On October 15, my family decided to go to Borobudur. We were all really excited we're looking forward to it. Unfortunately for us, it was around 90 degrees, but with the humidity it felt more around 120. We all piled into a car for an hour and a half, alternating between turning the AC up and down because the cars get really cold. When the drive was over, we stepped out into the hot fog and picked our way over to the entrance. On the way we were stepping over the ever present people, garbage, and random trinkets strewn across the roads. When we got to the entrance we were all ordered to put on sarongs and we were let in to Borobudur!
About 10 minutes into our tour with our guide, whose name in an English translation was “happy”, the first ambush started. 2 men came up to my mom and asked to take a picture with her. Not wanting to be rude, she said yes, and that was the beginning of our 3 ½ hours of fame.Quickly after the men left, 4 Muslim girls came up and grabbed my arm and then Griffins, and took turns with each of them holding our hands and snapping pictures. We were laughing and going along with it. Then a whole class came up to us to take a picture, and the whole Butwartz family became involved. After a couple of minutes of pictures we got on with our tour, and trust me, it was a peaceful 5 minutes.
I started to notice a bunch of school girls and boys sneakily taking pictures of Griffin and I, so it became hard to listen to what Happy was saying. I waved and they all waved and ran away, by that wasn't the last I would see them. We then were able to actually get a decent hour of actual learning in, but Griffin and I wanted to go to the top of the building, so we kind of ditched our parents. As soon as we got up to the top, the real beginning of picture-mania started. Out of nowhere, we were bombarded with a bunch of old ladies thrusting their kids and grandkids at us. That was the first wave, if you will, of our fiasco. Then it was little schoolgirls and boys who were really adorable and super shy, so we were more willing with them. Griffin got a lot of attention from schoolgirls who were giggling and he was always saying, “sorry I have to go find my parents now”. There were no other white people at the top, so we were on our own. Somehow it started to get hotter and the air got thicker and we had literal lines forming to get pictures with the white kids, is naturally, we started to run away from them. The top of Borobudur is circular and the exit is impossible to find because it looks like the entrance. We finally found the exit, and then, what left like the thousandth time, my arm was pulled away from where I was in the crowd, and I was face to face with a Indonesian boy. So from him I got an interview, and by then I was so tired and sweaty and annoyed that at the end of the interview I said, “okay yeah bye.” I was seriously exhausted!!
We ended up waiting for another hour down at the exit in the heat. By the end of my time at Borobudur I had taken pictures with grandparents, kids, moms, dads, aunties, uncles, school children, and even a deformed man with his parents. I had sweaty grandmothers wrap their arms around me without permission, no consent for the babies being shoved into my lap, men who took 5 minutes just to take one picture, people who grabbed me, made me stand up, and made me move so THEY could get a better light for their picture. By the end, I was so tired and also a little loopy, that I fell asleep in the car ride home. Borobudur was definitely the place that I had my 15 minutes of fame, and it's something I’m not going to forget anytime soon.
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