Mt Bromo, Java, Indonesia
After an easy day traveling the short distance from Malang to Batu and checking out the theme park we were ready to tackle the ride to Mt Bromo. What a ride that turned out to be!
When checking maps the quickest route to Mt Bromo from where we were was to head North up the busy highway before swinging East on to yet another Highway then climbing the Northerly mountain road to Bromo. I didn’t want to do the highway route at all. Not just because it would be more dangerous due to the traffic but also because it didn’t sound very interesting either. We would much rather take a scenic route up smaller back roads, through tiny villages and enjoy the ride as we went. So that’s what we chose to do.
From Batu we headed directly East. After an hour we had turned off onto much quieter roads and enjoyed the scenery and usual waves of hello from the locals as we slowly and steadily climbed higher into the mountains.
It was a nice ride out. The further we went the quieter and more scenic it became as we snaked our way up the narrow road, through the clouds and into the mountains. With only an hours riding left until we reached our Homestay we turned a corner and were stopped at a barrier and gate-house by some surly looking guys.
They said we were entering the national park and needed to pay 220,000 IDR each to pass through. We explained we were heading to a homestay outside the national park and showed one of the guys where it was on our map. He said it was in the National park and that if we wanted to go any further on this road we had to pay.
We had done a lot of reading on how to visit Mount Bromo ourselves without the need for an overpriced guide or tour and we knew that this fee wasn’t correct. Fair enough you have to pay if you want to visit the crater of Mt Bromo itself but certainly not just to use any of the roads through the mountains to get to the village of Putus where we were staying.
We sized up the situation and given the number of guys at this barrier and how mean they were looking we decided against just riding past them and ignoring the fee. We turned back round and headed down the mountain road. 220,000 IDR is only about £12 each and with hindsight I wish we had just paid it to continue. But when we are only paying about 135,000 IDR for our digs each night it seems like quite the kings ransom to shell out for riding a small section of road to get to where we were going.
As we headed back down we checked our maps again and looked for an alternative mountain road a bit further North from where we were. There was a 22 Km section that wasn’t paved, so we would have to negotiate that and we also wondered if these guys would have another squad of heavies with a fake gate set up on that road as well. We didn’t fancy wasting another few hours riding to find out if that was the case or not. So we bit the bullet and decided to hit the highway route instead as we knew we would avoid any further potential mishaps.
After about an hour we had finally descended the mountain road and picked up the highway North just as the sun was setting.
It didn’t take long for us to find out just how crazy the roads in Java are at night, at least on the busy highways. It was utter chaos. Terrifying chaos at that. In the dark you can hardly spot the pot holes and bumps in the road, there are hardly any street lights. It’s hard enough avoiding them in the daylight when your zipping along at 70 Km/h let alone in the dark. You cant really go any slower on a night either as your then just a sitting duck for the massive swarms of trucks that thunder along. You have to try and keep up with the traffic the best you can or suffer the consequences.
So pot holes and hazards, huge trucks that stop for nothing, what else? Oh yeah, you then get the crazy lunatics who fly along on their motorbikes without any lights on! Despite feeling a little disheartened we cracked on as always. You don’t have a choice in these situations and we’ve certainly had many a challenging ride in the past.
An hour or so into our highway riding, a truck that hurtled past me kicked up something into my right eye. Unfortunately my helmet doesn’t have a visor on it. During the day I always ride with sunglasses on to stop any bugs or debris getting in my eyes but at night I didn’t have any choice but to ride without them.
This thing hurt like hell. We pulled over at an Indomaret shop for a rest and to try and get whatever was in my eye out. Dani couldn’t see anything and I could feel that whatever it was had worked itself somewhere near the top of my eye ball. This wasn’t just a small speck of something either, this was a chunky bit of grit that I could feel scratching my eye ball. I rinsed it with water, sat blinking for an eternity but it wasn’t budging. By now my eye was streaming and my vision was a bleary mess. Nothing else we could so we had to crack on again as always and just deal with the situation.
Another hour or so of blurred riding later and we neared the Northern coast of Java. The map was telling me to then take the nice new toll motorway East. Oh how I would have loved to take that motorway. Fresh new tarmac….check. Good bright lighting….check. Immensely quiet as not many people here want to pay for a toll road…….check…..there wasn’t a single vehicle using this road, just pristine well lit tarmac as far as the eye could see. Take your motorbike on the toll road….negative. You can’t take a motorbike on the toll motorways here in Indonesia. What an absolute bummer.
Yet again we checked our map and plotted a route through some back roads that would then take us to another non-toll highway that also headed East.
My eye was still hurting, still blurred, cant see much.
These back roads took forever. No street lights and no tarmac either for that matter, just navigating with our bike headights on narrow dusty trails that ran between farmers fields. An hour or so later we were bouncing along these tracks still when out of the corner of my good eye, the left one, I saw a brief lit up flash of a huge bats face. Teeth, eyes, the lot. A horrible sight. Not as horrible as when the silly sonar detecting rabies carrier smashed into my neck. When I say smashed I mean this wee beastie flew full force into me. We were obviously riding towards it, maybe at about 30 mph, so it was quite the impact. Dani is screaming. Even I gave out a scream as I pulled to a halt clutching my neck. Smacked by a bat while riding a motorbike down rural farm roads with only one good eye, in the dark, in Indonesia. I guess there is a first for everything. When we eventually got to some lights Dani checked my neck and thankfully it hadn’t broke the skin. At this point we are both howling with laughter. Hell what else are we going to do. It was just turning into one of those days.
Eventually we found our highway and started motoring East so that we could pick up the mountain road towards Bromo. A couple of hours of crazy traffic later and we found the mountain road and gratefully turned off and started climbing. What a climb it was as well.
There was hardly any traffic at all which was great. But it was a long drawn out process navigating the tight steep winding road in the pitch black with one gammy weeping eye. At this point we could pretty much taste the victory and that’s what kept us going.
The higher we climbed the colder it became. By the time we eventually reached our Homestay my hands and pretty much the rest of me was numb with the cold. But we had made it. 9 hours of comedic chaos and we were finally able to clamber off the bike at our digs and sit down. What a feeling that was. When you’ve had a ball-ache of a day it’s the simple things you appreciate the most.
The guy at the homestay was kind enough to bring us some hot sweet tea and not long after that we settled down for the night.
To fully appreciate Mt Bromo you have to make it up to one of the view points for sunrise which is at 5:05 am. There was no way we were ever going to get back up again at about 2 am to start the trip higher into the mountains so we got our heads down and decided to have a good nights sleep to sort ourselves out. Bromo will still be there for us the morning after.
The next day after catching up on some well needed rest we headed out on the scooter to do some recon for our trek up to view Mt Bromo. My eye was still incredibly painful. I could feel the grit or whatever it was, sharp and digging in at the top of my eye ball. My vision was still blurred but at least it was daylight and the mountain roads were quiet.
We took a spin up to the village of Cemoro Lawang. It is the closest village to Mt Bromo and at 7,273 feet above sea level it is also the highest village in Java. We grabbed some breakfast there and then took a ride out of the village to take in our first view of Bromo and to check the route we would trek up the next morning.
By now the sun had been up for several hours and it was hard to see anything of the volcano. Bromo sits in a huge plain called the “sea of sand” and when the winds build and start to swirl it kicks up a huge sand storm across the plain that cloaks the volcano from sight. We didn’t get a decent view at all but at least we managed to do a dry run of our sunrise trek ready for the next morning.
With our dry run done and a quick bite to eat near our homestay we get our heads down early to make sure we got enough rest ready for our trek. We needed to be up and on the road by 3 am at the latest if we were going to have a chance of catching the sunrise.
During our dry run at Cemero Lawang we had scouted about for anywhere that was renting out coats and winter clothes for the trek. We had tried shopping for some cheap warm clothes in Malang but everything we found that was cheap was teeny tiny Asian size, it was like shopping for an 8 year old. The only place we found advertising coat hire in the village was shut so we had to improvise as best we could.
When we left our Homestay at 3 am it was a tad nippy to say the least. Dani wasn’t too bad for clothes as she had leggings and long pants but I only had shorts so needed to improvise a little. I looked quite the sight with my vest top, 2 t-shirts and a shirt on my top half, combined with my sarong wrapped around my shoulders like a fancy super hero cape. My bottom half was a stunning ensemble of a pair of Dani’s flowery long pants tucked into some socks with my shorts over the top of them. Standard Northern idiots without any of the correct gear for the trip.
To be fair though I’m glad I put all of that on, flowery pants and all as the ride up the mountain road to the village was freezing. It wasn’t too bad when we weren’t riding but the wind was biting when we were moving on the bike.
With the bike parked up we started the trek up the last stretch towards the view point that we had in mind.
There were quite a few other people about that morning, trekking the same route. They were all wearing nice new winter coats, fleeces, woolly hats and gloves and there was me looking like a 6 year old had dressed me with a bag of clothes from a jumble sale. I couldn’t care less though. Warm is warm and I was determined to make it up to the top no matter what to experience this volcanic sunrise spectacle.
With the steep 45 minute trek out of the way we only had to wait another half an hour for the horizon to start brightening in the East. It was a cracking sight. A faint yellow glow to start with and the inky blackness above transitioned into beautiful gradients of blue. This was followed by oranges and reds and not long after the sun started to dazzle just above the lower lying blanket of cloud.
As the sun rose higher it started to clip the top of Mt Bromo’s crater and the surrounding mountains. A long shadow stretched out from behind the volcano across the sea of sand and into the distance. In the distance to the East part of the mountainside starting raging with fire. I’m guessing it must have been a volcanic vent. It spread fairly quickly with smoking rising up and drifting across over the sea of sand before eventually dying down.
This place was incredible. Like something out of Jurassic park. From a time somewhere in the distance past. I’ve seen volcanoes before, but just from a distance in Bali and Sumatra. This scene before us was completely different. The whole view in front of us as far as the eye could see was some kind of volcanic wonderland. Mt Bromo was impressive. Almost like your stereotypical perfectly conical volcano that you see in illustrations. In the distance towering above it was Mt Semeru. The same Volcano we had seen a week earlier from the South side.
The tiring, draining days ride to get here, the freezing cold while wearing a pair of flowery pants was all suddenly worth it. We got to see one of mother natures great sights in the flesh. It’s one of the most unique, surreal sights we have experienced yet and it was certainly worth every bit of effort to be stood there taking it all in.
We stayed up there until about 7:30 am. Thankfully, being quite close to the equator the sun rose quickly and started to warm us up. As the sun rose higher and heated the ground up the winds started to whip across the sea of sands. Sand storms racing across the plain far below us.
Tired and hungry we made our way back down to the bike and grabbed some breakfast on the way back to the Homestay. Having seen what we wanted there was no point staying in the area for another night so after a quick hours lie down we packed our small bags up again and headed back down the mountain road.
When we first came to Java, we had originally planned on doing a fairly big loop round the East and Central areas. As far West as Yogyakarta then back along the Northern coast to where we started at Banyuwangi.
After being in Java a little while now and discovering just how long it takes to cover any sort of distance we have changed our plans. The main things we wanted to see near Yogyakarta are the temples at Borobudur and Prambanan and also the Dieng Plateau a little further West. Given that it would take at least two days to get to Yogya and two days to get back and also the fact that we have seen the amazing temples at Bagan in Myanmar, Angkor Wat in Cambodia and numerous other impressive temples around Asia we decided not to head any further West. We also couldn’t find enough things of interest and places to stay along the Northern coastal route either. So we have decided to loop back on ourselves and check out some other new things along the Southern coastal route and make our way back to Banyuwangi that way so that we can do the climb to the crater of Mt Ijen.
That’s the joy of traveling. No set schedule, you can stay and hang around in a place if you like it or move on to pastures new whenever you want. It’s great to have that flexibility, especially combined with the freedom of the bike.
So with that decided, we followed the road back round to Malang where we would stay for one night again before hitting the South coast and seeing what we could find there.
