The Borobudur Hindu temple complex has been visited by European travellers since the earliest days of tourism in the Indonesian archipelago. Among these was the French Count de Beauvoir, who set off on his journey across Java in November 1866. He was pointed to the Borobudur by the Regent of Magelang. A certain ‘v. B.’ recounts in ‘Een voetreis door Java’s tuin’ (A Hike across Java’s Garden), a travel account that appeared in the Indies newspaper De Locomotief on 27 August 1883, how he and some other tourists with the help of ‘coolies’ hiked from Salatiga to the Borobudur: the main goal and destination of their ‘pilgrimage’. The party gets up at four in the morning to head almost immediately from their lodgings to the temple complex:
The closer we got to it, the higher and more beautiful the edifice became. Without looking left or right, we at once climbed the many steps, which led us to the 40-metres high top. There, Kedu Plain stretched out before us; but in a sea of mist, above which only the mountain summits raised their heads.
Government officials in front of the Borobudur, around 1910. [KITLV 27392]