This photo was taken at an ancient temple near Yogyakarta.  A city of more than 400,000 inhabitants on the island of Java in Indonesia, Yogya, as the local say, served as the capital of the nation from 1945-49 during the Indonesian National Revolution.  Today it is a clean and orderly city with some fine examples of both pre-colonial and Dutch colonial architecture.  Yogyakarta is a center of music and the arts with a number of universities and well worth a visit.

Interesting note about many of the temples, at least in Java, is that they were initially Buddhist but changes were made to reflect the rise of Hinduism. Today Indonesia is predominately a Muslim country but with large numbers of Buddhists and Hindus.  As a result, elements of various cultures and religions can be found in the same building.  This phenomena also happened in other South East Asian countries, for example in the Angkor Wat area of Cambodia. More on that in future posts.

UNESCO (UN Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization) funds have contributed to the restoration and preservation of many sites in Indonesia.