Borobudur Temple: I Came for Sunrise. Humanity Ruined That.

I’d seen Borobudur Temple in photographs for years.

You probably have too.

Rows of giant bell-shaped stupas. Buddha statues staring peacefully across the Indonesian countryside. Mist hanging over distant mountains while the sun rises behind one of the most recognizable Buddhist monuments on Earth.

As a photographer, this was exactly the kind of shit that gets stuck in my head.

I wanted that sunrise.

I wanted those stupas.

I wanted that stupidly perfect photograph I’d already composed in my imagination before setting foot in Indonesia.

So when I finally made it to Central Java, Borobudur wasn’t some casual maybe we’ll stop there if we have time attraction.

I was going.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the scale.

Photographs make Borobudur look beautiful.

They don’t adequately communicate that Indonesia basically built Buddhism a fucking mountain.

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DESTINATION: Borobudur Temple

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I CAME FOR THE SUNRISE. ABOUT THAT…

For years, one of the legendary Borobudur experiences was arriving before dawn, climbing the monument in darkness and waiting among the stupas while the sun rose over Central Java.

I had been fortunate to experience it during my first visit in 2016, but found in on my subsequent visits that it had been eliminated.

Unfortunately, millions of other humans found out the same thing.

Borobudur became a victim of its own success. Millions of feet walking across 1,200-year-old stone turns out to be somewhat incompatible with keeping that stone around for another 1,200 years.

Access became increasingly restricted, and the classic unrestricted sunrise climb disappeared.

Which, as a photographer, sucked.

There’s something particularly irritating about traveling halfway around the planet for a photograph only to discover humanity already got there, took the photograph, posted it to Instagram and collectively loved the place so aggressively that nobody else could do it anymore.

But after actually visiting Borobudur, I started understanding why.

And strangely enough, it was a bunch of tiny white dots that finally made the whole thing click.

More on those later.

Sunrise access has changed again over the years and now there is extremely limited official early-morning experiences, so this is absolutely something to verify before visiting.

Do not assume the sunrise photograph you saw online represents something your current ticket allows you to do.

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HOLY SHIT, THIS THING IS BIG

Borobudur is located in Magelang Regency in Central Java, northwest of Yogyakarta.

You’ll constantly see it described as “Borobudur Temple Yogyakarta” because Yogyakarta is the obvious tourism base for visiting it.

That’s what I used.

And this entire part of Java is ridiculous if ancient temples, mountains and questionable geology are your thing.

You’ve got Borobudur.

You’ve got the towering Hindu complex of Prambanan Temple on the other side of Yogyakarta.

And looming over the region is Mount Merapi, an extremely active volcano that serves as a subtle reminder that building enormous stone monuments in one of the most geologically pissed-off parts of the planet was certainly a choice.

But Borobudur is the heavyweight.

When I finally stood at the bottom and looked up, the first thing that hit me wasn’t the history.

It wasn’t Buddhism.

It wasn’t UNESCO.

It was:

Holy shit.

Borobudur doesn’t look like a conventional temple.

There isn’t one giant building you enter.

There isn’t an enormous interior chamber.

There really isn’t an “inside” at all.

Instead, the entire monument rises through a series of massive stacked terraces, getting progressively narrower as you climb toward the huge central stupa.

It looks less like somebody constructed a temple and more like somebody decided the existing landscape wasn’t sufficiently Buddhist.

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PHOTOS DON’T EXPLAIN THE SCALE

Apparently I’m not the only person struggling with this because people actually search Google for “Borobudur compared to human.”

I completely understand why.

Take people out of a Borobudur photograph and your brain loses any useful reference for scale.

Those cute little bell-shaped stupas?

Not particularly little.

The staircases?

Not little.

The terraces?

Definitely not little.

Borobudur contains hundreds of Buddha statues and thousands of stone relief panels spread across multiple levels. At the top, 72 perforated stupas surround the enormous central stupa.

It’s an absolutely unreasonable amount of stone.

And people started building this thing during the 8th and 9th centuries under the Sailendra Dynasty.

No excavators.

No tower cranes.

No AutoCAD.

No Teams meeting where the Director of Stupa Operations explains that enlightenment has slipped into Q4 because Buddha Procurement hasn’t approved the volcanic-rock purchase order.

Just people.

Tools.

Math.

Engineering.

And what must have been a truly spectacular inability to say:

“You know, I think that’s probably big enough.”

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THEN YOU START CLIMBING

Looking at Borobudur from the ground gives you the scale.

Climbing it gives you the story.

Once I started moving upward, the enormous monument I’d been staring at from outside basically disappeared.

Suddenly I was walking through narrow stone galleries surrounded by walls covered in insanely detailed carvings.

People.

Animals.

Ships.

Buildings.

Buddhist stories.

Scenes of life in ancient Java.

There are thousands of relief panels throughout Borobudur, and you could spend hours looking at them if there weren’t other humans behind you wondering why you’ve been photographing the same 1,200-year-old rock for six minutes.

But the carvings aren’t random decoration.

The entire structure was designed as a physical journey through Buddhist cosmology.

The lower levels represent the world of earthly desire. As you climb higher, the architecture symbolically moves you toward enlightenment.

So every staircase technically brings you slightly closer to Nirvana.

My spiritual progress mostly consisted of sweating and wondering why I hadn’t brought more water.

Enlightenment is apparently cardio-intensive.

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AND THEN EVERYTHING OPENS UP

This was the moment Borobudur really got me.

You spend the lower portion of the climb inside those relatively confined galleries.

Stone walls beside you.

Stone underneath you.

Carvings everywhere.

Then you reach the upper terraces.

And the walls disappear.

Suddenly everything opens.

You’re standing among the famous stupas with the green landscape of Central Java stretching out in every direction.

Mountains.

Jungle.

Buddha statues sitting inside perforated stone domes.

The giant central stupa rising above everything.

And approximately 47,000 potential photographs immediately fighting for my attention.

This was the Borobudur I’d seen in pictures.

Except now I understood it.

The geometry is almost unfairly photogenic.

Move ten feet and the stupas align differently.

Walk around another one and there’s a Buddha framed against the mountains.

Back up and the repeating stone structures create perfect leading lines toward the center.

It’s one of those places where the subject does about 80% of the photographer’s job.

I’d love to tell you my Borobudur photographs are good because I’m some sort of photographic genius.

But let’s give credit where it’s due.

The ninth-century architects absolutely crushed the composition.

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THEN I STARTED SEEING WHITE DOTS

I’ve visited Borobudur more than once.

And on my second visit, somebody pointed out something I’d completely missed the first time.

Tiny white dots.

They were on some of the stones.

Once I knew what I was looking for, I started noticing them all over the monument.

The dots identify replacement stones used during restoration, distinguishing newer material from original stone.

And this tiny, seemingly insignificant detail completely changed how I looked at Borobudur.

Until then, the monument had felt almost indestructible.

It’s so fucking enormous that your brain starts treating it like geology.

Mountains don’t need maintenance.

Borobudur does.

A lot of it.

During the enormous restoration of Borobudur, sections of the monument were dismantled. Stones were documented, removed, cleaned, conserved and eventually returned to the structure.

Individual stones had to be tracked so people knew where the hell everything went.

Think about that logistical nightmare.

Take apart sections of a 1,200-year-old Buddhist monument containing an incomprehensible number of stone blocks.

Repair everything.

Catalog everything.

Then put the fucking thing back together.

I have assembled IKEA furniture and ended with three mystery screws sitting on the floor.

These people were rebuilding a Buddhist mountain.

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NOW THE SUNRISE RESTRICTIONS MADE SENSE

Those stupid little white dots became one of my favorite things about Borobudur.

Not because they’re beautiful.

They’re fucking dots.

But because they tell a much bigger story.

Borobudur isn’t simply surviving. People are actively keeping it alive.

Stone deteriorates.

Water gets in.

Plants grow.

Earthquakes happen.

And volcanoes happen a lot more frequently than I’d personally prefer.

Nearby Mount Merapi is one of Indonesia’s most active volcanoes. Seeing it while exploring this region makes Borobudur’s survival feel even more ridiculous.

Java has basically spent the last thousand years trying to shake, bury, soak or erupt on this thing.

Then add millions of tourists who would happily march across it every year if someone let us.

Suddenly restricting access didn’t feel like bureaucratic bullshit designed specifically to ruin my sunrise photograph.

It seemed pretty reasonable.

That doesn’t mean I don’t want the sunrise photograph.

I’m still selfish.

I just understand the problem now.

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HUMANITY ALSO MANAGED TO LOSE IT

And then there’s my favorite part of Borobudur’s history.

We lost it.

Borobudur was built during the Sailendra Dynasty in the 8th and 9th centuries as an enormous Buddhist monument.

Then it was eventually abandoned.

Vegetation moved in.

Volcanic material accumulated.

And one of the largest Buddhist monuments ever created gradually disappeared from wider attention for centuries.

Think about the absurdity of that.

Humanity constructed an enormous stone mountain covered with hundreds of Buddha statues…

…and then basically misplaced it.

“Has anyone seen the giant Buddhist temple?”

“When did you have it last?”

“Sometime around the 10th century.”

“Did you check behind the volcano?”

Borobudur returned to wider attention during the 19th century and eventually became the focus of enormous restoration and conservation efforts.

Today, the Borobudur Temple Compounds are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

And yes, “compounds” is plural for a reason.

The UNESCO property includes Borobudur along with the smaller Mendut and Pawon temples.

But Borobudur is obviously the part where humanity completely lost control of reasonable project scope.

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BOROBUDUR IS BUDDHIST. PRAMBANAN IS HINDU.

One of the best parts about using Yogyakarta as a base is that you can experience two completely different ancient religious complexes without crossing half of Indonesia.

Borobudur is Buddhist.

Specifically, it’s a Mahayana Buddhist monument.

Nearby Prambanan Temple is Hindu.

And I’ve visited both.

They feel completely different.

Borobudur is broad, heavy and almost geological.

You’re moving horizontally through enormous terraces while slowly climbing toward those open circular levels at the top.

Prambanan goes vertical.

Its towers shoot upward, creating this completely different silhouette of sharp stone spires.

If Borobudur feels like somebody built a mountain, Prambanan feels like somebody tried to stab heaven with architecture.

Don’t choose between them.

If you’ve made it all the way to Yogyakarta, see both.

They’re different religions, completely different architectural experiences and two of the best historical sites in Indonesia sitting practically next door to one another by Indonesian standards.

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AND NO, BOROBUDUR ISN’T ONE OF THE SEVEN WONDERS

Apparently Google really wants this settled.

Is Borobudur one of the Seven Wonders of the World?

No.

It’s not one of the official New Seven Wonders.

It doesn’t need to be.

Borobudur is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and generally recognized as the world’s largest Buddhist temple.

Stand underneath it.

Look at the scale.

Climb through the galleries.

Look at thousands of stone carvings.

Walk among the stupas.

Then remind yourself people started constructing the thing roughly 1,200 years ago.

If your response is: “Well, technically it’s not on the official list…”

you’re missing the fucking point.

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DON’T BUY THE WRONG TICKET

There is one practical detail I’d make damn sure I understood before visiting today.

Entering the Borobudur grounds and climbing the actual temple structure are not necessarily the same thing.

Access has become increasingly controlled to protect the monument.

So if your entire reason for traveling to Central Java is standing among the stupas, make sure the ticket you’re buying actually includes access to the temple structure.

This is not the place to arrive and discover you’ve accidentally purchased the: LOOK AT BOROBUDUR FROM OVER HERE PACKAGE™

Rules change.

Visitor limits change.

Sunrise access changes.

The monument has been standing for roughly 1,200 years, while its ticketing policies seem capable of changing between breakfast and lunch.

Check the current official access rules shortly before you go.

Especially if photography or sunrise is the reason you’re making the trip.

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EVENTUALLY, PUT THE FUCKING CAMERA DOWN

Borobudur is dangerous for photographers.

Not physically dangerous.

Productivity dangerous.

There’s always another photograph.

Another Buddha.

Another stupa.

Another mountain.

Another angle that’s slightly better than the 416 nearly identical photographs already sitting on your memory card.

Eventually I put the camera down.

And that’s probably when I appreciated Borobudur the most.

Standing on those upper terraces, the entire story suddenly comes together.

You’ve climbed out of the dense lower galleries into this enormous open space.

The stupas surround you.

Mountains sit on the horizon.

Central Java stretches out below.

And underneath your feet are roughly 1,200 years of human ambition, religion, abandonment, rediscovery, restoration and survival.

It’s one of those rare places where history doesn’t feel like something someone is explaining to you.

You’re physically standing on it.

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SO, IS BOROBUDUR TEMPLE WORTH VISITING?

Absolutely.

Borobudur is exactly the kind of famous attraction that normally makes me nervous.

The more photographs I’ve seen of somewhere before visiting, the greater the chance reality is going to show up looking considerably less impressive than Instagram promised.

I’ve had that happen elsewhere in Indonesia.

At Manta Ray Bay near Nusa Penida, the spectacular view from above turned into a considerably less magical experience once I jumped into water containing enough floating garbage to remind me that Instagram frequently crops out reality.

Borobudur went the opposite direction.

I’d seen the photographs.

I’d read about the temple.

I knew about the Buddhas.

I knew about the stupas.

I knew it was old.

I knew it was big.

And I still wasn’t prepared for what it felt like standing underneath it.

That’s happened to me at a few places in Indonesia.

Pink Beach in Komodo National Park surprised me because the ridiculous pink sand somehow wasn’t even the best part once I got into the crystal-clear water.

Borobudur surprised me because the famous photographs weren’t showing enough.

They showed the stupas.

They didn’t show the scale.

Visiting twice gave me two completely different perspectives.

The first time, I saw the spectacle.

The size.

The architecture.

The photographs.

The second time, I noticed the white dots.

And weirdly, those tiny marks helped me understand Borobudur better than another hundred historical facts ever could.

People built this place.

People abandoned it.

People lost it.

People found it.

People took parts of it apart.

People painstakingly put it back together.

And now people are trying to figure out how the rest of us can experience it without slowly destroying the fucking thing.

I originally came wanting a sunrise photograph.

I left considerably more impressed by the mountain underneath it.

Indonesia didn’t just build a temple.

They built Buddhism a fucking mountain.