Borobudur sunrise and terraced fields

Today started off at 4:15am to see the sunrise over Borobudur and the surrounding region. We walked up Ponthuk Setumbu hill which is known as a good viewing spot for sunrise so we definitely were not alone. It seems like one is rarely alone in Indonesia. 

The sunrise was not as colorful as many others we have seen, but it was really cool to see the silhouette of Borobudur Temple. We also were able to see some of the volcanoes in the distance that you can't see during the day because of the haze. Seeing the shadow at sunrise caused by the volcanoes was super cool.

People working in the terraced rice paddies

The beginning of our walk up the hill for sunrise

Starting to see the first colors of sunrise

Dan and I had a perch on a platform in a tree for watching the sunrise

The only time during the day will you can see these volcanoes

There was a fun swing up on the hill

Dan enjoying a turn on the swing

If you look closely, you can see the silhouette of Borobudur Temple

Check out the size of shadow caused by the volcano compared to the size of the actual volcano 

After watching the sunrise, we decided to go for a hike to a small temple, Selogriyo, that we were told has some beautiful scenery. The base of the hike was in a small village that was surrounded by small mountains and terraced fields. 

Starting our hike to the temple in a small village

Rice drying on a front porch

Once we left the village, we were hiking just above the terraced fields. The crops were in several different stages - it was interesting to see the process of farming. From building and flooding the rice paddies, to planting the seedlings of rice, to growing the rice, to threshing the rice, to drying out the grains - it was all in one area. As an added bonus, the fields were surrounded by beautiful hills and mountains.

Some of the terraced fields

A woman walking through the rice fields

Rice grains drying in the fields

A gate at the beginning of our hike

Rice grains drying along our hike

Check out how beautiful the terraced fields are with the backdrop of the mountains

Freshly planted rice paddies 

Newly built rice paddies that are being irrigated

The edge of each paddy is level and has small drainages along it to allow water to drain down into the next terrace

After enjoying our hike along the fields, we made it to Selogriyo Temple. It was a small temple, but it was still interesting. Most of the statues were missing heads because they had been looted. We saw one statue where the head was still on but you could see that someone had tried to steal it. We didn't spend much time at the temple before we headed back down.

Another gate along the way to the temple

Selogriyo Temple 

The entrance to a small space in the temple - notice the heads are missing on the statues

A headless Buddha

Someone clearly tried to take this statue's head

Someone filing a tank with water for the crops

Chilis - they are everywhere 

Chili plants

Papayas

A man planting the rice seedlings

A woman threshing the rice

People carry heavy loads all of the time here

Rice in the foreground, a village and temple in the background

Rice growing

Back at the edge of the village

A child riding his bike next to drying rice

A boy walking next to leaves drying to make baskets

The next stop after our walk to the temple was the Chicken Church. Along the way, we stopped to get some Japanese pancakes. We had them at breakfast and they were so good. They are made with rice, flour, coconut milk, sugar, and wrapped in a pandan leaf. They are made in special small cast iron frying pans. You have to eat them in less than 6 hours, for they turn to mush. This was a fun discovery 😉

Japanese pancakes stored to be sold

Small cast iron frying pans for making Japanese pancakes 

Japanese pancakes stored for sale

The Japanese pancakes are wrapped in pandan leaves

The chicken church was supposed to be in the shape of a dove, but when they put a crown on its head, it ended up looking like a chicken. It is a new church that was built in the 1990s. The guy who built it said that it was a message from God. It was abandoned until 2015 and then people started going to it. The goal of the Chicken Church is to be a place of worship for all. It is also pretty comical to see a church in the shape of a chicken 🐔

These stairs leading up to the Chicken Church

The church is actually in the shape of a chicken 🤣

Inside the church

Going up the stairs to the top of the church

Looking out through the beak

Look at those funky chickens 🤣

Wall of hope - people can leave messages about their hopes

Next, we were off to the airport to catch our flight from Yogyakarta to Lombok to start our mountains and beach part of our trip.

Arriving at the airport

Dinner at the airport

Our Super Air Jet plane

It was so cool to see the tops of the volcanoes from the airplane

Made it to Lombok!

We arrived at 11:30pm at our $9 accommodations in Senaru, including breakfast

We arrived at our accommodations almost at midnight after a full day, so we went straight to sleep.