Our coach tour was a shared taxi today, a student from London and a free-lance photographer from Sydney, they were both impossibly beautiful. The photographer essentially travels around south east asia, uploading photographs with various agencies and getting paid for it - nice work! Paul's mind was whirring with possible angles that he could get in on. 8th Century Borobudur is a colossus, built with two million stone blocks, with six square levels topped by three round levels. It has stairs leading up the middle of its four sides. Its sheer size means that views of it are impossible when you are close up as one level obscures another. The lower levels have intricate carvings and statues and the upper levels have stupas. On entry we were told to put on sarongs - or tacky giant tea-towels. As I was hot enough and felt I was already appropriately dressed I challenged this. Apparently, as a sign of respect to the monument you had to wear Batik - wot a load of old b****cks. I made a point of asking the security guards and staff on the monument why they were not wearing Batik. Anyway as with any beautiful monument it was swarming with tourists all dressed like idiots - Paul amazingly managed to capture some shots without a single person though. The 'No climbing' signs were in English and so were completely ignored by the locals. I asked the security guy why it was O.K for the local children to climb on the statues and slide down the stone balustrades - he said only big men should not sit on the statues, children are O.K as they are small enough - whatever... another load of old B****cks. As you can tell I was on one! I sat in the shade and away from the madding crowd and enjoyed the distant view of Borobudur, which set against the sunset-lit mountains was stunning. Paul happily snapped away as usual. There is a rare shot of me in front of the monument - with my tea-towel off as a protest! Borobudur has survived a Gunung Merapi eruption - the site was partially cleared of ash and the jungle undergrowth in the 1800s, it survived an anti-government bomb in 1985 and also survived the 2006 earthquake. Its biggest threat, however, is apparently tourism - with conservationists calling for urgent action to save it. Hopefully the idiots who run the place will listen.