slosh down the pepper!

The crazy little adventure trip to Mt. Bromo - Part III

Mt. Penanjakan:

3am, the hostel staff knocked on our room door to wake us up. What personalised morning call! Hehe. Hoo.. it gave us the chills when our bare feet touched the cold floor. We were glad for the rented jackets. Midway up the steps to the waiting area, Tempest felt a twang in his stomach and had to return to the room to use the toilet. I continued my way up; it's too tiring to climb up and down in the cold dark morning. I saw quite a number of guides waiting for their tourists, and another group of tourists and guides waiting for their jeeps. Udin was there too! He was to bring 2 other angmoh females to Bromo. While waiting for their jeep, Udin took chance to play with his dog and introduce it to us. 'Jacky' was a medium-sized mongrel with black and white patches. Apparently it had been up to the observation point with Udin on several occasions!

Shortly after Udin and group left, Tempest arrived, but yet had to descend to our room again to take the flashlight that we purposedly bought for the sunrise trip. Hehe.

Our driver was late for 20 minutes! And for the first 15 minutes of the jeep drive, that young guy probably in his early twenties, was almost always talking away on his handphone! Luckily it was kind of flat ground we were travelling then, otherwise we might have fallen over the edges of the volcano. He was probably slow in his driving too, as quite a few jeeps overtook us. Argh!! The second half of the journey was much faster and smoother when we travelled on well-paved roads. Following that was a 15-minute trek uphill to the observation point. Along the way, we saw several touts selling sock caps and renting thick jackets. There was also a stretch of shops selling hot drinks, snacks and souveniers. We were particularly caught by the smell of grilled sweet corn sold by a roadside stall, but we had no chance to even think of buying it since our guide was already ahead of us.

By the time we reached the top of the observation point aka Mt. Penanjakan. it was crowded with tourists, most of them caucasians. They, not only have the natural advantage of being tall, but were also hogging the front rows of the viewpoint!


The entire place is structured like an amphitheatre, with rows of benches on cut steps in progressive elevation. With the "stage area" already packed with tall westerners, we had to settle for a standing space on the first row of steps. Even that only got us a partial view as the angmohs started to either sit on the railings or stand on the ledge leaning against the railings. One guy even went as far as to sit on top of a short stump of block, effectively blocking most people of a full view. Really annoying!

The sky started to brighten at about 5.15am. We waited for 10 minutes or so but there was no signs of the sun rising. Some of the spectators who got favorable standing area began to leave their hard-earned lots and moved away to take pictures of the volcanos (located further east) which were beginnning to be unveiled as the mist dispersed. Just as I was resigned to an unsatiable sunrise viewing experience, 2 ladies got off the bench seats at the row behind us. Woohoo! Another Asian man also saw the opportunity and was trying to shout for his partner; seeing that, I quickly stood on it before calling out to Tempest. At times like this, you gotta be aggressive! :) And I was well-rewarded with an awesome sunrise at full view!



Tris wanted to bring us downhill to take a closer look at the volcanos. I strongly rejected his invitation while Tempest eagarly trodded along. Dunno why, but the slopes appeared daunting and I doubt I could make it without falling over. On hindsight, I should have gone down with them; the photos Tris took of Tempest were quite nice (like the one below). Hee, but they did bring back a bunch of mountain flowers - edelwiess and some herb that stops nose bleeding (Tris mentioned some latin name that I can't make out) and a handful of sourish wildberries! They looked like blueberries, just smaller.


The one sprouting smoke is Mt. Bromo. And the tallest one in the background is Mt. Semaru, the most active volcano of East Java; it is said to have small eruptions every 10 minutes. In the foreground is probably Mt. Batok, an already dormant volcano.

Tris was also telling us that Mt. Bromo erupts every 5 years and it last erupted on 8 June 2004 and killed 2 tourists (one Singaporean 13-year old boy and another local). So that means it could erupt any moment now! O_O BUT upon arriving home, I checked up the web and some sources recorded its last eruption in 2007, but I couldn't find any details on it. *puzzled* But if the 2007 eruption holds true, then it's pretty scary when the guides were not aware of the latest information and were saying the wrong things to the tourists. Hmm..

On our way to Mt. Bromo, Tris brought us up a ridge for some photo-taking (while most other tourists were contented to stay by the road). It is a good thing that he used to like photography and often pointed out good places to capture nice pictures. The one at the blog header was his idea. Hee.. really nice!


Mt. Penanjakan is quite a good place to view all the prominent volcanoes. We even saw a couple taking wedding shoots at the ridge. Pretty amazing that the bride could make it to the more rocky areas with the gown and stuffs. (As she lifted up her gown, she revealed her pants..ahh.. so that was how.. now I wonder what shoes she was wearing...)


Sea of Sand:

He also stopped us in the middle of the Tengger caldera floor (aka Sea of Sand) for again some photo-shooting moments. In fact, we were the only jeep that stopped there.

Tempest: "Hai.. too bad we don't have a container to carry the sand home"
Me: "But this is a national park... we are not supposed to.."
Tempest: "They have so much sand here!"

Oh well...

Mt. Bromo:

It took a short 15 minute or so drive to Mt. Bromo, where our horses were waiting for us. We reached the base of Mt. Bromo via a 10-15 minute horse ride across the caldera floor. Here, we dismissed the idea of bringing back any volcanic ash/sand... the entire floor was covered with blobs of smelly yellowish poo of the horses. YUCK!

Look at the number of horses and their guides waiting for the return of their riders! There's the Hindu temple at the far back. We didn't bother to stop there for photos since it looked pretty empty.


250 steps leading to the crater rim. Look at how well-prepared we were.. N95 mask! Most people we saw were using scarves and paper masks. It was not as smelly as Mt. Ijen as the crater is much smaller. It was more to ward off the sand that flew about as the wind rose. Oh, and the hunch, that was our North-face daypack hidden underneath Tempest's jacket. He did that cos Tris was telling us to take care of our belongings back in Mt. Penanjakan.


I was a bit sad that I didn't get the white horse instead. Come to think of it now, maybe the guides assign us to the horses according to our color of our attire. Haha.. The brown one that I was riding was in fact foaming at the mouth. Tempest also noticed that the animal pooed a large blob of shit and fell out of the bag that was strapped underneath to hold the shit. And his stupid horse stepped over the poo. Wahaha!

The horse guides were also very blatant in asking for tips: "maybe you can give something to the horse.." So Tempest flipped out a $50,000 RP note and handed it over to my horse guide. "For the 2 of you," he said, pointing to his own guide as well. Back at Lava Hostel, Tris also reminded us to tip the jeep driver. We were a bit reluctant actually, after all the driver was paid to do his job, and he didn't provide good service either! Still, to keep things happy, we tipped a $20,000 RP note to the driver. And of course, another $50,000 RP to Tris. He was quite a good guide, bringing us to ulu scenic places, taking photos for us etc.

And that was it. Back to Lava Hostel for our "buffet breakfast".

The young man at the counter would ask how you would like your eggs to be done - scrambled, omelette, or sunny-side up. Other breakfast items include local fruits, toasted bread, fried rice with no ingredients, butter, jam, coffeee and tea. Truly basic, but enough to fill the tummies.

After some packing, we were ready to check out and return to Surabaya city by 9.30am.

Bambang said he would bring us to 2 places including visiting the mud flood. Driving out to the city took about 4 hours and we arrived at a roadside restaurant for lunch. This time round, the menu at least had english descriptions. The previous restaurants we went to only had menus fully in Indonesian, and we had to rely on our guides to recommend dishes.

The usual bbq Gurame fish, fried kang kung with shrimps, and my favorite tahu telor! Their version is flattened, unlike the towering ones sold in Singapore. This one even has the peanut dip by the side. Really tasty!

After lunch, Bambang drove us to the mud flood. If not for the factory roofs that were still showing up, I wouldn't have realized that the entire village had been submerged. Ewee... imagined being drowned in mud...

The mud flood was caused by excessive drilling of the gas pipes which resulted an eruption of hot mud from the gas well. To think I thought it was some mud volcano.. heh.. There were some motorcylists who claimed to be victims of the mud flood; one even showed me some kind of pass they had been given by the government as proof of their identity. These guys were selling vcds of documentaries of the mud flood, and even offered to bring us to the site of the eruption for a small fee. When we rejected the offer, he then requested us to "give us some rupiah or something".

I was pretty glad that Bambang didn't add stuff like: "maybe you will like to give them something.." :P

After that, Bambang brought us to some open plaza with statues depicting the nation's struggle for independence. It was hot and boring, and got him to drop us at some shopping mall instead. It's very much like those in Singapore, even the shops and brands they carry. Nothing too fancy or extraordinary. We could have stayed back in Lava Hostel, and relax till check-out time at noon, before going straight to the airport. Bleh..

Nonetheless, it was still a very memorable impromptu trip! A lot of firsts too - first time riding in a jeep, first time riding a horse, first time watching sunrise, first time climbing a volcano, first time seeing a crater lake, first time wearing a sock cap, first time flying with Silkair, first time wearing a N95 mask.. hee..

Of course, our parents were not very approving of our methods. Visiting a volcano is considered dangerous enough, what more joining a tour package with just the two of us and a total stranger guide! Frankly speaking, we were quite glad that we didn't meet with any danger. :)

Total expenses: $216 nett airfare with Silkair; USD200 for a 3D2N tour with Global Adventure Indonesia (covers all lodging, meals, entrance fees, horse rides, jeep ride, return transfer to Airport); about SGD 50 for tipping (the most we have spent on tipping so far!)

posted by slingwoof @ 8/13/2009 08:01:00 PM