Adventures of Beth and Dan: Semarang and Borobudur, Indonesia

Semarang, Indonesia

Today is a sea day after Singapore. It is still cloudy and humid. We have a port talk in the morning about Semarang, Indonesia our next stop . The port talks are well attended and the speaker is excellent ! He is British and had wonderful unique photos of the areas along with useful and up to date information. He shares it all with a great sense of humor too.

At this port we have a private tour to Borobudur, a Buddhist temple from the 9th century which is the largest temple in the world a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We will have a police escort to this temple due to the traffic congestion !! Here is some information about Semarang.

There are 150 active volcanoes. 1 our of every 150 people are from Indonesia! Jakarta tweets more than any other city in the world. 64,000,000 million people here use Facebook!! Thousands of people live without electricity here.

Dutch influence here seen in the architecture due to the Dutch East India Corporation. A lot of our crew will bring their families onboard for the day!!!

1/3 of the population in Semarang is Chinese. The old city or Outstadt is beautiful.

There is over 2,000,000 sq ft of rock used. There are over 400 carved Buddha’s. It was a model for Angkor Wat. It was found by Sir Raffles and hadn’t been seen for hundreds of years. It usually rains there in the afternoon. When you visit the temples they give you a sarong to wear which is required for both men and women.

Semarang has coffee which is excellent and rubber plantations. At the port they heartily greet us with dancing and crafts for sale. They are also there when you return. Last year they put on an outstanding military display at the dock. We are there from 8-5:30. The terminal here has free Wi-Fi. There is also a complimentary shuttle bus taking folks to a nice shopping mall. They say there are great values there. Our weather is to be about 89 degrees and 30% chance of rain with 58% humidity.

Currency is the Indonesia Rupiah. 13,300 to the US dollar. A lot of people take the US dollar. Bali takes this currency too.

Today now are here in port and we board the bus with our guide Dwi headed to Borobudur. His name means two because he is the second son. It is a hot and steamy day. When we got off the bus a band was playing “Tom Dooley” in the terminal. The internet there was free and fast! They whisk us through security and on to police escorted buses. The market inside looks wonderful and inexpensive so I hope we have some shopping time. Our destination is in the muddle of the country and is about two hours away. We are in the Java islands. 60% of the people live here in this area because of business opportunities and tourists. The number 1 destination is Bali. Our temple is Buddhist. The relief of our temple is very artistic and spectacular. It is about 45 miles to travel for us. As we travel we see some very poor shacks, garbage and poor people struggling. Motorcycles are everywhere. As we travel on the hiway we pass a mass transit bus on fire!!! We pass through many toll stations also. There are 40 of us on this private tour in two buses. We paid $90 per person for this where Holland charged $200 per person!! Unlike other Asian ports where we saw hundreds of high rise apartments we only see shacks. Garbage is everywhere. We see banana trees everywhere also. People collect water on their rooftops.

Our ride is long and exciting. When we get to the temple I am disappointed because it is so commercial with vendors pressuring you everywhere. The humidity is high and you just can’t be outside for long. Dan and I climb all the steps to the tallest part of the temple. People are everywhere. It really doesn’t seem like a sacred holy place to me. Many more f the Buddha statues were looted and their heads removed. Extensive rehab has been done to this magnificent place. After about an hour at the temple we board the buses for lunch. The lunch was a huge buffet and delicious. The restaurant was open air with a nice breeze blowing. Our ride gone will take another two hours at least. The sky gets dark and rain pours from the sky. We get back to the ship about 4:00. We heard that 13 buses from Holland America took passengers to the site. They were two 1/2 hours late getting back to the ship!!! We finally set sail at 7:45 that night when we were supposed to leave at 5:30!!

Rice fields