Borobudur temple rises in an immense dark stone pyramid from a fertile volcanic plain, a spiritual monument at the center of a battle over tourism and commerce.
Indonesia's fortunes have waned since the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s and the world's largest Buddhist monument with its tourist pulling power is a cash honey pot in tough times.
But hawker numbers at the UNESCO World Heritage site have exploded and tourists find themselves besieged by sometimes aggressive sellers of everything from postcards to toys.
Now, regional authorities want to clean up the area with new shopping projects that critics say are an even greater threat to the integrity of the site in the heart of Java, Indonesia's main island.
"Promotion of shopping tourism within the preservation precinct of Borobudur is simply not acceptable," said Richard Engelhardt, UNESCO Regional Adviser for Culture in Asia and the Pacific.
"The site is supposed to be a site of solitude and meditation where you can bring yourself to a point where you and nature become one, and you can't do this if you are ringed by a shopping mall."
VOLCANIC ASH AND JUNGLE
Borobudur, not far from Java's ancient royal capital Yogyakarta, dates back to around AD 800, long before Islam became the dominant religion in the world's most populous Muslim nation.
The monument was neglected and abandoned for almost a thousand years before it was rediscovered under volcanic ash and jungle in the 1800s, when a survey team investigated talk of a great ruin in central Java.
For many Indonesians, the religious nature of the site is of little importance to them and this partly explains the planned commercialisation, say some experts.
Borobudur represents a Buddhist view of the universe, comprising a series of square and circular terraces that allow visitors to move upward from the everyday world to a large bell-shaped stupa representing nirvana.
The square terraces lie within stone walls carved in intricate detail which provide lessons to pilgrims through scenes illustrating Buddhist thought and the life of Buddha.
Steep stairways rise to the wide-open circular terraces, where stone-lattice stupas contain Buddha statues overlooking the tropical green plain and its distant volcanoes.
It's a landscape that evokes a sense of calm, enhanced by the the monument's peaceful, if mysterious, atmosphere. The detail of the stone reliefs and serene expressions of the statues add to the effect.
But serenity is missing in the car park where calls of, "Look madame, batik postcard," "Hello...water?" "Like pen?" "This book," "Maybe later?" is the typical chorus following tourists.
Dutch tourists Rob and Angela Joosten from Amsterdam said the temple held a mystique, but the hawkers were irritating.
"They are quite aggressive and pushy ... Some I can understand, but there are too many," said Rob Joosten.
Borobudur is not the only monument of global significance where tourists run a gauntlet of sales people.
But Ken Scott of Pacific Asia Travel Association said it was toward the bad end of the spectrum.
"If people travel around the world to see this acclaimed Buddhist structure you want to make sure that they enjoy the experience and are not hassled to buy irrelevant goods or to have the experience downgraded by commercial elements," he said.
SHOPPING MALL EYESORE
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