Things to See in Java

Java's Borobudur is one of the continent's marvels, surviving damage from volcanoes, terrorist bombs and hordes of tourists. Built from two million stone blocks in the form of a massive symmetrical stupa literally wrapped around a small hill, this colossal Buddhist relic remains as enigmatic and beautiful as it must have been 1200 years ago.

The National Museum, built in 1862, is the best museum in Indonesia and one of the finest in Southeast Asia. It has an enormous collection of cultural objects of the various ethnic groups - costumes, musical instruments, model houses and so on - and numerous fine bronzes from the Hindu-Javanese period.

Sangiran is an important archaeological excavation site, where some of the best examples of fossil skulls of prehistoric 'Java Man' Pithecanthropus erectus were unearthed by a Dutch professor in 1936. Sangiran has a small museum with a few skulls (one of Homo erectus), various pig and hippopotamus teeth, and fossil exhibits, including huge mammoth tusks.