Borobudur, Indonesia's single most visited tourist attraction and an ancient 9th century Buddhist monument, is privately owned by a company and not the national government.
It's a monolithic structure, the largest Buddhist monument anywhere on Earth. It was constructed in the 9th century by the rulers of the Sailendra dynasty, sitting at the foot of a mountainous plateau. As a foreigner, entry costs $25 USD and around 2.5 million tourists visit the sight every year -- roughly 80% of which are foreigners.
It's a spectacular sight, no doubt. I happened to think Prambanan was more impressive, but Borobudur, even simply for the sheer size of the monument, strikes awe.
The rainy season includes February, and the rain started by mid-afternoon. It poured. If you've never seen a true tropical rain, it can literally be like standing in the shower. I tried to hide under a tree with an umbrella, but I soon made a run for a shelter across a field. It happened to be the maintenance workers shed and lounge area.
When it rains, nearly everything stops. People turn off the road and have a coffee, people bunker down until the rain stops, workers go into their work shed. I walked in and everyone sitting turned a looked at me. I motioned that I needed to use their washroom, and the kindly pointed in the right direction. The rain usually lasted for three or four hours, but there was really no way of knowing when it would stop; it was sort of a natural break in everyone's day, something I began to welcome.
I came out of the washroom, pulled up a chair and pulled out my cigarettes. Everyone was smoking a cigarette, so it followed that I should probably have a cigarette. Sometimes, or often, there's very little English in Java, but people are so friendly and welcoming that the language barrier doesn't cause much concern. Luckily, one man spoke broken but functional English.
We started chatting, probably about the weather. I remember asking him how long he had worked with the maintenance team of Borobudur and what his job was. He was a grass cutter, and he had worked on the maintenance team for a few years. Before that, he sold souvenirs and knick-knacks outside the gates of Borobudur with the hundred other shops and hawkers. I asked him which job he liked better, and he said that he preferred the grass cutting maintenance job because it offered more job security. Selling souvenirs, he said, was difficult. Most tourists did not want souvenirs and it was hard to keep asking people to buy his things. We sat for over an hour smoking cigarettes and talking.
Somehow it came up in conversation that the sight and grounds of Borobudur are owned by a private company. A business, specifically PT Taman Wisata Candi Borobudur Prambanan Ratu Boko. This means the same company owns Borobudur (Cultural Property #1) and Prambanan (Cultural Property #2).
A private company, the owners of Indonesia's greatest national treasure and the most valued tourist sight in the nation? I quickly did the math. With at least 600 000 foreigner visitors being charged $25 USD per year and a further 2 000 000 Indonesians being charged a smaller amount, the ticket sales on Borobudur alone are well in excess of $20 000 000 USD every year.
That's all fine and well, but what came to mind was that over 10% of Indonesia lives in abject poverty, and many, many more live in near-poverty. In fact, I asked the man how much money he made as a maintenance worker. I believe he said his income was around $4-5 USD per day, but he made a point of saying that the people living in the town of Borobudur and the surrounding area typically made less. The inequality between the rich and the poor in Indonesia is truly staggering, with wealth and opulence restricted to Jakarta and some larger cities while the majority remains sidelined and nearly forgotten. He mentioned when the government of Indonesia bestowed the property to the above company, there had been an agreement that the profits would in part go to benefiting and supporting the communities around Borobudur. He says that has not happened.
He went on to describe how conditions in the community and the people of Borobudur were less than adequate, people living in poverty and need. With relatively low costs of operation (roughly $1500 USD annual income for a maintenance worker at best), it would appear the company is making a killing on these properties. I felt privileged to see into this man's world for a moment and see what he sees, a glorious symbol of Indonesia's dynasties of old privatized and making profit hand-over-fist with little benefit to him and the people he knows.
