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Gere Meditates at Borobudur
June 27, 2011

US actor Richard Gere waving to reporters as he visits Borobudur temple in Magelang, Central Java on Monday. Gere, who is on a two-day visit to Indonesia, took part in a meditation with monks from various temples throughout Indonesia as part of the invitation from the Indonesia Culture and Tourism Ministry. (Reuters Photo) US actor Richard Gere waving to reporters as he visits Borobudur temple in Magelang, Central Java on Monday. Gere, who is on a two-day visit to Indonesia, took part in a meditation with monks from various temples throughout Indonesia as part of the invitation from the Indonesia Culture and Tourism Ministry. (Reuters Photo)
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favenchi
10:05am Jun 28, 2011

THE most famous visitor to Borobudur was Charlie Chaplin. He came to Java at his own expense in 1932 and before seeing over the famous structure Charlie visited Batavia (now Jakarta) Bandoeng (Bandung) Garoet (Garut)....he then went on to Surabaya, by ship to Bali and then back to Surabaya where he went on a Fokker (aircraft) back to "Batavia".

You an see Charlie's original home movies of this grand tour of 1932 on the Favenchi Channel YouTube.

Comello
1:05am Jun 28, 2011

Yes he was a caretaker governor during the French occupation of Holland in the Napoleonic era. Although he had his greedy eye on some of these colonies, but in the end had to settle for Singapore.

He never uncovered anything himself actually. Locals, who had known about the abandoned site for ages, told him of its existence. Raffles then send an expedition of Dutch engineers who did all the work. Raffles himself probably never went there himself.

Roland
11:05pm Jun 27, 2011

@Hanoman01 - you have point there. Raffles was actually governor at the time he sent an expedition to uncover Borobudur. Unfortunately he had to leave Java and hand it back to the Dutch at that time, otherwise maybe Bogor would have become something what S'pore is today.

Hanoman01
8:36pm Jun 27, 2011

I thought Raffles was Governor of the Netherlands Indies at the time he uncovered Borobudur, not a 'trader'. I don't think he was ever a merchant, having had a solid career in the service of the Crown.

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Borobudur. Hollywood star Richard Gere meditated Monday at Indonesia's Borobudur temple before touring the ninth-century Buddhist monument with his wife and son.

"He meditated for 20 minutes this morning at the top platform and made a 45-minute tour to admire the details of the temple's reliefs," temple manager Purnomo Siswo Prasetyo told AFP.

He said the star of "An Officer and a Gentleman" and "Pretty Woman" was "astonished" with the grandeur of the so-called temple mountain, which lies between two volcanoes about 40 kilometers northwest of Yogyakarta.

One of the peaks, Merapi, killed more than 320 people last year in its biggest eruptions in over a century.

The temple was abandoned with the spread of Islam on Java island in the 14th century, but was "rediscovered" in 1814 by English trader Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles.

Restored with the help of Unesco in the 1970s, it is now Indonesia's most-visited tourist attraction, drawing about 3.8 million people last year, according to Prasetyo.

Gere, a 61-year-old convert to Buddhism, arrived in Indonesia on Sunday on what he called a “spiritual journey.”

He met President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at the state palace in Jakarta and told local media he was thinking of making a film about the history of the temple.

On Tuesday he is expected to go to the Indonesian resort island of Bali for a holiday with his family.

The American visited the Jogye temple in central Seoul, South Korea, last week.


AFP