Hot Java And Fuming Bromo

Posted On Sunday, March 15, 2009 at at 6:18 PM by Alvin  

After a long day of :

  • 1 early morning Dim Sum breakfast at the HKIA T2 潮樓,
  • 3 hours Air Asia flight to KL,
  • 4 hours wait at KL,
  • 3 hours Air Asia flight to Surabaya,
  • 0 on-board entertainment,
  • 1 Nasi Lemak and
  • 1 Nasi Goreng Special,

we landed in a deserted Surabaya Airport at 9 PM and made our way to our first night on the island of Java !

Malang
We could not wait to get away from the traffic jams of Surabaya after a Java coffee and more Nasi Goreng for breakfast and made our way to the friendly city of Malang by public bus. We enjoyed the friendly atmosphere of this almost tourist-free town - we only saw two map-holding old men looking vaguely lost here.

The town felt affluent and prosperous, probably through its coffee growing heritage. We walked around this leafy town and came across many churches built during the Dutch era standing side-by-side with modern mosques, as we relaxed and acclimatized to the Javanese heat.

Bromo
After two relaxing days of wandering around Malang, we caught a bus to the transit town of Probolinggo and waited for a 20-seater van to fill up with passengers before it left for Ceromo Lawang – the town right on the lip of the Bromo volcano. Luckily it “only” took 3 hours (!) before the last two locals boarded the van and made up the required number of passengers and we were off !

An amazing sight greeted us when we got off at Ceromo Lawang - the Bromo and Batok volcanoes and the Sand Sea looked truly stunning ! Bromo is the one puffing out sulphur fumes.

We settled down in our room that overlooked these volcanoes and hiked around these volcano-lands for the next four days. We really enjoyed these prolonged un-hurried few days as most visitors only stayed overnight for the sunrise. The weather was very agreeable with warm days and cool nights. There were many different paths to venture around Bromo – we step-mastered our way passing lush cultivated lands, up to the Penanjakan viewpoint; we dragged ourselves across the Sand Sea where the volcanic soils were very loose; and we ended up with our calves full of cuts as we negotiated the many savannahs and shrubs on these beautiful lands. We watched from our balcony (with gallons of hot jasmine tea) as Bromo changed its many moods and colors during clear dawn skies, misty afternoons and dark stormy evenings. All in all, we spent a very rewarding four days here before moving on to Yogya.

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