Week 89 - Yogyakarta, Gunung Bromo, Ijen, Ubud (Indonesia)

We woke the next day and checked out of our hotel having packed overnight bags to take with us to Borobudur. We started the day with a becak ride to the Kraton, the palace. We paid our entrance fee and wandered in, we still don’t really know where we were but it wasn’t the Kraton and there was nothing to see apart from some mannequins in traditional costume. Confused we wandered back out and walked around the corner where we found another entrance. We paid again and emerged into the Kraton. It wasn’t what we were expecting, kind of a huge walled courtyard with little buildings scattered around and marble areas that we couldn’t walk on, the Sultan still lives there so you can only go in some of the outer areas and there’s not really all that much to see. There were some interesting little rooms with beautiful batik and other displays but it was extremely hot and we really weren’t feeling it. 

Thinking we’d explore the alleyways around the palace and grab some lunch before heading to Borobudur we were a bit disappointed when we found ourselves in a residential area with no where to even buy a drink. Finally we found a becak and asked him to take us to the bus terminal. He dropped us off at a busy cross road. Stupidly we paid him and followed in the the direction he had pointed. We ended up hanging around at the corner trying to work out what to do when a little man came and shooed us over to his shop and offered us stools. He seemed to take it on himself to flag down buses for people so we told him where we were headed and took a seat. 45 minutes later and we were still there. A guy who spoke English appeared and recommended we got the next bus to Muntilan where we could change and get a bus to Borobudur. Finally on a bus we were headed in the right direction. 4km and nearly an hour later we were in Jombor, a little village to the north of Yogyakarta. We stopped to pick up more people for an age and the temperature inside the bus was reaching inferno levels. We were at breaking point and decided enough was enough. We clambered off the bus, paid for the journey to Jombor and got a cab back to Sosrowijayan in Yogya. 

Back in town we thought we’d treat ourselves to a nice hotel to cheer us up and began the rounds looking for a room. We wanted a pool and wifi but failed miserably, everywhere was either fully booked or extortionate. We ended up at a little homestay on Gang 1. We turned up the aircon, put the TV on and destressed. For dinner we wandered across the alley way to Supermans, a stupid name but good internet, nice staff and great food. We had steak to make up for the disappointing day.

We had to check out of the homestay the following day as we’d reserved and paid for a room elsewhere. We dumped our bags and went back to Supermans for a relaxed breakfast. We headed back to the hotel and tried to chill in our room only to realise there were building works going on that were so loud you couldn’t think straight. Having already had enough of Java we complained and asked for a refund. After showing us a dirty room at another homestay they owned, we finally got our cash back and went back to the Sari Homestay where we’d spent the previous night. 

That afternoon we’d booked transport through a tour agency to Borobudur and realised how stupid we were not doing it that way in the first place. The transport is so cheap, we paid just over £4 each for a private car for the return trip (it cost us nearly that much on public transport to get to Jombor the previous day). The drive was eventful with our driver getting increasingly fidgety for the last 10km and driving pretty erratically, we were happy to get out and get into the temple complex. 

After a complimentary cup of tea in the foreigners entrance, we donned our obligatory sarongs and wandered in. Borobudur is one of the most important Buddhist sites in the world and is considered one of the finest temple complexes in South East Asia, up there with Ankor Wat and Bagan. Constructed in the early 9th century, the temple complex consists of a single, solid building with six square layers topped by three circular layers each covered in lattice stupas. The whole building is covered in narrative relief panels and every niche and stupa contains a buddha statue (there are 504 in total, although most are missing their heads, stolen since the temples rediscovery mostly by Western museums). It wasn’t crazy busy and we wandered around only disturbed a couple of times by people asking for photos. The scale of Borobudur is impressive but we didn’t find it as aesthetically pleasing as Prambanan which is more delicate and intricate.

Rhys at Borobudur, Yogyakarta.

Borobudur, Yogyakarta.

We headed out of the complex, weaving and dodging the hundreds of souvenir sellers before finding that our driver wasn’t in the car park where we’d left him. We finally found him asleep parked up around the corner and jumped in for the journey back to Yogya. 

The next day Rhys woke up feeling unwell so we spent the morning holed up in our room watching TV. After a late breakfast at Supermans, Rhys headed back to the room and I wandered along Jalan Malioboro looking for fabrics and batik. 

A little later we decided to venture across town to the Bird Market. It was a long journey in a becak but it gave us a chance to see a bit more of the city. We cycled around the Kraton and saw all the little shops and cafes we’d managed to miss previously. The bird market itself, in the south of the city on the ring road, was well worth the trip. It wasn’t particularly upsetting, sure some of the cages were small or crammed in but Indonesian people really do love their birds and do take care of them. We wandered around in awe of the brightly coloured birds spotting the odd bat, puppy, ginormous cat and mongoose as we went. We stayed for an hour or so before jumping in a becak back to our homestay.

Rhys at the bird market, Yogyakarta.

I’d seen some nice fabrics earlier in the day and decided to try my luck in the Pasar Beringharjo, a market near our hostel. It was getting late and when I arrived the market was starting to close, I couldn’t bare the thought of coming away empty handed so I rushed around and found a nice lady who sold me some lovely material for a bargain price. Back on Jalan Malioboro I stopped by another fabric shop and ended up buying a second length of fabric before walking back to the homestay. That night, to cheer Rhys up we ate at Pizza Hut in the mall.

We’d agreed to abandon any attempt to use public transport in Java and arranged a tourist shuttle bus to take us to Bromo the following day. The journey was long and the 8 hours they’d told us it would take turned in to 14 hours. Everything they tell you in Java seems to be a lie. Atleast we were on an aircon, comfortable mini bus (only having to swap buses once in Probolinggo for the last hour) and had our accommodation booked already. We arrived into Cemoro Lawang at 10:30pm and went straight to bed with the alarm set for 2:45am. The room at Cafe Lava was basic but comfortable and we woke up not feeling too bad despite the lack of sleep.

We’d met a lovely Portuguese guy, Mario, on our bus the previous day and arranged to meet him at our hostel to walk to a viewpoint for sunrise. The walk was supposed to take 2 hours and as we started, we realised we didn’t really know where we were going. It seemed sensible to follow the stream of jeeps and motorbikes and we headed out into the dark to walk across the volcanic ash desert, known as the ‘Sea of Sand’, that covers the floor of the caldera. Once across the sea we found a concrete road that led up to the viewpoint, from there it took just over an hour of walking uphill, along a road lined with jeeps belching exhaust fumes in our faces, to reach Gunung Penanjakan where we grabbed a coffee and joined the crowds on a hill for sunrise. The view was incredible. As the sun emerged the clouds dropped down into the caldera, floating like a carpet and wrapping around Gunung Bromo with Gunung Semeru smoking away in the distance. It was absolutely beautiful. We stayed for about an hour chatting to some other people from our bus the previous day before walking back down to the sea. I think we were the only people who chose to walk, everyone else was on a jeep tour.

View of Bromo at sunrise from Gunung Penanjakan.

Walking across the Sea of Sand in the daylight was a completely different experience to walking in the dark, the sides of the caldera rear up in all directions with the volcanoes rising from the centre. We reached the bottom of Bromo and took the stairs to the crater rim. After battling our way through the crowds who were all huddled at the top of the stairs where there is a safety barrier, we walked along to complete a circuit of the crater. We were the only people walking around the crater and after the initial 50m which was a bit precarious we found ourselves on a decent track and took our time with plenty of stops along the way to soak up the view. At this point Mario accepted he wasn’t going to make it to Ijen that day.

The smoking crater of Bromo

Back at the hostel, after being out walking for 8 hours, we were covered in ash and in desperate need of a hot shower. We met Mario for a quick lunch before turning in for a well earned afternoon nap. We met Mario again for dinner (having foolishly thought we might go and see sunset, evenings in Bromo are way way to cloudy) and were joined by an English girl, Lucy. We whiled away the evening playing cards and headed to bed at 9pm.

The alarm was set for 4:35am, and other than an abrupt wake up at 3:50am with someone knocking on our door trying to find Lucy, we slept well. When the alarm went off we climbed out of bed, dressed and met Mario for another sunrise viewing. This time we walked to the back of one of the hotels where we found some benches with a view over the whole caldera. We watched sunrise, took another thousand photos and went in search of coffee. Nowhere seemed to open until 7am so we went back to our room to pack before meeting up in our hostel cafe for breakfast. 

Sunrise view of Bromo from Cemoro Lawang.

At 9am a mini bus turned up to take us back to Probolinggo, the first stage of our journey to Ijen. Again, we’d prebooked our transport to avoid the horrendous public buses. Once in Probolinggo we were dropped at a tour office where we had to wait 2 hours, in the stinking heat, for a van to take us to Sempol where we would be spending the night. We were the last to be picked up and had to share the tiny front seats next to the driver. After an hour and a half we pulled over and had to wait another hour for a lunch stop before finally rolling into Sempol at 6:30pm. We had a trip booked the following day and had to be up, packed and ready to leave the hotel at 1:30am. Already tired from the two pre-sunrise starts the previous days we headed straight to bed.

At 1:30am we were up and ready to go, there were 5 people from our bus who had chosen to do the ‘Blue Fire’ tour. 25 minutes later and we were still waiting for two French girls to get themselves out of bed and into the van. Finally they climbed in and we drove off for the 30 minute trip to the park entrance. We parked up, met our guide and immediately started the climb. It took a little over an hour to cover the 3km to the summit and we bumped in to Mario who was on a different bus on the way. We left the guide and the slow French girls and walked over the rim and down into the crater with another guide, following the sulphur collectors going about their business. 

The blue fire was mesmorising and well worth the early start, we may not have seen lava in a volcano as yet but seeing huge blue flames flickering out of cracks in the earth was pretty amazing. As soon as we neared the flames the wind changed and blew a cloud of sulphur over us obscuring our view and making breathing difficult. Our eyes were watering and our throats burning, ours was the only group int he crater without gas masks. We turned and made our way back to a safe distance, a bit freaked out. When more people and more guides arrived I left Rhys watching the flames from a distance and headed back into the crater to try to get closer again. I got within about 10m of the flames and stood there just marveling at how beautiful it was. 

Blue fire at Ijen crater.

Eventually our guide came and found me and we walked back out of the crater to watch the sunrise from the crater rim. You couldn’t help but be impressed as the sun crept over the mountains and spread slowly down the sides of the crater to light up the bright turquoise waters of the crater lake. Once the sun was up it was easier to watch the sulphur collectors and appreciate how hard a job they have, each walking into the crater twice a day and lugging out up to 90kg of sulphur in each journey, for which they are paid 800 rupiah per kilo, about 4p. It was only in the daylight that we could seen the signs telling us that it was forbidden for tourists to walk down into the crater, a bit bizarre considering its a pretty standard tour option.

Me at Ijen crater.

View of Ijen crater lake.

Rhys and one of the sulphur collectors, Ijen.

By 8am we had negotiated our way back down the slippery track and were at the van ready for the short 1.30 hour drive to Ketapang. We had another bus change before boarding the ferry to cross into Bali where we continued for another 3 hours to Mengwi. A short taxi ride later and we were at our hotel in Ubud. Initial impressions of Bali were good, traffic was lighter than Java, the bus arrived when it was supposed to and the hundreds of shrines and temples lining the roads were beautiful. Our hotel splurge was even better than we had anticipated, the room was huge and the bathroom with a whirl pool bath was amazing. We were too tired to really take it in and after dinner at the hotel restaurant we retired to our room for a bath and an early night to catch up on sleep.