Borobudur

Nine stacked platforms, six square and three circular, under a central dome, built in five stages by the Sailendra dynasty between about 780 and 833 CE in central Java. It carries 2,672 relief panels, roughly 1,460 of them narrative, over some 2,500 square metres, and originally 504 Buddha statues. The whole thing is a route: you walk the galleries in order and the reliefs take you up through the levels. Then it was abandoned and vanished under volcanic ash and jungle for centuries, until in 1814 Stamford Raffles heard about a big monument deep in the forest near Bumisegoro and sent men to look. Restored between 1975 and 1982 with UNESCO money and listed in 1991. Access to the upper structure is now capped at 1,200 people an hour with a guide, and you wear provided sandals to spare the stone. 40 km northwest of Yogyakarta.