Destination Guide: Borobudur Temple in Indonesia

The Borobudur Temple in Indoensia is one of the most fascinating temples I’ve ever visitied. In this special, we’ll explain what you need to know about visiting Borobodur and why the temple complex is so fascinating!

Borobodur is one of the most famous temples in the whole world. It’s actually the largest hindu temple on the planet and one of the biggest temples worldwide. Built in the 9th century and restored starting in the early 20th century, Borobudur Temple is one now one of the most important religious relicts in South-East-Asia. Alongside Bagan in Myanmar and Angkor Wat in Cambodia, it’s also one of the most important historic sights in whole South-East-Asia. As regular readers now, we try to show you how visiting a sight like Borobodur is like instead of going into detail about the history and the culture of this place. Why? Because there are much better ressources to find this information. So, let’s get to how visiting Borobodur as a tourist was like!

The best time to visit Borobudur is in the morning

If you are planning a trip to Borobudur, you should make sure that you’ll be there early in the morning or late in the evening, just before sunset. It’s not only nice to see the sunrise or sunset here, but at these times most tour groups have not yet arrived or left again.

This also meant that when we were visiting, the whole temple complex felt relatively calm and empty, allowing for nice pictures as well as a nice atmopshere to soak in the special feel of the place.

While Borobudur generally isn’t as overrun as other sights, it’s still worth noting that the right timing can be important if you want to fully enjoy this place.

Visiting a site with hardly anyone around is just a really nice experience, something I’ve also realized at the Chinese Wall, while it was the complete opposite at Machu Picchu.

There are many different perspectives of Borobudur

Something I thought is really interesting about Borobudur is how varysome it is. That might sound odd as first, but if you are looking at the following picture, you might not be sure whether that’s actually the same temple you know from other pictures.

The most famous pictures are of the various pillars, which make Borobudur so remarkable, but the whole complex from some distance just looks very different.

Even when you walk down the temple on another side than you climbed up (there are four options), you’ll stand in front of a somewhat different looking building.

That’s one of the many fascinating things about Borobudur in Indonesia as the temple just isn’t one sight, but feels like several interesting places in one.

The views and details of Borobudur are incredible

Speaking of being a unique place, Borobudur comes with an incredible attention to detail. You can walk on many different levels, all unique in themselves.

There are several walls with very special ornaments, which tell a very different story than the larger pillars on the higher floor do.

It’s just really fascinating to walk on the different levels and see completely different designs and ornaments, that make it really interesting to just walk around for an hour or two.

Surely, the pillars on the higher level are particularly fascinating and just so picturesquare that you should definitely just relax here for a while and take incredible pictures.

There are also a few very special photo motives like this one, which does combine the pillars with a unique statue.

In the background, you can already see the incredible views you’re able to enjoy when visiting Borobudur. It’s location embeeded in the greenery of Java makes the temple especially beautiful.

Anyhow, I could go and on, but I think you’ve got the gist on why visiting Borobudur is a really nice experience and somewhat more special than visiting temples and churches in European cities like Paris or even Rome.

Overall impressions of visiting Borobudur

While I didn’t like the touristic market you are forced to go through when exiting Borobudur, everything else about the place is really beautiful. It’s not overrun, located in an incredibly beautiful area with lots of nature around and just feels so peaceful in the middle of nowhere. The temple is incredibly unique and still so different depending on the perspective as well as the level on which you are standing. I’d recommend visiting in the early morning to fully enjoy Borobudur and soak into the special feel this place has. In my opinion, this is an absolut must-visit when in South-East-Asia!