Christmas Eve in Semarang

We arrived right on time in Indonesia to the sound of music and the sight of dancers. Buses were right at the end of the gangway and we were off and running with a police escort for the Buddhist temple -Burobudur- one of the places mentioned in the book "1000 Places to See Before You Die."

This 9 level temple was built between 778 AD and 842 AD. It was a precursor of Ankor Wat in Cambodia. It was destroyed, rediscovered and rebuilt by Stamford Raffles in 1814. It was destroyed and once again with UNESCO funds of 25  million dollars. A terrorist bomb destroyed part of it in 1987 but it was quickly rebuilt. 

The 9 levels are reflecting the life as a Buddhist. Level one is basic able to do good

 and able to do bad in your life. Level 2 is a freedom of some passion but still able to do bad. The top level is "heaven" or Nirvana. One of our guides talked about the life of a Buddhist as learning to manage your holes. Our body has 9 holes and there is much superstition about the number "9." In our head we have 7 holes for the senses and are called "material holes." We also have 2 holes for our sexual nature. Important for many things to add up to 9 to give them special meaning.

We had a first ever on a shore excursion. The bus broke down. The transmission locked up. We transferred to different buses and continued on.

We made a stop for coffee. Kind of neat to drink java in Java. 

The Borobudur was gray colored stone made with all the pieces interlocking like a jigsaw puzzle. All the way up were statues of Buddha with most of the heads missing. Our guide said people believed that getting a head of Buddha and burying it in your yard would bring you luck.....so lots of folks had done that through the years.

We went for an Indonesian lunch and performance by dancers. We saw a woman appear to eat about 5 cylinders of glass. Jim decided that it was really sugar. The man in charge had let us touch the glass and it felt like glass, but then we decided he had changed to something looked and sounded like glass but was without a doubt not that.

Indonesia is 1700 islands with 250 million people. Living conditions on this island of Java were pretty basic and at a poverty level. We saw paddies and paddies of rice growing and we learned that "wet" rice being harvested now in the rainy season is plump, sweet and more expensive. The "dry" rice is hard and has no taste. Because of the quickly increasing population rice is imported from Japan and the Philippines. 

Our original bus was gathered again at the Borobudur and we learned from our guide that his house had been completely destroyed in the last earthquake. He was pretty philosophical about it all. Alex is a Muslim married to a Catholic. They have 3 sons and one is Catholic and 2 are Muslim. So they celebrate everything.

We got back to the ship at about 6:00PM and showered. Dinner was at a table shared with a couple form Holland. We had fun sharing travel stories as best we could with the language issue.

When we returned to our cabin we found a neat Christmas gift from Oceania- one of those large glass balls painted on the inside- from China I think- with scenes from this cruise. Be a great memory of this Christmas cruise.

Went to the Nautical Lounge for a concert by the Strong Quartet and then at 10:30 we experienced a wonderful Carol Sing and reading of the Christmas story. I was surprised that the place was packed. The time was to move forward an hour between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.