Nestled amongst the highlands of Northern Ethiopia, the town of Lalibela is a destination for Orthodox Christian pilgrims drawn to its famed monolithic Churches.

Dated to the 12th and 13th centuries, but still actively used for worship, the Churches are each carved from a single piece of rock – either down into the ground, or into a hillside. The most well-known of the Churches is Bete Giyorgis¹, or the Church of St. George, with its distinctive cross shape approximately 25m square, surrounded by deep trench walls.

The last of the Churches to be built, and the best preserved, Bete Giyorgis was constructed on the orders of King Gebre Mesqel Lalibela after seeing it in a vision. The town (formerly known as Roha) later took his name to honour his legacy.

A number of structures described below have tin roofs – added, one assumes, rather later than the 13th century. While this obscures the view on Google’s images, they are obviously intended to protect the historic structures from the elements. Panoramio has an excellent selection of images of most of the Churches to give you a true sense of their beauty.

Just to the north-east of Bete Giyorgis can be found a cluster of 6 Churches known as the Northern Group. Bete Medhane Alem (the largest tin roof – the structure shown clearly here in an excellent historic photo) is considered the largest monolithic Church in the world, and houses the Lalibela Cross, one of Ethiopia’s most sacred religious relics.

The middle of the 3 roofs houses Bete Maryam, thought to be the oldest of the Churches in the area, while Bete Golgotha – at the western edge of this Group – may contain the tomb of King Lalibela.

The Eastern Group consists of 4 Churches, notably Bete Amanuel, thought to be the Royal Chapel, and Bete Abba Libanos which is carved from a rock face on a hillside (respectively, the largest and bottom-most of the roofs in the image below).

The Rock Churches are protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. For further reading, Wikipedia has good information, and Sacred Destinations has more background accompanied by superb pictures.

Sitting between twin volcanoes in “the garden of Java” – the Kedu Plain of Indonesia – is a ninth century Buddhist temple: Borobudur. One huge stupa (shrine for the Lord Buddha), it also contains seventy-two smaller, bell-shaped stupas; each pierced with many decorative holes that make the bells to resemble cages.

Inside each of the smaller, cage-like stupas sits a statue of Buddha, but in total there are actually 504 statues of Buddha here.

Borobudur (Ground-level photo)

The temple, known as a candi (chan-dee) in Javanese, was re-discovered in 1814 when then-British ruler, Sir Thomas Raffles, was advised by locals as to its presence. It laid hidden for many years, covered in jungle growth and volcanic ash. Raffles ordered a restoration that would last through the next 170 years.

Early in the 1900’s, during one of the renovation periods, two smaller candis built using the same style were found to Borobudur’s northeast:

Candi Pawon (Ground-level photo), and Candi Mendut (Ground-level photo)

All told, the three candis sit about two and half miles apart: from Borobudur to Mendut, with Pawon sitting in the middle. What is most interesting though, is that all three are arranged in a perfect line. Pretty impressive given that this was done without the power of Google Earth – 1100 years ago!

Today Borobudur is the number one tourist destination in Indonesia, receiving several million visitors each year.

There are loads of cool-looking HDR photos available over at Stuck in Customs, and of course Wikipedia has more information as ever.

See also our previous coverage on Angkor Wat, a similarly styled Buddhist temple in Cambodia.

This post is part of an occasional series where we visit some of the world’s most interesting abandoned places.

A couple of hundred kilometres northwest of Las Vegas lies the former mining town of Rhyolite, one of the largest ghost towns in Nevada.

Founded in 1904, the town had an initially huge level of growth, but it was abruptly abandoned just a handful of years later. Today the eerie remains of Rhyolite which still survive here in the desert provide us with a fascinating look into America’s past.

The town was named for the richest ore in the area, rhyolite; but it was a gold rush in the nearby hills that propelled the population to around 4,000 just three years later.

By this time the town had water mains, electricity, telephones, a hospital, a bank, an opera house, a school, the railroad, and (allegedly) 53 saloons.

The ruin of the Cook Bank Building; and as it was in its heyday.

By the end of 1910 the Montgomery Shoshone Mine – the town’s lifeblood – was operating at a loss, and in 1911 it closed for good. With the mine gone there was nothing to keep the people here any longer, and by 1920 the population of Rhyolite was effectively zero.

Rhyolite School today; and as it was in 1915, already looking deserted.

One of the best surviving buildings in Rhyolite is the former Las Vegas & Tonopah Railroad Depot. It’s unusual for ghost towns in Nevada¹ to have this many buildings remaining – the survival of these ones in the harsh desert environment is thanks to their construction using materials other than wood and canvas. Like the house made of tens of thousands of beer bottles.

Las Vegas & Tonopah Railroad Depot today; and under construction in 1908.

The buildings here won’t last forever, but the fact that they have survived this long is impressive enough.

Vimeo has a good video tour, Flickr has a ton of photos, and the official site has a wealth of absolute fascinating historical photos.

Auroville is an experimental town and self-proclaimed “universal city in the making” near the South-Indian city of Puducherry¹.

Built around a massive gold-plated meditation dome known as the Matrimandir, Auroville was created in hopes that it would be a model for peace, learning, and environmental stewardship.

The town was founded in 1968 by Mirra Alfassa, a spiritual leader known to her followers as “The Mother”, who created the guiding principles of the town as well as a governing organisation that today is nebulously referred to as “the Foundation”.²

Taking a closer look at the Matrimandir reveals its sheer size and architectural complexity – although it does look a lot like a much shinier version of Walt Disney World’s Epcot Centre.

Getting a peek inside the sacred meditation chamber within the Matrimandir is difficult for outsiders, but it’s reported to contain a polished white marble room with a light-reflecting crystal suspended at its centre. Despite sounding like the inside of a trendy nightclub, it has been described as “a place to find one’s consciousness”.

A bit further to the south, we can make out one of Auroville’s clever alternative energy solutions. Sitting atop the aptly named “Solar Kitchen” is a 15-metre-wide solar bowl that concentrates light from the sun to heat water for the restaurant. The array is so powerful that it can heat enough water to 150°C to cook over 2,000 meals per day!

If you feel like this little slice of utopian heaven might be might be a good change of pace from your hectic lifestyle, Auroville has varying lodging options for tourists, and even a visitor’s centre. Come to think of it, I could go for some solar-boiled tofu curry right about now…

For a complete guide to all of Auroville’s sights, culture, and history visit the official Auroville website, or for just the facts, the Auroville Wikipedia page.

Thanks to Nilauro, Rob Alexandre, and Sudipto Ghosh.

In the heart of the “Pink City” of Jaipur, India exists a centuries-old observatory used for numbering the stars and counting the minutes.

Though outdated in terms of its technological prowess, the stationary instruments at Jantar Mantar continually prove their relevancy in astronomical science, as well as currently holding the record for world’s largest sundial, towering as they do at over 27 metres tall.

The Samrat Yantra, meaning “The Supreme Instrument”, is used for calculating the time of day to the exact second using the position of the dial and the shadow it casts from the sun. If an astronomical observer knew the time it took a prominent star to transition the sky, they could even use the Yantra tell the time at night.

Maharaja Jai Singh II built Jantar Mantar early in the 17th century as one of five such astronomical observatories throughout India. This particular observatory is the largest of the them all and is based upon the observatory built in New Delhi (below). The other three can be found in Ujain, Mathura, and Varanasi.

James has previously put together some instructions for reading sundials on Google Earth – who thinks than can work out the exact time these images were captured?