Once upon a time there was a stunningly beautiful Princess called Lara Jonggrang. She was so beautiful and lovely that absolutely everybody wanted to get into her knickers.
Voluptuous Lara lived with her mum, the Queen, and her dad, King Prabu Boko in the west wing at Boko Palace, kingdom of Boko. Java, Indonesia. Lara may have been quite lovely, but her dad was a fearsome man-eating giant who ate children for breakfast and whoever else he fancied for his lunch and dinner. In short he was not the sort of man you would want to get the wrong side of.
The neighbouring kingdom to Boko was Pengging. There were no man-eating giants there, just a wise ruler called King Prabu Damar Moyo and his son, Bandung Bondowoso (cool name eh?) who though not gifted with beauty, had been blessed with pretty awesome super-natural powers.
Greedy, man-eating King Prabu Boko, not content with having Indonesia’s most stunning woman as his daughter, a lovely wife and a huge kingdom of loyal subjects to eat and reign over, suddenly decided that he wanted to add Pengging to his empire. He ordered a huge army to be put together under the charge of another giant Patih Gupolo and launched a surprise attack upon his neighbours. Things did not go entirely to plan. Young Bandung Bondowoso, he of the supernatural powers, slayed the man-eating giant Prabu Boko and sent the enemy army packing. It was left to the giant Patih Gupolo to lead the defeated army back to Boko Towers and break the bad news to the Queen and Princess.
On hearing the news of her fathers demise, the distraught Princess sobbed into her long tresses, and the Queen fled weeping to her bed in the East Wing. The Princess was still wailing uncontrollably when Bandung Bondowoso and his army rocked up at Boko Palace and took siege. Despite her red puffy eyes and mascara, streaked face, the Prince fell hopelessly in lust with her and asked her to marry him. I’m sure we all agree that the timing was pretty chronic? First of all they’d only just met and secondly he’d just killed her dad. Lara was not impressed. ‘NO! NO! NO! She shrieked at him but the lusty Prince was not going to take Lara’s NO! for an answer. He showered her with gifts of Cadbury’s Milk Tray (her favourite) and sent her so many bunches of flowers that Interflora was having a struggle keeping up with the orders. And if choc and flowers was not suffice to win her over, he had shipped in, straight from Paris, enough bottles of Chanel No. 5 to last her a life-time. Eventually Princess Lara groaning from so much chocolate and feeling sick from the sight and scent of lilies and Chanel no.5 succumbed, but only on the condition that he build her a 1,000 temples overnight. If he could do that, then and only then would she marry him.
This is when having super-natural powers is an absolute Godsend. As soon as the sun set the Prince and his mighty powers set to work on building the 1,000 temples. But our Princess Lara was a bit of a minx. When word got back to her that Bandung Bondowoso was doing a grand job and had just completed temple no.999 she ordered her subjects to light fires in the east and started grinding up rice. On seeing the light and the activities of the palace staff, the cockerels believed it was dawn and started crowing. At once, the spirits of the night vanished and so too the work on the 1,000th temple.
On finding out the truth, Prince Bandung Bondowoso was mightily pissed off. He immediately turned Princess Lara into a statue and to this day she is immortalised in stone at the Prambanan Temple.
Lottie Nevin - The Red House Diaries 
Absolutely love your version of the tale!
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Thank you!! 😀
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L
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Lottie your story telling is hell-larry-us. Good since/sense of humor/humour.
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Why thank you kindly! Glad you enjoyed it 😀
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There are many other popular tales like Tangkuban Perahu volcanic mountain in Bandung etc. Can’t wait to read your next stories. Thank you very much.
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I’m so happy that you’ve enjoyed todays post and thanks for your lovely comments. I’m learning more and more about all the wonderful tales and legends here. I shall look up Tangkuban Perahu Mountain. I’m also fascinated with all the stories about The Queen of the South Seas – so many stories there……thanks again. Lottie
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Fascinating well told tale. Tell me, did the Prince get to enjoy his conjugals in the flesh or did he have to make do with the stoney embrace of the statue? It’s not easy to be a Prince.
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I don’t believe that any bodily fluids were exchanged – alas, a frigid embrace was all the good Prince got for his hard work.
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All history should be taught this way. Prabu Boko sounds quite a decent sort of chap all things considered. Awfully bad luck getting slain like that. His attitude towards children sounds quite sound. I think W C Fields was in the same camp. Poor old Luscious Lara. Turned to stone. I supposed she just had to bear and granite. Or do I mean grin and bear it?
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Lol di Lol….she did have to bear and granite 😀
Lara loose knickers was obviously a chip off the old block, that’s for sure. I’m quite interested in the giants in the story. I want to learn more about them.
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I’ll take “awesome super-natural powers” over beauty, any day.
Although I somehow don’t think yours is the “official” version of the tale (Cadbury Milk Tray, running mascara, and Chanel No. 5 oh my), but I know it is my firm favorite. What an enjoyable, fun post! I had an absolute blast reading it and thoroughly enjoyed all your photos! Yay Lottie!! xoxo
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Cadbury’s Milk Tray, Mascara and Chanel No.5 aside, I have done a fair bit of resarch on Lara. There are a number of different versions of the story so I thought it would be ok to add my own. In one of them she not only demands that Prince Super-Power builds a 1,000 temples overnight but also a deep well. He did indeed build a deep well and when he called her to check it out, she demanded that he go down to the bottom of it. He duly did as she bade him and then she had her servants fill it up with stones so that he could not escape. Being a bit of a latter day super hero, he escaped from his self-made prison. You’d think that by then he had got the measure of Old Lara but alas, the stupid Prince was still so in love with her that he forgave her and then went on to build the temples. Clearly he was very smitten but rather dim xoxo
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Haha! Well, we’ve all been there at least once…
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Sure have Sis!
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I love this! Xxx
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Good!! I was thinking of you when I wrote it xxxxxx
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No Tifany’s diamonds?
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Maybe if he’d thought about Tiffany diamonds that would have done the trick? I have a sneaky feeling though that this would never have been a marriage made in heaven 😀
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Quite a fine epic with a rock solid ending, Lottie (and quite a fine way for one’s beauty to last eternal). All fairy tales need your touch, I believe. 🙂
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Thank you Steve and I’m glad you enjoyed it. There are lots of wonderful legends and tales in Indonesia. Prambanan Temple is quite stunning – I really should write another post about it as it’s got quite a history behind it and is a fascinating place. I’ll go back there with Pete and take some more photos. It was a bit late when I went on Wednesday and the light was starting to fade. Next time I shall go earlier and spend more time there.
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That’s quite a yarn you spun there. Great way of learning history.
AV
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I thought it needed spunking up a little! Thanks AV
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All history does… I reblogged this on Tomus, just the intro.
AV
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That’s a killer intro Lottie. Worth reposting just for that :). But I’m reposting it because (as one other commenter notes above) it’s an interesting version of an old tale.
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Thanks Richard! The opening paragraph came to me in a nano second yesterday morning – I leapt out of bed and ran straight to my computer. Pete said to me ‘what the hell are you doing?’ and I said ‘Ive been thinking of how to write my post on Prambanan all week and now I think I have the answer!’ – so glad you approve and thanks for re-blogging it!
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Reblogged this on 8degreesoflatitude and commented:
The intro’s a killer. The rest of it’s a damn good read.
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By the way, your research comes through your version of the tale. You can tell by reading your humorous take that you’ve put in the time. I re-read it again, just because it is so much fun. Love it! xoxo
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Your story is MUCH more interesting than a boring wikipedia or lonely planet style description! 🙂
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Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it 😀
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