LOCATION:
Candi Mendut is located some 45 minutes northeast of Yogyakarta.  It sits on a hill in the town of Muntilan in the Magelang District. Most travel agents in Yogyakarta offer the day-trip excursion to this temple as part of the tour to Candi Borobudur located nearby.

DESCRIPTION:
Candi Mendut is located some 2 miles east of its more popular cousin, Candi Borobudur. It was built around 800 A.D by the Kings of Syailendra Dynasty, the same kingdom that built the world-famous Candi Borobudur some years later.

If you go inside the compound after paying the minimal entrance fee of about Rp3.000, you can see three big statues enclosed in the square-shaped temple: Cakyamuni (Sitting in cross-legged with dharma cakra mudra position ie: turning the wheel of dharma hand gesture), Awalokiteswara (A bodhi satwa as a human helper), and Maitreya (The savior of humans for the future).

There is a huge banyan (warigin) tree at a corner of the temple compound, providing a good shade to visitors. During my visit also, the tents used for the massive Waisak (Waicak or Wesak) celebration were still intact despite the event was completed a few days earlier.

As always, there were a number of street vendors here, selling things like necklaces to knockoff Buddha statues and T-shirts. Some of them were rather aggressive, just like everywhere else that I encountered.

MY VERDICT:
Despite the significant history behind this temple, the trip can be rather boring due to its small size. Not to mention the street vendors chasing you to buy gift items.