Dieng Plateau, Java, Indonesia – 2026 – Part 2

Because I am very childlike, not childish but childlike, Okay maybe a bit of both, but anyways………. we went to the Arjuna Temples, another great spot and strangely they had 3 groups of characters (more photos below) that you could have your photo taken with. Imagine in the middle of 8th century Hindu shrines on the Dieng Plateau in Java and there are Teletubbies, Warriors and Minnie and Mickey Mouse. It was so surreal ! But I needed photos with these characters/people!

The temples are dedicated to the god Shiva and named after heroes from the Mahabharata epic which is a poem consisting of over 1.8 million words and 100,000 verses which, I was told, makes it the longest poem in world of literature. These temples are also the oldest surviving Hindu stone structures in Java and were rediscovered by a British/Dutch soldier in 1814. The main structures are Candi Arjuna the main and largest temple, Candi Semar a smaller shrine and Candi Srikandi, Puntadewa and Sembadra which are additional shrines.

  • Us wearing skirts that everyone had to wear to enter the Temple area.
  • I can’t help myself, they were there, I was there…..
  • I believe these were characters from the poem. They made me dance with them, Clint has a video and no one is seeing that

We did a lot this particular day, after the above temples we headed to the Si Kidang Crater. This spot reminded me somewhat of Yellowstone Park in the US. They were very smart here, when we left the boardwalk, from seeing the crater, we had to go through a maze of shops. And I seriously mean, we probably walked 20-25 minutes to get out to the parking lot. There was no other way to get out. One of the other people with us was walking ahead of us and he said he kept looking back to make sure we were still behind him and we kept watching him to see where he went! We were all worried we were going to be lost in there forever or miss the exit.

  • Entrance
  • Lots of sulphur smells
  • Doing some repairs!
  • It was pretty in a very desolate way
  • On our way out from the crater like rats in a maze

After the crater, we headed to Telaga Warnu Lake, such a wonderful spot. We did a hike through the woods and saw the lake which is about 2,000 metres above sea level. The name means “Colourful Lake” because the water shifts between green, yellow, blue, and purple—when sunlight hits the high levels of sulfur in the water. I should say, when we were walking along the boardwalk a couple stopped us and we thought they wanted us to take a photo of them. But no, they wanted Clint to take a photo of them WITH me. This happened a few times where people wanted photos of Clint or I. Maybe it was my cool hat and sunglasses! lol

  • The walkways were nice to walk on
  • The Lake
  • Boardwalk
  • Different statues were here and there throughout the woods

So that’s that…………..then we were off to Yogyakarta………

15 thoughts on “Dieng Plateau, Java, Indonesia – 2026 – Part 2”

  2. You had quite the experience here Susan. It surprised me that they would have the cartoon characters interspersed with the ancient architecture, statues, etc. – it seemed out of character for some reason. When I saw you two wearing the skirts which look like a bandana, at first I thought it was some type of shoulder wrap you were required to wear before entering a temple and you had tucked them around your waist as they were cumbersome for picture taking. So that seemed like a bit of an oddity. Okay, we all regret that we don’t get to see your dance that Clint made a video of. 🙂

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      1. Hopefully Clint doesn’t post it on his Flickr site. 🙂 Strange about the skirts for men though. On our Greek cruise land tour, we were in Turkey and one young woman in our group was wearing a tube top and she was told to cover her shoulders or stay outside. There was an older woman in the group that kept a scarf in her purse to use for her hair if it was windy and gave it to her and they were satisfied and allowed her in, but it really didn’t cover her much – she tucked it into the tube top to keep it secured.

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      3. I know. When I travelled to Spain with friends of the family, she gave me an extra mantilla she had on hand as some religious places we visited required a head covering for women (that was back in 1974, so it might be different now). Wearing a tube top, exposing that much skin, given our itinerary of port tours made no sense to me.

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