I'll Be There Dreckly: Bromo

Mt Bromo, Java island, Indonesia

In this blog: a reunion, an amazing volcano and a bird market

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The amazing dawn view of Mt Bromo and friends

On Java if you want to see volcanoes you're spoilt for choice, they're everywhere and none are more popular, beautiful or accessible than Mt Bromo, in the east of the island.

It was something that had been on the cards for some time, but not just for me. Rene and I had loosely kept in touch with Ubai and Nila, a kind and fun pair of Indonesian girls we'd met in Balikpapan on Borneo (see 'Make It Snappy' blog), and when they heard we were heading to see Bromo they said they were keen to come along for a short holiday to see it as well (plus see us we guessed!). Ubai runs a cafe-bar in Balikpapan which she set up last year (where we met them) but is also studying for a business management degree, whilst Nila is an account for Total; the French oil company which has rigs near Balikpapan.

I'd just come back to the city of Malang after hiking nearby Mt Semeru, and the next day it was back up the hill again, or supposed to be anyway. Rene arrived at about the same time as the girls on his way back from getting a visa in Jakarta, having taken an epic 27 hour bus journey that to his surprise didn't really stop the whole time, and he was ravenous having eaten nothing more than the packet of crisps in his bag. The girls had flown from Borneo island to Java, and I expected them to show up by train so waited outside the station. Instead to my surprise they'd gone all out again and rolled up in a smart people carrier they'd hired, complete with driver for four days! Allegedly Nila's boss paid for it to repay a favour, but either way we weren't complaining.

The next day we set off early from Malang hoping to get to Bromo for maybe 9am, and both the girls and their driver seemed to know what they were doing so for once Rene and I left all the legwork to them. Bad idea. I started realising we weren't going the way we should have been going, the road which I'd been on to Semeru the day before, and when I looked it up on my phone I found we were doing a route which was three times longer. A bit of digging soon revealed the driver didn't have a map, and did his job by either taking roads he'd driven before or by stopping to ask. It was a ridiculous way of working for a professional (!) driver but this is Indonesia for you, logic doesn't always win.

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Heading up the mountain he then stopped to buy a gallon container of fuel from a little roadside shack (who knows why he didn't fill up at the station before) and the lady warned the road ahead was closed. This didn't help things. A little further some guys on motorbikes stopped us and said the same before asking for £10 to show us an alternate route. It was a ridiculous price and it all seemed very hooky so I made our dumbstruck driver move on. The road was indeed closed but another old guy offered to lead us by scooter on the detour for 75p, so our driver went with it, even though he could have simply been told the directions. The detour was the most steep, narrow and windy road you could imagine, going along the contours of the volcano through forest and squeezing past other vehicles, and the girls were a little astonished at the sight of it all.

We eventually reached a village that was an entry point to the national park that makes up Mt Bromo, and learnt both that our car wasn't suitable for driving on the sandy tracks at the top, and the jeep tours the locals offered didn't leave until the next morning. By now our two hour journey had turned into four and the cloud had rolled in reducing visibility for the mountain, so frustratingly we decided to write off the day and start again tomorrow. A local set us up with a nice homestay for the night, and we found some lunch in the only cafe around, a horrible little place with paint peeling off the walls, mould everywhere and no running water. We survived.

I smiled at a local as we waited for a moment outside on the street, a very poor middle aged guy with few teeth left and he ushered for me to look inside his house. I stepped inside for a moment and had a look around, finding it hard to believe what basic, dirty and dilapidated conditions some people have to, or to an extent choose to live in. The village had a Hindu temple we poked around for a few minutes having a look, but apart from that there was truly nothing to do so we chatted away and watched movies on Rene's laptop for the rest of the afternoon. It was a bit of a wasted day and Rene and I both wished we'd done the planning ourselves, but at the same time it was nice to hang out, relax and chat.

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Early start

All the tours to see Mt Bromo coincide with sunrise, so at 3am the following morning a jeep picked us up and we were on our way. Unlike sunrise at Mt Semeru a few days before which was relatively peaceful and people spread out, the viewpoint for Mt Bromo turned out to be a proper tourist trap where hundreds of people were squeezed into a concrete viewpoint whilst hawkers flogged dried flowers and other tat by torchlight. Ubai and Nila were freezing; since it's hot year round at normal altitudes in Indonesia, it was the first time in their lives they'd experienced the cold without it coming from an air conditioner! After an hour, the day broke and over time the sun rose slowly, turning the black silhouette of the hills into a huge cloud-filled caldera surrounded by a number of volcanic peaks, a truly stunning scene as the photos prove. Bromo's serene beauty was it's downfall though. Being one of Indonesia's most popular attractions it attracts so many tourists that there was barely space to breathe, and half of the other tourists (mostly Indonesian) seemed more interested in taking the perfect selfie than actually admiring the amazing scenery around that they'd actually come to see. After the crowds had left it was much more pleasant. Top tip - have a few more hours sleep and get there for 6am if you ever go!

The jeep descended down a road into the caldera, at which point we were heading off-road. Despite being a good 2,000 metres above sea level we were driving for a while on sand, and for a moment it really felt like we were at the coast. This was however volcanic sand and the caldera was filled level with the stuff. The jeep dropped us off and like the rest of the tourists, we walked a little way then up some steps to gaze into Bromo's crater, where a vent pumped a huge constant plume of sulphuric gases out into the air. Rene and I walked along the crater lip for a while and gazed in, whilst the girls had found the short climb enough already.

Mt Bromo was the perfect case in point that the better many attractions are, the more popular they become, the more likely they are to get ruined, and the worse the experience even if it does still impressive to an extent. I'm glad I visited, but it just makes me want to continue visiting places more off the beaten track where the experience is more natural, more your own.

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We went back to the homestay where we grabbed our bags, and our chauffeur (ra ra) took us back down to the plains, stopping a few times for directions on the way much to my frustration - 'just buy a blooming map!' I kept thinking, before remembering not to actually moan since I wasn't paying after all. No-one had any plans so I suggested we go to Kebun Raya, a large area of botanical gardens on the way, planted by the Dutch during the colonial period. Like a bunch of fat American tourists in a safari park, we were driven round the tarmaced roads of the park, everyone staring aimlessly out the window at the well landscaped areas as we went, everyone too tired from the early start to want to get out and walk. Sitting on a bench admiring the view was as energetic as it got.

We stayed in Malang again that night, and Ubai being ever generous again insisted on paying for a room for Rene and I to share in the pretty smart mid-range hotel they'd booked. Considering the fairly basic places we'd spent months staying in, it was a trip back to the real world, with a sink, WiFi that worked properly, a western toilet and even hot water! Wow! (It's not always that bad, I jest a little). With a few local souvenirs in hand for family, the girls headed off the next morning since they had to get back to work the next day, so we said thanks and goodbye. They'd been real good fun to hang out with and it was a very nice change to travel differently for a few days.

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Despite staying a couple of nights in Malang over the last week I'd seen nothing of the city, so Rene and I decided to stay an extra couple of days. The first was just a chores and catch up day unworthy of any words, and the second day we went for a little stroll about. As far as Indonesian cities go, Malang seem pretty green and pleasant, mostly thanks to Dutch rule until 1949 which laid out some style and order, and a number of colonial buildings remain. We had a look around Hotel Tugu Malang which was full of rare expensive antiques and eclectic decor, went through a nice park, and ended up at the local bird market, Pasar Senggol.

Whilst the market was dominated by birds it had seemingly everything available. We saw all sorts of canaries, parrots, owls, finches, prized chickens, and a million other birds I don't know. There were even a few owls, the legality of buying I'm not so sure of! Unfortunately a few weren't in such good nic, and one guy even left a dead bird lying in the bottom of a cage, pretty much saying to potential customers 'look what's coming'; a mastermind of marketing that guy! Nearby for sale were a number of grown cats were sleeping in their cages like cats do, as well a few puppies, spotted lizards, macaque monkeys and even some mongooses which I'd never seen so close up before. It was really fascinating moseying around for an hour or so before headed for our train, next stop, the cultural capital of Yogyakarta.