Borobudur; The Suplementary Parts

The day after Waisak day, I paid Borobudur temple a visit (in 2010). It has been a long time after my last visit six years ago, in 2004. There have been some changes, not to the temple of course, just minor things, such as the ticket cost which always rises up every year, a great deal of orders and some rubbish bin on each corner of the temple. Here, I’d like to provide some supplementary information about this renowned tourism object. It is not about the history of the temple for Wikipedia and other local websites promoting Indonesia and Jogjakarta have provided ample information on it. It is simply concerned with minor things that other websites do not provide.  Things you encounter around Borobudur.
1.    Vendors
There is a large number of vendors in the yard of the temple. They vend the temple miniatures, or even Prambanan miniatures, food, drink, t-shirt and other merchandise to every visitor near exit gate. Not each visitor is interested in the merchandises being vended, most of them simply smile and say ‘no’, just keep walking as shaking head without saying a word, or give an unfriendly look. However, these seem do not make the vendors upset much or even stop them from being vendors.
Besides, there are vendors who vend a service. Travelling umbrella rentals and photographers.

This lady is serving a travelling umbrella rental. As clutching lots of umbrellas in one hand and holds an opened umbrella in another one, she makes a hard effort to persuade visitors to rent an umbrella for the weather is hot up there in the temple. However, the fresh visitors who must have not known at all about the condition inside will probably ignore her, except if it is raining. Otherwise, the frequent visitors will definitely take it into account as they think the noon is coming, and the weather gets hot.
This kind of rental is indeed helpful when the weather is hot or rain.    It can only be found in the front yard before entry. One thing I feel astonished about this umbrella rental phenomenon is the rental cost has probably never rose up significantly since my last several visits, contrasting the temple entrance ticket which gets outrageously expensive every time. An umbrella is only Rp 3,000 for rent.

Photographers can be found in the inside yard of the temple after entry. They vend a service to take your picture with Borobudur as the background.    It seems the service business is currently dull for nearly everyone owns a digital camera.