candi Sewu, we left the park on the back side and hoped to get a taxi back to Jogja. Well, this did not work out that great. So we head to walk for about 50 minutes at noon and without any shadow along the park to reach the entrance. But even after being there, the chance to find a taxi is almost zero, which took us additional (and very unexpected since we are at one of the biggest tourist attractions in Indonesia and very close to the airport) 20 minutes. So if you every go there, make sure to remind your taxi driver once more, that you want him to wait for your return.

Due to the very exhausting walk and our rise with the sun, we had to cancel our plans for the afternoon and felt asleep right after reaching our hotel. Luckily we did not have to look for a restaurant at evening since we already made a reservation at the very close Milas restaurant, where we had something we really have to try ourselves when we’re back home: tempeh steak with onion sauce.