Borobudur
The Stone Mandala
Gateway town: Yogyakarta
Portrait
Borobudur was built around 800 as a single stupa-mountain of two million blocks, its galleries carrying two and a half kilometres of relief that a pilgrim reads clockwise while climbing to the summit. It was abandoned in the fourteenth century and cleared only in 1814; book the sunrise slot, walk all nine levels in order, and treat it as the meditation manual it was designed to be.
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