{"id":6747,"date":"2025-02-27T02:29:30","date_gmt":"2025-02-27T07:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chasing-sunsets.blog\/?p=6747"},"modified":"2025-02-27T02:29:40","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T07:29:40","slug":"world-cruise-indonesia-semarang-and-jakarta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chasing-sunsets.blog\/?p=6747","title":{"rendered":"World Cruise – Indonesia – Semarang and Jakarta"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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We arrived in the bustling port of Semarang, on the island of Java in Indonesia – a important trade center for the East India company and in the 17th and 18th century a significant home to many Buddhist s. We had signed up for the Viking’s elite excursion – a tour of the Borobodur buddhist monument the world’s largest buddhist monument\/temple which was a full day coach ride to and back. \u00a0So busy are the streets of Semarang that Viking hired police escorts and treated our 7 coach buses like VIP’s to cut through traffic, ensuring we made it back before the ship departed. \u00a0<\/p>

The absolutely magnificnet monument cannot be described easily – it’s huge! each side is about 400 feet long and its a massive interlocking stone block structure that was built in the 800 AD and then was abandoned and left unattended for several centuries (yes centuries) while it become overgrown with vegetation and covered by ashes from nearby volcano eruptions. In 1814 the site was rediscovered. Two restorations took place in 1911 and 1983 to repair the shrine and identify its significance. \u00a0<\/p>

I stood in awe of the structure and unfortunately as luck would have it, the monument is closed to guests climbing the monument stairs on Mondays (the day we arrived) so our vantage point was limited from the ground level. \u00a0Still some of the 504 Buddha statues (mostly damaged over time) and 2,672 relief panels were visible. a pilgrimage to the site and to walk around the narrative relief panels tells\/depicts early life of Buddha and as you transcend upward, his rise to nirvana. \u00a0You could spend days even months here exploring the site.\u00a0<\/p>

We had a nice lunch at the visitor center fixed tents since a new center is under construction. Fortunately we finished lunch just as the rains came pouring down. \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>

The 3 hour police escorted return trip to port allowed us to view much of the countryside, rice fields and mountains that are in Central Java – Mountains so high they touched the clouds. Back on Board we headed to our next port of call, Jakarta.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\"On
On our approach to Borobudur <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"The
The walk to Borobudur stairs<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"Statue
Statue protecting the shrine<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"Corner
Corner view of Borobudur<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"Borobudur
Borobudur is an amazing interlocking monument that dates back to 800 AD<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"Centuries
Centuries of neglect and abandonment had its affect on the statues and panels but still a remarkable sight to see<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"One
One of 2672 narrative relief panels<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"Gina
Gina and I really enjoyed the experience<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"Borobudur
Borobudur visitors center statue <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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We arrived in Jakarta, a major world metropolitan city midday and since the port is a major trading port, our arrival was delayed by 2 hours for a cargo ship in our berth. \u00a0We arrived and our excursion was to see the country’s largest Mulsim mosque, catholic cathedral and Chinatown and Chinese sunni temple. \u00a0<\/p>

Traffic in Jakarta is worse than Semarang! OMG, the cars, scooters and buses and how they traverse the city is incredible – don’t think of getting a rental car here! It took us 45 minutes to travel just 4 miles through the city.<\/p>

The Istiqlal Muslim Mosque was magnificent and the largest Mosque in Indonesia – it can have as much as 200,000 faithful praying on its grounds. That makes it the 8th largest mosque in the world. \u00a0The dome above the central area is 42 meter in diameter. We had to remove our shoes and I also needed a sure to cover my knees for respect. The structure’s architect was actually catholic and the architecture is impectable and filled with symbolism. Truly a sight one must see regardless of your faith.<\/p>

Immediately across the street is Jakarta’s catholic cathedral with three spires and beautiful naive. \u00a0We passed through Jakarta’s symbolic Holy Doors which were erected to celebrate the Jubilee. The act of passing through the doors is for christians symbolizing renewal and forgiveness. \u00a0Gina lighted candles in remembrance of beloved family members that have passed. \u00a0<\/p>

We traveled over the China =town where we passed through the narrow marketplace streets (think of a movie where a car chase goes through the streets with stalls on each side). we walked to the Chinese sunni temple with chineese stations for worship. afterwards we enjoyed team and bites of chineese pastries prior to going to a major Jakarta shopping mall. \u00a0<\/p>

The mall we stopped at was nice, however we found the time allowed to us was short and the prices expensive.<\/p>

The following day we decided that going to the puppet show and going to the same mall was not for us, so we woke up late and took the Viking shuttle bus to another shopping mall which was multi-storied with tons of variety -plus we had all the time we wished to spend. \u00a0the drive was crazy, it was at most 2 miles away and took 25 minutes to get there. \u00a0We were promptly back on board and at 6PM the ship departed Jakarta. We will have a sea day prior to arriving to our next big stop – one we have been looking forward to, Singapore!\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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\"Welcoming
Welcoming to Jakarta<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"Outside
Outside the mosque they have designated prayer spots<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"Amazing
Amazing - 200,000 can pray in the Jakarta mosque <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"Inside
Inside the spectacular Jakarta mosque<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"Across
Across the street from the Mosque<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"The
The magnificent Jakarta cathedral <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"Outside
Outside the Jakarta catholic cathedral <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"Waling
Waling through the holy doors<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"thinking
thinking of family<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"Inside
Inside the cathedral <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"Mary's
Mary's chapel<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"I
I get a photo op with pope <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"Welcome
Welcome to Chinatown<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"Jakarta
Jakarta Chinatown <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"Jakarta
Jakarta Shinto Chinatown temple<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"Narrow
Narrow streets of Jakarta Chinatown<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"Inside
Inside Jakarta shopping mall<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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We arrived in the bustling port of Semarang, on the island of Java in Indonesia – a important trade center for the East India company and in the 17th and 18th century a significant home to many Buddhist s. We had signed up for the Viking’s elite excursion – a tour of the Borobodur buddhist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":230351823,"featured_media":6744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[200,50518550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel","category-world-cruise-24-25"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chasing-sunsets.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/img_3758.jpg?fit=1500%2C2000&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peuwlC-1KP","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7722,"url":"https:\/\/chasing-sunsets.blog\/?p=7722","url_meta":{"origin":6747,"position":0},"title":"World Cruise – okay, we saw Luanda, Angola\u2026","author":"Jim and Gina Sumislaski","date":"April 14, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"\ufffcWhen the itinerary for the Viking Sky World Cruise was released and we saw Angola listed as one of the port stops, it definitely gave us pause. Our expectations for docking there were fairly low\u2014mainly due to Angola\u2019s history of slave trade, internal civil unrest, the presence of malaria, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/chasing-sunsets.blog\/?cat=200"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chasing-sunsets.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/img_6029.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chasing-sunsets.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/img_6029.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chasing-sunsets.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/img_6029.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chasing-sunsets.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/img_6029.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chasing-sunsets.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/img_6029.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6911,"url":"https:\/\/chasing-sunsets.blog\/?p=6911","url_meta":{"origin":6747,"position":1},"title":"World Cruise – SriLanka and Buddhism","author":"Jim and Gina Sumislaski","date":"March 13, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Day 80 and 81 of 138 of our world cruise from Fort Lauderdale to London on the Viking SkyFirst this blog is a bit late due to internet issues as we sailed in the Indian Ocean, but finally did get a chance to publish it.On Sunday March 9th, we docked\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/chasing-sunsets.blog\/?cat=200"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chasing-sunsets.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/img_4462-e1741931884767.jpg?fit=955%2C1013&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chasing-sunsets.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/img_4462-e1741931884767.jpg?fit=955%2C1013&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chasing-sunsets.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/img_4462-e1741931884767.jpg?fit=955%2C1013&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chasing-sunsets.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/img_4462-e1741931884767.jpg?fit=955%2C1013&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5182,"url":"https:\/\/chasing-sunsets.blog\/?p=5182","url_meta":{"origin":6747,"position":2},"title":"What we are looking forward to…","author":"Jim and Gina Sumislaski","date":"September 30, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"OMG it's starting to get real! 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