I had just finished being completely humbled by Borobudur Temple.
And I mean completely.
I’d gone there expecting an impressive ancient Buddhist temple. Instead, Borobudur turned out to be an enormous 1,200-year-old stone monument covered in thousands of carvings, hundreds of Buddhas and enough architectural badassery to make me question what humanity has been doing with its free time ever since.
I was still processing it.
Still looking through the approximately 47,000 photos I’d taken.
Still thinking there was absolutely no fucking way another temple near Yogyakarta was going to compete with that.
Then I went to Prambanan Temple.
Well.
Shit.
DESTINATION: PRAMBANAN TEMPLE
CURRENT WEATHER
scattered clouds (31 C / 88 F)
AIR QUALITY INDEX (AQI)
Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups (105)
APPARENTLY BOROBUDUR WASN’T INDONESIA’S ONLY FLEX
The first thing you notice about Prambanan is that it doesn’t look anything like Borobudur.
Borobudur is enormous and sprawling. It rises gradually out of the landscape like someone decided to build a mountain out of stone because actual mountains weren’t sufficiently complicated.
Prambanan went with a different strategy.
Build toward space.
The temples are tall, narrow and ridiculously dramatic, with the main Shiva temple rising nearly 50 meters above the complex.
You can see the towers before you’re anywhere near them.
And they just keep getting bigger.
I’d spent the morning staring at Borobudur thinking nothing else in Yogyakarta was going to top it.
Prambanan apparently took that personally.
By the time I walked onto the grounds, I wasn’t trying to decide whether it could compete anymore.
I was trying to figure out how the hell two completely different civilizations built two completely different monumental religious complexes this close together, at roughly the same time, without someone eventually saying: Guys, I think we have enough temples.
Nobody said that.
Thankfully.
THEN PRAMBANAN DID SOMETHING BOROBUDUR COULDN’T
It let me loose.
This was the part I wasn’t expecting.
Modern Borobudur is an incredible experience, but protecting a 1,200-year-old monument from millions of enthusiastic humans understandably requires rules. Access to the upper monument is controlled. Visitor numbers are restricted. You follow designated routes.
Prambanan felt completely different.
I could wander around the entire fucking place.
So I did.
I walked between temples.
Around temples.
Behind temples.
Into temples.
Down paths leading toward ruins I hadn’t noticed five minutes earlier.
I’d disappear behind one enormous stone structure only to come around the other side and find another one.
There wasn’t one single viewpoint where I felt like I’d “seen Prambanan.”
Every angle changed the place.
Which meant every seventeen feet I stopped and took another photograph.
Then another.
Then another.
Eventually my camera roll stopped being a photographic record of Indonesia and became a detailed forensic reconstruction of every rock at Prambanan.
PRAMBANAN IS BASICALLY AN ANCIENT HINDU CITY
Once I stopped behaving like an unsupervised photographer and actually started paying attention, the scale became even more ridiculous.
Prambanan is the largest Hindu temple complex in Indonesia.
It dates back to the 9th century and was built around the Hindu Trimurti, the three major divine forces represented by Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.
The massive temple in the middle is dedicated to Shiva.
You won’t have trouble finding it.
It’s the one causing neck pain.
The other major temples are dedicated to Brahma and Vishnu, with smaller Vahana temples positioned in front of them.
But those giant towers were only the center of the whole thing.
The original Prambanan Temple complex contained 240 temples.
Two hundred and forty.
Because apparently after temple number 173 nobody stopped to ask whether perhaps they’d made their point.
Most were smaller Pervara temples, arranged in concentric rows around the central sanctuary.
Today, some have been reconstructed.
Others haven’t.
Which creates one of my favorite parts of Prambanan.
You have these enormous, beautifully restored stone towers rising into the sky…
surrounded by piles upon piles of ancient stones.
It’s basically the world’s most historically significant unfinished LEGO project.
Except nobody has the instruction manual.
THE SHIVA TEMPLE IS COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS
Eventually everything pulls you toward the Shiva temple.
It’s the centerpiece of Prambanan and the structure dominating practically every famous photograph of the place.
From far away, it’s impressive.
Up close, it’s absurd.
The entire thing is covered in intricate stone carvings and architectural details that become more impressive the closer you get.
That’s when the scale starts screwing with your brain.
Someone carved this.
By hand.
In the ninth century.
I occasionally abandon IKEA furniture because the little wooden dowel won’t fit correctly.
These people built a 47-meter-tall stone temple.
Human progress has clearly been uneven.
The galleries around the temples contain detailed reliefs depicting stories from the Ramayana, and because Prambanan actually lets you get close enough to examine everything, you start noticing details that disappear completely from a distance.
Faces.
Animals.
Clothing.
Battles.
Characters.
Tiny decorative patterns carved into stone more than a thousand years ago.
This wasn’t decoration slapped onto a building.
The building was the artwork.
And I could walk around staring at all of it until someone eventually asked me to leave.
More on those bastards later.
THEN YOU REMEMBER THIS THING IS SITTING IN INDONESIA
There is one slight engineering problem with Prambanan.
Location.
Indonesia may be one of the most beautiful countries on Earth, but geologically speaking, the place is completely fucking unhinged.
Prambanan sits on Java, surrounded by active geology and not particularly far from Mount Merapi, one of Indonesia’s most active volcanoes.
You’ve got volcanic activity.
Earthquakes.
Tectonic plates smashing into each other.
Basically every natural force capable of ruining a perfectly good ancient temple has a branch office nearby.
And they’ve been busy.
Prambanan deteriorated and collapsed over centuries before major restoration efforts began. Then a powerful earthquake struck the Yogyakarta region in 2006 and damaged the complex again.
Imagine spending decades carefully figuring out where thousands of ancient stones belong.
Then Earth shakes the Etch A Sketch.
Cool. Start again.
Once I knew that history, all those organized piles of stone around Prambanan became much more interesting.
They’re not rubble waiting for someone to clean up.
They’re pieces.
Researchers and restoration teams have been reconstructing Prambanan for generations, essentially trying to reverse-engineer enormous ninth-century temples using thousands of rocks and archaeological evidence.
Suddenly that pile of stones I’d nearly ignored became part of the story.
BOROBUDUR OR PRAMBANAN?
Everyone apparently wants these two places to fight.
Which is better: Borobudur or Prambanan?
After visiting both, I think that’s the wrong question.
They’re both fucking spectacular.
Borobudur feels monumental.
You approach this gigantic Buddhist structure rising above Central Java, climb through its different levels and eventually reach the famous stupas at the top.
Prambanan feels completely different.
It’s sharper.
Taller.
More dramatic.
And most importantly for me, more explorable.
I could wander.
That made a huge difference.
At Borobudur, I felt like I was experiencing an extraordinary monument.
At Prambanan, I felt like I was exploring an ancient place.
That’s subtle, but it’s exactly why I wouldn’t choose between them.
If you’re visiting Yogyakarta, see both.
This isn’t Highlander.
There can be two.
I KEPT FINDING MORE SHIT
The other thing nobody adequately explained to me before I visited Prambanan was how much there is to wander around.
The famous skyline makes it look like you’ve got a handful of temples sitting together in the middle of a field.
Walk in.
See temples.
Take photo.
Leave.
No.
The archaeological park is huge.
I’d start walking toward something because it looked interesting, then notice something else behind it.
Then something behind that.
Eventually I’d look back toward the main Prambanan temples and realize I’d somehow wandered halfway across the property.
This is exactly my kind of place.
Give me ancient ruins, questionable directional decisions and enough freedom to disappear for several hours and I’m perfectly happy.
I didn’t need another attraction.
I needed another memory card.
THEN SUNSET STARTED SCREWING WITH EVERYTHING
Late afternoon is when Prambanan gets unfair.
The sun drops lower and suddenly all that gray stone starts turning warm.
Shadows stretch across the grass.
The textures in the carvings become more pronounced.
The towers start silhouetting against the sky.
And every photograph you took two hours earlier immediately becomes obsolete.
So naturally I started taking them all again.
Front.
Side.
Back.
Wide.
Telephoto.
Temple through another temple.
Temple with tree.
Temple without tree.
Temple because apparently I had developed a serious medical condition requiring photographs of Prambanan every thirty seconds.
I kept wandering farther around the complex because every position changed how the towers stacked against each other.
Eventually the sun dropped low enough that the temples became enormous dark silhouettes against the evening sky.
And that’s when Prambanan delivered its final holy shit moment.
I’d arrived still thinking about Borobudur.
By sunset, I’d stopped comparing them entirely.
AND THEN THE STAFF RUINED EVERYTHING BY HAVING JOBS
Unfortunately, Prambanan Temple closes.
This was inconvenient because I had absolutely no intention of leaving.
The staff disagreed.
Once sunset passes, the migration toward the exits begins.
And they’re fairly enthusiastic about helping you understand that your Prambanan experience has concluded.
I started walking.
Then turned around.
Photo.
Walked another twenty meters.
Turned around.
Photo.
Walked again.
Another angle.
Photo.
At some point I’m pretty sure a staff member was mentally calculating whether dragging me toward the exit would violate company policy.
I understood.
They wanted to go home.
I wanted ninth-century Hindu temples silhouetted against the Indonesian sunset.
We both had legitimate priorities.
Eventually they won.
THERE’S ONE MORE REASON TO STAY AFTER DARK
If you plan this properly, getting kicked out doesn’t necessarily mean the night is over.
Check whether the Ramayana Ballet at Prambanan is performing.
Because apparently placing one of Indonesia’s most spectacular Hindu temples behind an enormous traditional dance performance wasn’t dramatic enough already.
The ballet tells the Ramayana story through traditional Javanese dance, costumes, music and elaborate performances.
And the outdoor stage has Prambanan sitting directly behind it.
It’s spectacular.
It’s also a perfect continuation of what you’ve just spent hours exploring, because the same Ramayana story appears in the stone reliefs carved around the temples.
You spend the afternoon looking at a thousand-year-old version carved into stone.
Then watch people perform it in front of the actual temple.
That’s some pretty effective fucking staging.
SO, IS PRAMBANAN TEMPLE WORTH VISITING?
Absolutely.
I went into Prambanan expecting it to suffer from what I’m officially calling Post-Borobudur Disappointment Syndrome.
It didn’t.
Not even slightly.
Borobudur had already reset my expectations for ancient temples that morning, and somehow Prambanan walked right up afterward and delivered something equally impressive in a completely different way.
The architecture is more dramatic.
The towers are ridiculous.
The carvings are incredible.
But what really sold me was being able to explore it.
I could wander around Prambanan until curiosity pulled me toward something else.
That’s how I like experiencing places.
Not following a prescribed path.
Not stopping at numbered viewpoints.
Just walking around thinking:
What’s over there?
And then going to find out.
Turns out the answer at Prambanan is usually: More badass shit.
Which is better: Borobudur or Prambanan Temple?
Stop trying to make me choose.
Borobudur is fucking epic.
Prambanan is fucking epic.
Borobudur overwhelmed me with scale, history and the sheer insanity of what humans built there more than a thousand years ago.
Then Prambanan surprised the hell out of me by being every bit as impressive while giving me considerably more freedom to wander around and explore.
If you’re already in Yogyakarta, choosing only one makes about as much sense as flying halfway around the planet and deciding you’ve seen enough cool shit for the week.
Visit both.
Then argue with yourself afterward.
