After Solo its off to Borobodur temple. My Actifit Report Card: February 16 2026

As always the day started off with breakfast. Well, breakfast for my wife, I abstained from food because I knew it was going to be a long day on the road.

As the pictures show the road was kind of mountainous and a bit challenging and took three hours. It was interesting going through the little mountain towns, seeing people carrying cut grass to feed their goats, people harvesting their vegetables and going out a rural agrarian lifestyle. We had a 10:30am time to go to the temple and we barely arrived in time.

We were rushing through the grounds when we arrived. What I didn't realize that as a UNESCO site they had to have a large no industry or large trucks area around it to protect the site.

Now the temple has two different tours. The first is the grounds around the temple and the second is the temple itself. Temple access is limited per hour to avoid overcrowding. In addition you can only go up with an approved guide and in a group. You also have to have appropriate clothing and only approved sandals are allowed to protect the stones of the temple.

First the grounds.

Now the temple itself was build in the 8th century which makes is over 1200 years old. It was built, used for a couple hundred years, then a volcanic eruption made the area uninhabitable so everyone left and the jungle claimed the temple until the 17th century. Many of the statues on site have had their Buddah heads removed to be sold to museums around the wor. Much of the structure had to be restored because it was crumbling. The idea was, remove the building stone by stone, put concrete and drainage underneath and then replace every one of the two million stones.

The view from the temple is beautiful.

There are 9 different levels. The lower levels show intricate stonework to tell of Buddha's life and the path to enlightenment with the highest levels depicting enlightenment and NIrvana.

As you get higher you get to the spires which are called Stupa. Each stupa has a Buddah inside although some have even broken and stolen. On the lower levels the stupa have diamond shapes in the spire. Then there are square shapes. Then there are no shapes. The idea is that diamonds aren't stable. The square is more stable. No gaps is most stable.

As for going up ad down? There were 190 steps up (and down). We went in through the east stairway and down the west stairway. There were a lot of people on each level so it was pretty crowded on the paths around each level. However, people tended to congregate at the highest levels so going down just a level or two allowed for pretty cool pictures.

After the temple it was time for going home. Except there was a 2km walk back to the parking lot :) Then we had lunch. A long drive (3 hours) back and it was rainy and awful. Finally it was KFC or dinner (we treated the driver) and ice cream at the hotel to finish off an interesting day :)

And that would be my path to over 9K steps today :) Thanks for dropping by

(And sorry I got one image in there three times....I'd remove it but figuring out which one is which on a phone could be a challenge)
This report was published via Actifit app (Android | iOS). Check out the original version here on actifit.io

Walking