It’s a bucket list item: joining in a lantern release ceremony with hundreds of others. When I realised that we’d timed our Java trip to coincide with this celebration I was pretty chuffed! Java is home to the world’s biggest Buddhist temple at Borobudur and it is where about 90,000 people came to celebrate this year. Apparently there were over two and a half thousand lanterns released (across two sessions).

Obviously this is a popular event and you need tickets, which I had looked for before we left home but struggled to find any information. Then forgot while we were in Japan, and thought our Borobudur accommodation host might know. Then the week before we started looking in earnest and found they were all sold out 😭 M, however, is a master and managed to find a reseller…. but was it legit? We checked out their social media accounts, checked with our host and all seemed good so we paid a couple of hundred dollars for four tickets. We kept our fingers and toes crossed (& I tried not to get too excited) until the morning of the day when we went to the temple to check it out and found that we had the right tickets – YAY 🥳

There were two lantern release sessions and we had booked in for the early one (6-8pm). You’re supposed to get there half an hour before so we headed over only to find that we couldn’t get into the temple gates as we didn’t have the QR code for the temple entrance (which I knew was part of the ticket price I’d paid). Very annoying and cue me panicking. Back to the place where we’d collected our tickets that morning to ask questions and found out that they had “run out”of QR code ticket paper as they’d had more people than anticipated and were printing more. No idea why we didn’t get these in the morning when we collected our other tickets… but OK we are all good.

So we finally get into the temple area and follow the crowds. Except, what we didn’t realise at the time is that there were thousands of people here and only a small portion have the lantern release tickets. So we have no idea where we are going! We asked many people, all friendly, but some were less than helpful (pointing us the wrong way). At about 7 we are starting to panic again, but we finally found the right line, get free ice creams (woohoo!) and make out way into the lantern release area.

Because we are so late we pretty much walk right in and have missed the start of the ceremony (which was mostly in Indonesian anyway). Everyone has a spot to sit with a little candle on either side them. We are so far back from the main stage in front of the ancient temple that we have a big TV screen to watch the action. We got blessed by monks (i.e. they flicked holy water on us – quite refreshing!) and joined in a group mediation.

Then it was time! There were instructions and then we were all asked to try to release our lanterns at the same time. The lanterns are big (like 80cms high), so are shared between a group of four to six people – our family got one between us. Everyone was given stickers to write a wish on and stick it to the lantern. After unfolding it and checking for holes, you light the wick with the candle flame and keep it low to the ground to let it heat up for a few minutes.

We were a bit too keen initially and thought ours was ready when it wasn’t (the heat hadn’t accumulated enough) but soon after, we got there! So magical to see it float away and join the others 🤩 They really looked like the milky way. We weren’t the last to release our lantern which was great because we got to watch others release theirs. The final group to release theirs got a bit of a cheer from the other attendees 😊

Thankfully, we were right near the exit, so were able to leave easily once we got sore necks from watching the specks of light float away. (except for those that got stuck in the tree – oops!) You come out from this zen experience only to be accosted by a live band and many boisterous food stalls in another area – it was quite a contrast.

We considered staying for the drone show (first year they’ve had one) but with all the walking and the crowds, we opted to head home and dream of lanterns instead.

On our way out we passed the line for the second session (at 9pm) and it had to be literally the longest line I have ever seen in my entire life. It just kept going & going & going – almost back to the temple grounds entrance. I think we were very fortunate being late for our session and not having to stand in a line like that!