Magelang hotels collection

Tidar, a wooded hill in the heart of Magelang, is held to be the nail that fixes Java in place, and pilgrims climb to the tomb that stands on it. Around it, the Kedu plain lives beneath Merapi and Sumbing, whose ash makes the rice fields rich. Borobudur was raised here without mortar, in blocks of andesite, a grey lava: one walks round it gallery after gallery up to the latticed stupas where Buddhas sit in the half-light. At the full moon of Vesak, monks walk from Mendut to Borobudur by way of Pawon, following the straight line on which the three temples were set.