(mostly) Wordless Wednesday - Prambanan

After starting our day very early with the pre-dawn climb up the Buddhist temple of Borobudur, U and I relaxed for the rest of the morning before heading out to the Hindu temples of Prambanan on our way back to Yogyakarta. The temples have been badly damaged numerous times by earthquakes and other disasters, and the pile of orderly rubble around the temples shows just how much still is left to be done despite their beauty.





U and I wandered around the temples and the park, only to catch sight of something that was so odd and out of place, and yet so perfect, given where U used to live...



Only these deer were behind a fence and thus didn't try to eat our map - unlike their cousins in Nara!

Sort of Wordless Wednesday - Taman Mini

One of the most fun days I had in Indonesia was the one U and I and our friends spend at Taman Mini, a theme park / museum of Indonesian culture outside of Jakarta. It is a crazy mix of traditional type houses with cultural displays and B-rank theme park (no big rides but there was a gondola going back and forth above the park, a monorail going around it, swan boats on the central lake, bikes for four for rent, and a range of other "rides").

I spent a lot of my time giggling - until the heat and lack of food got to me and the rest of us and we all just about collapsed en mass!

So here's Taman Mini:

the "traditional" houses and the gondola


the castle (because all good theme parks need a castle)


the fake animals (only seconds after taking this picture I had my head between the jaws of the tiger... tee hee!)


and the characters off-duty



(The characters, with their heads on, would run up to you, pose for a photo, and then ask for money... it kind of freaked me out when I saw them all later without their heads to find out they were this dodgy looking middle aged guy and a couple of toothless women in their sixties...)

Wordless Wednesday - Borobudur