Yogyakarta​, Indonesia

I went to Java to see the Borobudur temple complex and was directed to meet a friend of a friend, a young man by the name of Yogi who I now call my friend. Yogi graduated from Indonesia's most prestigious university the day I arrived. There I had the honor of meeting him for the first time as well as his mother and younger brother. 

Yogi hopes to see the world so I gave him travel gifts: a North Carolina Tar Heels T-shirt, a mug from the MeMeTheWorld project (http://www.memetheworld.com/), and a magnet. The first day I was there Yogi and 'the boys', other friends of his at the university, took me to Prambanan, a Hindi Temple complex. The story is that a ruler had the desire to marry a woman who was not so enthusiastic about him. In hopes of winning her affection he allowed her to ask one thing of him, anything. She asked the impossible, one thousand temples to be built in one night. In the morning there were 999 temples. He had failed at his task; failed to win her love. Spurned, the enraged ruler turned her to stone and so she became the thousandth temple. This temple is still being rebuilt from piles of block that lay around, looking almost organized. Its got to be a daunting task.

 

I was teased about taking flower photos but that's what women do

The following day we all piled in and drove to Borobudor, a Buddist temple complex. This one is huge, certainly the largest in all of Indonesia. It is tiered and each level is lined with releif carvings telling depicting life in days long, long past. None of us are Buddist so we could only guess at what it was all about. We did notice that they were more about work and other earthly things on the lower levels. As we climbed, they became more and more about clouds, some with reclining figures. Could this be heaven? Nirvana? Yogi had the presence of mind to bring the MeMeTheWorld mug and his magnet. We had fun placing them in the arms of statues and in the teeth of lions.