Semarang (Borobudur), Indonesia

The gateway to awe-inspiring sites

This commercial port, busily exporting the island’s most important products (including of course the beans for your next cup of java), is your gateway to two amazing religious sites.

Borobudur is the largest Buddhist monument in the world—a 3D mandala (diagram of the universe), and perhaps a gigantic textbook to guide mortals striving to attain enlightenment. Prambanan is a complex of lofty, sharply sculpted towers honoring the Hindu triumvirate of Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer. Both religions traveled this way with Indian traders in the early centuries AD.