A Breath-taking Experience at Borobudur Temple in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Borobudur Temple is a Mahayana Buddhist Temple in Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia, built in the 9th century.

The monument comprises 504 Buddha statues and 2,672 relief panels, according to Wikipedia.

Preserved through several restorations over the past centuries, Borobudur is an exceedingly popular tourist attraction that’s swamped with visitors throughout the day and year.

The best time to visit Borobudur is before the breaking of dawn, when the sky is still pitch dark.

Your experience begins from absolute darkness. Armed with a torch light and an adventurous outlook, you commence walking up steep steps to get to the peak of the temple, find a cosy spot that gives you the best view of the ensuing sunrise, watch the sky gradually change colours, and keeping your eyes peeled just so you won’t miss a single moment.

As the sun slowly emerges from behind the mountains, constant bolts of anticipation skimmed through my nerves.

Tickets for the Borobudur Sunrise are priced at Rp. 380,000 (about SGD $50-ish). It might be a tad pricey, but it’s absolutely worth every single cent.

Pictures in this post are taken using the SONY RX100. It’s a compact camera that boasts impressive image quality and sharpness coupled with brilliant colours. It’s a great carry-about camera, small enough to fit comfortably in one’s pocket, without compensating on image quality.

Describing the view as spectacular is an understatement.

I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

The temple officially opens at 7am, and that’s when tourists start streaming in unceasingly. It won’t be long before the entire monument is stripped off its tranquil state, and steered abuzz. The entry ticket after 7am is half the price of what you would pay to see the sunrise.