Indonesia, the place of 18,110 islands and the world's largest archipelago. We started our journey here by flying into the capital of Indonesia and the head of Java Island, Jakarta. We saw no signs of the severe flooding which had taken place only a few months earlier. There is relatively little to do in a smog filled city such as Jakarta and we spent our first few days planning our onward travels throughout the rest of the year. The first thing you notice in Indonesia once you get out of the capital is how friendly the locals are even when they only speak limited english. English is relatively well spoken throughout Indonesia, however it seems to be a mix of extremely good or none at all with nothing in between this means finding out information or advice is often a haphazard endeavour. We left Jakarta on a seven hour day train to Bandung. This took us through some fantastic scenery including rain forests, rice paddies and local villages. In Indonesia it seems like the trains were an afterthought and seem to have been built around communities, villages and their land.
After our train journey we arrived in the city of Bandung. The island of Java is mainly made up of large inter-connected cities from where one can right the sights
in the surrounding landscape and countryside. Bandung was no different, however we found the people more friendly, spoke less english and were more amused by white
foreigners. We expect that this was because most tourists stick to the main areas and would usually skip over the less well known city of Bandung. To skip over a
Bandung would be criminal when we found the surrounding sights day trip we did to be one of our highlights on the island of Java, if not the highlight of Indonesia.
We only had one full day in Bandung but on this day we crammed in as much as possible. We started early with the intention of of beating the mid-day fog to the summit
of Tangkuban Perahu Crater. On the way we got stuck in thousands of cars and motorbikes who were part of a political parties protest. Eventually we got through this
and made it to the summit just in time to enjoy the site before the fog moved in / over. The crater was formed when the volcano caved in under its own weight and is
still active as you can see from the sulphur gas being released and the fresh volcanic ash around the rim. The cave in has led to a lake of red hot sulphuric acid
collecting in the base of the crater which provides an interesting view as the sun beats down on it.
From the crater we headed back down to enjoy the view of some of Java's finest tea plantations and take a stroll through them. After this we headed on to the hot springs.
At the hot springs there are a collection of pools of varying temperature heated from the hot boiling water heated miles underground by the active volcano. As the water
travels on its way to the surface the water cools (a little, to around 40 celsius) and is then collected and passed into the pools in varying quantities to alter the
temperature. Due to the traffic encountered due to the protests we had missed the morning crowd and as the afternoon rains were soon approaching we found that we had
the entire hot springs to ourselves and even got to enjoy them during a heavy downpour. The only living mammal we had to share them was a resident cat that patrolled
the edges.
After this we headed back towards Bandung before stopping at a strawberry farm to pick our own strawberries and had a (fresh as you can get) strawberry smoothie. The
next day we left on another train for 5 hours bound for Yogyakarta. Again the train ride provided equal views while also traversing bridges across large gorges where
you couldn't even see the tracks anymore.
Yogyakarta was a much more touristy town aided by the fact that people can fly directly from Bali into here and the fact that Yogyakarta has both some of Indonesia's
best temples and monuments and is also a good base to explore the nearby active volcano of Mount Bromo from. It is fact that out of the mass of tourists here less
than a handful had come on a train from Bandung or Jakarta. As with anywhere this unfortunately led to the foreign man pays foreign prices since all foreigners are
rich kind of attitude which is disliked all over the world by true travellers. To us it was really so strange having come from Bandung and Jakarta it was almost like
arriving in another country. Nevertheless we got on and enjoyed all Yogyakarta had to offer.
Borobudur
We started out by visiting the Buddhist temple of Borobudur.
We had been warned about how hot it would be, but for once I think we may have underestimated it given just how cool it had been so far in Indonesia, despite the high
humidity and location near the equator. It was hot and we certainly felt it in the large open spaces at the top of the temple. The temple itself is surrounded by many
circular structures which house Buddha statues inside. A couple of these monuments have the outside casing missing providing a view of what is housed inside.
Prambanan
Next we headed to the Hindu temple of Prambanan where we spent 50% of our time being asked by Indonesian school children if we could help them practice their english.
We honoured all of their requests and at one point Kat had decided that she had had enough of visiting the inside of the temple complexes and ended up having her photo
taken with 20 school children dressed in Muslim attire including hijabs. She was also taken aside by some local women and told how attractive she was. We are still
undecided if this was a proposition for sex. The next day in Yogyakarta we spent shopping on and around the famous Maliboro Street which is basically a place for
tourists to be scammed and almost everything being sold is either junk or is aimed at Javanese tourists.
Next we left Yogyakarta on another train ride to Surabaya where we were planning to spend a few days before visitng Mount Bromo.
Upon arriving in Surabaya it was like a return to both Indonesia and Java after the tourist trap of Yogyakarta. After spending a night here enjoying more of the western
style malls housing everything from shops, to pharmacies, to restaurants and supermarkets as seen across most of South East Asia's cities we headed towards Cemoro Lawang.
This involved getting a taxi from our hotel to the bus station where we then caught an Indonesian sized public bus to the town of Probolinggo where we had to wait several
hours with a group of other tourists before there was enough of us to head up the mountain side in a special 4 wheel drive modified minivan with large tyres towards the
village of Cemoro Lawang. We were lucky with the group that we had headed up with as we managed to negotiate down the price of the accommodation in the village and grouped
together to also get a discount on the tour of Mount Bromo that we did the next day. None of the accommodation in Cemoro Lawang has heating or proper blankets which meant
that we had a cold night at the altitude as the hot day time temperature quickly dropped off as soon as the sun had set.
The next morning we had a 2am getup in order to catch our jeep to the viewing platform where we were to watch the sunrise over the distant Mount Bromo. Needless to say as
one of Indonesia's number one tourist attractions and natural wonders things did get a bit busy at the top especially at that time in the morning, however once we had found
our spot you simply ignored those around you and enjoyed the beautiful sunrise over the mountains. Shortly after sunrise we headed back down the mountain from which we were
viewing the sunset and towards the base of Mount Bromo where we had a steep hike up the side of the crater before being able to look into the sulphur spewing active volcano.
Under the early morning sun it was nice to watch the mist clear as the sun gently warmed up the surrounding atmosphere. Next we headed back down towards the village of Cemoro
Lawang and enjoyed a well deserved breakfast before heading back to Surabaya where we spent the night.
We left the Indonesian island of Java on a 7 hour train, 1 hour ferry, 4 hour bus and 1 hour taxi to the Indonesian island of Bali.
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