We saw Prambanan

When I lived here with my parents and siblings, I remember my dad sitting at the dining room table and telling us about a trip to Central Java: "I saw Borobudur, I saw Prambanan," he said. And on Saturday, we saw Prambanan, which is a 9th-century Hindu temple. We were taken there by our generous host, who before driving us there bought us some chicken to eat. 

Here we are waiting for the chicken to cook at the roadside stall. Our host got out her ipad and let us listen to several songs. The first two: a devotional Islamic song, followed by John Lennon's "Imagine."

Then after we got the chicken, we stopped by a srabi and lekker shop to get some good coconut pancakes and fruity taco-type items.

Here are some pictures from the car, to give a sense of the two hour drive there.

At the temple, we hired a guide who scraped the ground with his shoe to show us the ash from a recently erupted (a few years back) volcano.

Here we are seeing Prambanan

They had a special platform that we stood on, indicating the fact that we were visiting a tourist attraction: roughly, "Prambanan Temple Tourist Park."

We might have just had our picture taken on the platform and left, I guess, but we're not that kind of tourist.

In approaching the main temple complex, we saw a lot of rocks stacked up waiting to be assemble, since a lot of the original stonework has fallen apart or been dismantled.

Here our guide points out a carved face among the old piles of stone.

Getting closer

W and S ascending the first staircase.

On the front of one of the main temples was a series of panels. First the monkeys.

Then the rabbits

Cats?

Deer?

Peafowl.

Large birds.

Up we went into another of the temple doors.

Next to the doorway: a lounging cat.

A plaque honoring President Soekarno's role in organizing the restoration of Prambanan.

After we went up many of the staircases, we walked into dark rooms with statues.

A sign marking the way not to go

Along the walls, we saw the story of the Ramayana unfold.

Our guide did a good job of narrating a lot of it for us.

When I see carvings and markings from so many centuries back, I'm amazed at how humans have made enduring things that remain intelligible across hundreds and thousands of years. Cultural differences are often very big just among the group of humans that's living on the planet at any given time, so the idea that cultures remain somewhat intelligible over thousands of years is striking. (Of course, there's a lot I'm not understanding when I see Prambanan also!)

It was good to see these panels about crossing the sea. Water is something that could find representation in a lot of different ways in a lot of different cultures, so I was struck that the curving lines of the water were so familiar.

I know that to have things growing on the stonework isn't best for it, since the moss degrades the stone, using it for nutrients, but I still liked seeing some occasional moss.

Our guide pointed out the repairs that had to be done after the earthquake of 2006.

This temple spire fell during the earthquake, and the government opted not to put it back on top of the temple, as a monument to the earthquake.

As soon as our guide left us, school kids approached to interview us. They had lists of questions, and we gave several answers. 

As we showed our willingness to be interviewed, more school kids approached.

Just before they arrived, we had bought a map of Indonesia and W wanted a picture with it.

S was feeling so happy to be interviewed!

Here she is in the throng.

W posing for a pic of himself having a picture taken of himself.

As we moved out of the main temple complex, we saw a fork lift working on moving the unmatched stones toward a state of matching.

We got onto a tram that took us to another temple complex.

A pic from the tram, showing the ongoing work to restore some of the sites.

A good picture showing the piles of unmatched stones.

The entrance to the second temple site we went to, where hardly anyone was seeing Prambanan.

The main path to the main temple looked like it was often used, even if we were the only ones using it right now.

But the side paths looked less used.

Unless you consider the brightly colored insects.

Here you can see a drainage spout to keep the water from pooling and corroding the temple.

W wanted a pic of himself pointing to this carving, which he pointed out was also designed to keep water from pooling on the temple's stones.

Here we found other carvings with growing things on them.

After we went to the deserted temple, we stopped by a small animal display area, also on the temple grounds. Here's W with a cassowary. (S is less inclined to want to be in pics, so she's not showing up as much, as I'm noticing while writing these captions.)

It was only a low fence that kept us separated from the cassowary, which I just learned from wikipedia is something of a danger bird, in terms of its kicks and toenails.

Back before I knew about their kicking, I had thought this was a pic of the bird smiling good-naturedly as us.

There were also some deer.

Some of which were fighting.

W wanted to stand at the base of this tree.

At the exit, there were a lot of cobek for sale.

On the way back, we stopped for durian. Here's a curtain of durian.

And here are some durian covered by a curtain.

It was a long day but we needed to stop by the grocery store on the way home, and we picked up some green bread.

We didn't buy any of this, but the brand name reminded us of a friend of ours in Utah.