Java, Indonesia - Borobudur Temple
Today is Wednesday, February 28th. We continue to cruise the South China Sea as we make our way to tomorrow's destination, Brunei. On Monday we were in Java, one of the larger of Indonesia's countless islands with a population of 120 million (40% of Indonesia's total population.) There are five Javenese languages among Indonesia's 200 or so spoken languages. Predominent religions on Java are Muslim (87.2%), Christian (7% of which 4.1% are Protestants and 2.9% are Catholics), Hindu (1.7%), Buddhist, Confucian and other (.9%) and unspecified (.4%). We arrived very early in the morning in the port of Semarang, a large city that was originally settled over 600 years ago and which boasts a rich Javanese, Chinese, Dutch and Indian heritage. We set a wakeup call for 4:45 a.m. since we had signed up for a 9-hour excursion to the Borobudur Temple, some three hours' ride away, that was scheduled to depart at 6:15. First light revealed an interesting but quiet scene