5 Days in Java - Day 1: Borobudur

For our mid-semester break, we took a little trip to eastern Java, the cultural and historic heart of Indonesia's

most populated island. We began with a day in Borobudur. The Giant Buddhist temple built on a hill here is one of Buddhism's three greatest monuments in South East Asia. The giant, stone structure is an incredibly impressive site and, even though it was too cloudy to actually see the sunrise, we did enjoy having the temple nearly to ourselves at 5 a.m. especially when we saw just how crowded the place gets later in the afternoon! Surprisingly, though, the highlight of our time in Borobudur was not the temple itself but our afternoon of exploring the village and countryside on a rented scooter.