Temple Madness in Indonesia

Well now that my faith in humanity has been slightly restored thus saving me from having to right a rant about certain departments of my country's government I can now stick to my original plan of writing about some of the fantastic things I did in Indonesia.

On my top 5 list in awesome things I did number 5 would have to be my day of temple sightseeing. I organised this with a friend for a group of my mates so we left Salatiga at 6am one Sunday morning and went first to Borobodur with a stopover on the way at Ketepas between Mt Merbabu and Merapi (spectacular views).
Borobodur was quite amazing due to the sheer size of it and the fact it was in a state of disrepair for a number of centuries. It is the largest Buddhist temple in the world and consists of a number of different levels with intricate stone work. Not only was it incredibly amazing but also ridiculously hot and crowded. It took all of about 20 minutes for us to be swamped by a large number of Indonesian tourists making "mau foto?" one of the most commonly heard phrases of the day. In the end it turned out that our group of 10 were pretty much the only Western people there so hundreds of photos later and after growing sick of the heat we explored the grounds and checked out the museum there. The museum was quite interesting although we didn't really understand the relevance of it to Borobodur. Of course there was the opportunity to buy the standard souvenirs etc but there were other temples to be seen!


Next was to Candi Mendut which is a couple of km from Borobodur and from around the same time. It's smaller, much cheaper to get into however still spectacular. It also has a less touristy feel to it than Borobodur and we were able to sit around for a little while and light some incense which created a much more chilled out feeling. This was probably up there with Prambanan with my favourite temples that I visited. We were the only people there at the time which was really great after the madness of Borobodur. If it wasn't for a friend of mine casually mentioning that the Lonely Planet guide had some other old temple in it we never would have gone there. Also it was located just in the middle of a little town and on the grounds there was the most spectacular tree, I'm not normally one to notice trees etc but this would have been one of the largest I have ever seen and had strands extending from the canopy to the ground.

Prambanan was again spectacular. We all had a bit of a moment where we sat around and contemplated life for a little bit. The afternoon rain held off so it was rather cool giving us time to explore the different temples. I'd have to say Prambanan was my favourite temple that we went to because it was all so different and there were lots of different temples to explore. The stonework on the temples and carvings were also amazing and to see such a magnificant structure still standing, especially after the terrible earthquake of 2006 (although it did experience a fair bit of damage) was a real testament to architecture.

Now I am not particularly religious but there is something amazing about these Eastern religions and their temples. I would probably visit them again (I would definetly go back to Prambanan) and all 3 are a must see if travelling to Central Java.

A busy week.. well 3 days that is

I was going to write about how busy my week had been but then realised that it had only really been 3 days since I last wrote. That said I went to an awesome restaurant on Saturday night and felt the need to write about it.
Verve on Flinders Way in Manuka has got to be one of the best restaurants I have been to in a long time. They don't particularly have a certain cuisine which they focus on as the menu ranges from Malaysian to Italian to Mexican with all sorts of other dishes in between. I started with a BBQ Duck and Papaya Salad which tasted a lot like Pad Thai but was delicious and despite being large was not filling. Main was a favourite of mine, Chimmichunga It can be fairly easy to get wrong but they seemed to nail it this time my only issue was lack of salad and the serving size was very large. That said at a restaurant of Verve's calibre to have such large servings was a shock as one would normally expect a smaller serving. Dessert was a Citrus Tart with mascarpone which yet again was delicious. If I was going to comment on one thing though it would be the cocktails. I had a cocktail called Amelie's Punch and it would be up there in the list of best cocktails I have ever had. Generally all the food was fresh using great ingredients and because of the variety on the menu it is the sort of place you can keep going back to.

That said I have finally finished my university assessment for the term so I guess it's probably time to post some stories from my Indonesia trip before I head off to the Philippines in 6 days.

Peace Out

New Blog!

Yep because I'm horrible at writing blogs and always try to make them far to focused I decided to start a new one where I can just write generally about life, what's going on in the world and hopefully the adventures I get to have along the way.

So Ladies and Gentlemen I give you Courts in Canberra!