Chapter 4
Day 5 - From Yogyakarta to Mt. Bromo
We had a night of deep sleep. It passed like a flash and we woke up so refreshed that was like we weren’t the same travelers of the previous days anymore. We really needed it!
The meet-up with the group that we’d join for the next trip would be in the late morning, so we took it very easy. We had a nice breakfast, we swam in the pool and after having packed our bags we got in the hall just minutes before the arrival of our pick-up.
We left Yogyakarta and we headed south. The trip across the central Java was plain boring. We passed through an endless number of shanty villages and uninteresting nameless small towns. Barely cared crop fields and small woods were alternating outside the windows of the van. We both expected a land plenty of color and life, but it wasn’t, something was lacking, perhaps, the same colors were more matt than in the rest of the South East Asia.
The only interesting part was when we had the lunch break. I’m not talking about the food that was just an average rice with egg and chicken, but because on the opposite side of the street there were many kites and people in the middle of a rice field. So, we took some picture and it was again time to leave.
It was past 19.00 when we stopped again. The sun was already set and it was all dark. We were at the base of the slopes of the huge Bromo Mountain, an active volcano. I’m not sure, but probably we were in Cemoro Lawang, but, as I wrote, I’m not sure. We were asked to get off of the van and we were given our backpacks back. We were invited to enter a tourist agency while waiting for the arrival of a more powerful van that would take us up to the top of the mountain, on the edge of the Volcano caldera, where was our hotel. In the meanwhile the people of the agency told us that for the next day we had two options. The first would be a tour that we should pay as extra. We should get up at 3.00 a.m. and a jeep would take us up to a panoramic spot. From there we could see the volcano caldera and hopefully, we should see from far the Semeru volcano that every 20 minutes release a small smoke cloud, after sunrise, our jeep would take us into the Bromo volcano caldera where there is a small desert called “The Sea of Sand” and we would reach a small active volcano in the middle of this desert. The second option would be free, and we should make our own way down the Volcano caldera at the time that we’d prefer and we were just bound to come back at the hotel before 10.00 a.m. when we should leave for Bali.
Me and Lula looked at each other and we both heard the sweet voice of Miss. Adventure calling out for us. We had to make this trip our own. When we were asked what we would do, we just answered “Option B”. We were going there by ourselves. We were the only ones. All the others chosen the paid tour. Did we chose right? Did we make a bullshit? We’d discover it the following morning.
A mix of a crappy bus, a rusty jeep and a cattle cart appeared from the darkness. Is that a joke? Who was that idiot that built it? Who was the jackass that was driving it? Who was the fool that would enter it? Actually, a boy from the Tour Agency stepped next to us and screamed “Your bus arrived!”. Yes, it was our “van”.
It took an endless ride up the steep street that climbs the slopes of the Bromo Mountain, and then, when apparently there wasn’t anything more to climb and above us there were only stars, we arrived. A very quiet village-hotel was dimly lighted waiting for us in the chilly night. It was the Bromo Permai Hotel. This hotel wasn’t nice, but not even the worst that I’ve ever been. It was right to stay just for a night before leaving for Bali. The food served in a cold restaurant was just acceptable. Luckily we took two jumpers with us.
After dinner we headed outside. There was a small terrace facing the caldera. In the deep of the night there was no light. Only deep darkness. Looking at that pitch-black empty space we could barely see a even darker conic shape. It was the small volcano. It looked so close, but we were sure that some kilometers of “who knows what” were in the desert separating us.
We said “See you tomorrow” and then “Actually… See you in few hours!”. In fact, we had only few hours of sleep as we planned to get to the volcano very early.
Bromo is the local pronounce of the God Bhrama name, the Hindu God of Creation. Java was created by the Volcanoes, and we were on the edge of the caldera of the creator of the Island. Already this was exciting.
The meet-up with the group that we’d join for the next trip would be in the late morning, so we took it very easy. We had a nice breakfast, we swam in the pool and after having packed our bags we got in the hall just minutes before the arrival of our pick-up.
We left Yogyakarta and we headed south. The trip across the central Java was plain boring. We passed through an endless number of shanty villages and uninteresting nameless small towns. Barely cared crop fields and small woods were alternating outside the windows of the van. We both expected a land plenty of color and life, but it wasn’t, something was lacking, perhaps, the same colors were more matt than in the rest of the South East Asia.
The only interesting part was when we had the lunch break. I’m not talking about the food that was just an average rice with egg and chicken, but because on the opposite side of the street there were many kites and people in the middle of a rice field. So, we took some picture and it was again time to leave.
It was past 19.00 when we stopped again. The sun was already set and it was all dark. We were at the base of the slopes of the huge Bromo Mountain, an active volcano. I’m not sure, but probably we were in Cemoro Lawang, but, as I wrote, I’m not sure. We were asked to get off of the van and we were given our backpacks back. We were invited to enter a tourist agency while waiting for the arrival of a more powerful van that would take us up to the top of the mountain, on the edge of the Volcano caldera, where was our hotel. In the meanwhile the people of the agency told us that for the next day we had two options. The first would be a tour that we should pay as extra. We should get up at 3.00 a.m. and a jeep would take us up to a panoramic spot. From there we could see the volcano caldera and hopefully, we should see from far the Semeru volcano that every 20 minutes release a small smoke cloud, after sunrise, our jeep would take us into the Bromo volcano caldera where there is a small desert called “The Sea of Sand” and we would reach a small active volcano in the middle of this desert. The second option would be free, and we should make our own way down the Volcano caldera at the time that we’d prefer and we were just bound to come back at the hotel before 10.00 a.m. when we should leave for Bali.
Me and Lula looked at each other and we both heard the sweet voice of Miss. Adventure calling out for us. We had to make this trip our own. When we were asked what we would do, we just answered “Option B”. We were going there by ourselves. We were the only ones. All the others chosen the paid tour. Did we chose right? Did we make a bullshit? We’d discover it the following morning.
A mix of a crappy bus, a rusty jeep and a cattle cart appeared from the darkness. Is that a joke? Who was that idiot that built it? Who was the jackass that was driving it? Who was the fool that would enter it? Actually, a boy from the Tour Agency stepped next to us and screamed “Your bus arrived!”. Yes, it was our “van”.
It took an endless ride up the steep street that climbs the slopes of the Bromo Mountain, and then, when apparently there wasn’t anything more to climb and above us there were only stars, we arrived. A very quiet village-hotel was dimly lighted waiting for us in the chilly night. It was the Bromo Permai Hotel. This hotel wasn’t nice, but not even the worst that I’ve ever been. It was right to stay just for a night before leaving for Bali. The food served in a cold restaurant was just acceptable. Luckily we took two jumpers with us.
After dinner we headed outside. There was a small terrace facing the caldera. In the deep of the night there was no light. Only deep darkness. Looking at that pitch-black empty space we could barely see a even darker conic shape. It was the small volcano. It looked so close, but we were sure that some kilometers of “who knows what” were in the desert separating us.
We said “See you tomorrow” and then “Actually… See you in few hours!”. In fact, we had only few hours of sleep as we planned to get to the volcano very early.
Bromo is the local pronounce of the God Bhrama name, the Hindu God of Creation. Java was created by the Volcanoes, and we were on the edge of the caldera of the creator of the Island. Already this was exciting.
Day 6 - From Mt. Bromo to Bali
The Bromo Volcano
The night was cold, very cold. The room was packed with spiders. Outside was still misty and dark. Me and Lula got up at the sound of the alarm clock that was 3.30 am. Less than half hour later we were already out of the hotel going down the dark road that would take us into the Volcano caldera. The Lonely Planet guide book described the track to the small volcano as very easy to be followed. The guide book stated that there were white stones that marked all the way to the volcano and travelers couldn’t miss them. A mix between “The Matrix” with the quote “Follow the White Rabbit” and “Hansel and Gretel” with their bread crumbs path. But… The Lonely Planet, the Wachowski Brothers (The Matrix directors) and not even Hansel and Gretel took in account the Bromo Mountain Guide Scammers. In fact, these guys, perhaps seeing that the tourist were following the white stones path and didn’t need their help to get to the volcano, they just took them away.
We entered the sea of sand. It was silent. The only sound was the crackling of the stones and sands under our shoes. We were surrounded in every direction by the mist and even stars were disappeared from the sky, above us now there was a large spread of black velvet. Our small flashlights were casting small cones of light in the mist and we kept on advancing in the direction of the Volcano, according to the last time that we barely saw it. The ground was uneven, sometimes we had to break our straight path to circle around cracks, small hills or bushes that appeared out of the mist, but we didn’t stop. In those moments I started hardly to believe that in one of my previous lives I was a travelling pigeon or a migrating duck. Then all of a sudden, a sound came straight out of the nothingness. It was the sound of a bell. A ghost? A mythical creature? We paid attention to that sound, we heard deep breathing and the sound of hoofs, was a Satyr? Yes, it surely would be a Satyr! A moving shape came closer and the creature appeared from the mist. Actually, it was a donkey followed by a Old Man. He came to us and said that he was a guide. Oh what a surprise! I guess that he still had the white stones hidden in his pockets. Anyway, I’d had preferred that it was a real Satyr. He started to say that we got lost, and it was mostly true, and we absolutely needed his help. We bargained and in the end, at the price of about 2 Euro, perhaps a rip-off, he accepted to guide us to the volcano. His company lasted about 10 minutes or less. In fact, when we met him we were already very close to the volcano. In the other hand, the ground and slopes around this small volcano, that actually, are two cones one next the other, have many crack like small canyons, and we’d surely get lost there without the help of the Old Man. The lower and larger cone is active, while the taller is asleep. On a side of the lower one was built a stairway that takes on the rim of the caldera. The Old Man took us there and then left us vanishing again in the mist at the sounds of the bell of his donkey. Now that we were free again, we started the climb.
The stairway went up into the thick mist for what felt like a long while until when, suddenly, we found ourselves above the layer of mist. We were on the top of the small volcano which emerged like a legendary island from a sea of clouds. Just next to our volcano there was the almost-perfect cone shape of next asleep volcano.
We looked all around, it was still really dark. A huge steam column rose from the mouth of the volcano up to the sky. The parapet on the edge of the volcano just run for a short while and then it stopped, so, we decided to wait for sunrise for our exploration.
We had breakfast while seated on a hardened ash block by the edge of the volcano. We had chocolate cookies, crackers and cold water. It was a perfect breakfast. Far across the huge dark gap that surrounded the volcano we could see the dim lights of our hotel. Yes, we walked quite a long distance indeed.
Then came the sunrise. The sun came with a red, orange and gold explosion all round of us. The sea of clouds turned into a golden lake. It was indescribable, incredible. We felt like that night we were teleported into a ancient primal era at the beginning of the story of our planet. The land that toward the golden sea of clouds was quite barren and cracked by huge canyons. Few trees were growing on this side of the volcano, and soil was black. The golden sunrise in the chilly air was captivating.
With the sunrise also rose the temperature and the mist soon disappeared. A lot of tourist started to come from the sea of sand and with them a lot of confusion. Some native people came out of the volcano mouth. They tried to make some commerce with the tourists, for example selling flower offerings to throw in the mouth of the volcano. Yes, the mouth of the volcano, from the edge was perfectly visible the crack covered in Sulphur from where came the steam column. It was like watching at the mouth of the core of the Earth. Absolutely amazing!
Among all that huge crowd of tourists that were climbing the stairway, we met a couple of our companions from the minivan trip. We asked them how was their tour, but they were quite disappointed, or even pissed off. In fact, they said that they were taken by jeep on a sort of small field on the top of a mountain along with the same huge crowd of people that were coming now to visit the volcano. There were far too many people and far too much confusion. All the time they could only see the flashes of people’s cameras and nothing else. Hearing them, we felt like that we picked the right choice.
We entered the sea of sand. It was silent. The only sound was the crackling of the stones and sands under our shoes. We were surrounded in every direction by the mist and even stars were disappeared from the sky, above us now there was a large spread of black velvet. Our small flashlights were casting small cones of light in the mist and we kept on advancing in the direction of the Volcano, according to the last time that we barely saw it. The ground was uneven, sometimes we had to break our straight path to circle around cracks, small hills or bushes that appeared out of the mist, but we didn’t stop. In those moments I started hardly to believe that in one of my previous lives I was a travelling pigeon or a migrating duck. Then all of a sudden, a sound came straight out of the nothingness. It was the sound of a bell. A ghost? A mythical creature? We paid attention to that sound, we heard deep breathing and the sound of hoofs, was a Satyr? Yes, it surely would be a Satyr! A moving shape came closer and the creature appeared from the mist. Actually, it was a donkey followed by a Old Man. He came to us and said that he was a guide. Oh what a surprise! I guess that he still had the white stones hidden in his pockets. Anyway, I’d had preferred that it was a real Satyr. He started to say that we got lost, and it was mostly true, and we absolutely needed his help. We bargained and in the end, at the price of about 2 Euro, perhaps a rip-off, he accepted to guide us to the volcano. His company lasted about 10 minutes or less. In fact, when we met him we were already very close to the volcano. In the other hand, the ground and slopes around this small volcano, that actually, are two cones one next the other, have many crack like small canyons, and we’d surely get lost there without the help of the Old Man. The lower and larger cone is active, while the taller is asleep. On a side of the lower one was built a stairway that takes on the rim of the caldera. The Old Man took us there and then left us vanishing again in the mist at the sounds of the bell of his donkey. Now that we were free again, we started the climb.
The stairway went up into the thick mist for what felt like a long while until when, suddenly, we found ourselves above the layer of mist. We were on the top of the small volcano which emerged like a legendary island from a sea of clouds. Just next to our volcano there was the almost-perfect cone shape of next asleep volcano.
We looked all around, it was still really dark. A huge steam column rose from the mouth of the volcano up to the sky. The parapet on the edge of the volcano just run for a short while and then it stopped, so, we decided to wait for sunrise for our exploration.
We had breakfast while seated on a hardened ash block by the edge of the volcano. We had chocolate cookies, crackers and cold water. It was a perfect breakfast. Far across the huge dark gap that surrounded the volcano we could see the dim lights of our hotel. Yes, we walked quite a long distance indeed.
Then came the sunrise. The sun came with a red, orange and gold explosion all round of us. The sea of clouds turned into a golden lake. It was indescribable, incredible. We felt like that night we were teleported into a ancient primal era at the beginning of the story of our planet. The land that toward the golden sea of clouds was quite barren and cracked by huge canyons. Few trees were growing on this side of the volcano, and soil was black. The golden sunrise in the chilly air was captivating.
With the sunrise also rose the temperature and the mist soon disappeared. A lot of tourist started to come from the sea of sand and with them a lot of confusion. Some native people came out of the volcano mouth. They tried to make some commerce with the tourists, for example selling flower offerings to throw in the mouth of the volcano. Yes, the mouth of the volcano, from the edge was perfectly visible the crack covered in Sulphur from where came the steam column. It was like watching at the mouth of the core of the Earth. Absolutely amazing!
Among all that huge crowd of tourists that were climbing the stairway, we met a couple of our companions from the minivan trip. We asked them how was their tour, but they were quite disappointed, or even pissed off. In fact, they said that they were taken by jeep on a sort of small field on the top of a mountain along with the same huge crowd of people that were coming now to visit the volcano. There were far too many people and far too much confusion. All the time they could only see the flashes of people’s cameras and nothing else. Hearing them, we felt like that we picked the right choice.
Arrival in Kuta, Bali
We came back to the “Sea of Sand” at the base of the volcano that it was already overcrowded. Lots of tourists, parked jeeps, junk sellers and a place where people could hire a horse. We headed straight to the small desert. From the base of the volcano we could clearly see the hotel on the opposite end, so, we followed that path. We took a chance to take some nice picture of the desert and then, in shorter time than we thought, we arrived at the hotel. We just had time to take a freezing shower and pack better our backpacks that it was time to leave.
A rusty and wrecked old van was waiting for us. It was like it came straight from the ’70 passing by the jaws of a bulldozer and aged by a specialist on the rust growing. We embarked it, our backpacks were stored in the truck behind and we left the hotel. Our group was slightly different from the one of the previous day. It looked like the agency guys mashed two groups, mixed them, and separated them again. Now, among a number of humdrum people, we had as travel companions three funny German girls and a fizzy-hair-hippy-screaming-American girl.
We went down the winding street that looked like doing its best to put upside-down the stomachs of our travel companions. The seats were as hard as wood. I bumped my head so many times on the glass that I was sure that sooner or later it’d shatter and I’d find myself outside of the Pullman.
We arrived in Cemoro Lawang where we supposed to get a our modern minivan for the trip heading to Bali, but for some unexplainable reason, it didn’t come. So, we were asked to get on the hard-seated rusty van again, and we started this new part of our journey.
Later that day we arrived on the coast and we started to see a beautiful sea. Here we stopped for a short lunch break in a filthy place, and then we left again.
We arrived in Ketapang that was already late afternoon and we embarked the ferry that the sun was almost set. Along the way to Bali a beautiful full moon appeared in the sky, like welcoming us to this island.
Once disembarked we took again our van and we took another journey toward Denpasar. This journey lasted again a couple of hours. Now the landscape was totally different from Java. Here there were beautiful beaches and a lot of lush nature. It was so nice!
We arrived in Kuta under a sudden tropical storm. At times it looked like we had a firefighters squad on the roof of the van and they were pouring water down the windshield with buckets and fire hose. Now, seen that the storm wasn’t enough, it looked like we were cheated while booking the hotel from Italy. In fact, not only that at the hotel address there was a street flanked by two fields and not houses, but at the phone number answered nobody. So, we asked to be left in the main street of Kuta, Jalan Legian, and we started searching another hotel. The German girls accepted to sleep in a camphor-smelling shabby hotel, but we decided to keep on searching. We kept on looking for half hour and then we bumped into the Paradiso Bungalow Hotel. This hotel was slightly more expensive than the others, but was a totally on another galaxy. Rooms were super clan, super large, with Air Con, it had a Spa and a swimming pool! It was perfect!
We had dinner at a restaurant close-by with fried rice, and then we went to the Raggae Bar for a chill-out with two nice drinks.
Again a swim under this moon that finally appeared between the clouds and then off to bed.
Good Night Kuta!
A rusty and wrecked old van was waiting for us. It was like it came straight from the ’70 passing by the jaws of a bulldozer and aged by a specialist on the rust growing. We embarked it, our backpacks were stored in the truck behind and we left the hotel. Our group was slightly different from the one of the previous day. It looked like the agency guys mashed two groups, mixed them, and separated them again. Now, among a number of humdrum people, we had as travel companions three funny German girls and a fizzy-hair-hippy-screaming-American girl.
We went down the winding street that looked like doing its best to put upside-down the stomachs of our travel companions. The seats were as hard as wood. I bumped my head so many times on the glass that I was sure that sooner or later it’d shatter and I’d find myself outside of the Pullman.
We arrived in Cemoro Lawang where we supposed to get a our modern minivan for the trip heading to Bali, but for some unexplainable reason, it didn’t come. So, we were asked to get on the hard-seated rusty van again, and we started this new part of our journey.
Later that day we arrived on the coast and we started to see a beautiful sea. Here we stopped for a short lunch break in a filthy place, and then we left again.
We arrived in Ketapang that was already late afternoon and we embarked the ferry that the sun was almost set. Along the way to Bali a beautiful full moon appeared in the sky, like welcoming us to this island.
Once disembarked we took again our van and we took another journey toward Denpasar. This journey lasted again a couple of hours. Now the landscape was totally different from Java. Here there were beautiful beaches and a lot of lush nature. It was so nice!
We arrived in Kuta under a sudden tropical storm. At times it looked like we had a firefighters squad on the roof of the van and they were pouring water down the windshield with buckets and fire hose. Now, seen that the storm wasn’t enough, it looked like we were cheated while booking the hotel from Italy. In fact, not only that at the hotel address there was a street flanked by two fields and not houses, but at the phone number answered nobody. So, we asked to be left in the main street of Kuta, Jalan Legian, and we started searching another hotel. The German girls accepted to sleep in a camphor-smelling shabby hotel, but we decided to keep on searching. We kept on looking for half hour and then we bumped into the Paradiso Bungalow Hotel. This hotel was slightly more expensive than the others, but was a totally on another galaxy. Rooms were super clan, super large, with Air Con, it had a Spa and a swimming pool! It was perfect!
We had dinner at a restaurant close-by with fried rice, and then we went to the Raggae Bar for a chill-out with two nice drinks.
Again a swim under this moon that finally appeared between the clouds and then off to bed.
Good Night Kuta!