In Reply to: 3-4 days not long enough in my opinion. posted by pPamela on Wednesday, 27. December 2006 at 06:20 Bali Time:
your recent trip to East Java. I spent about 14 days travelling in East Java in July this year and felt the people there were some of the friendliest I had met during my 7 trips over 9 yrs to Indonesia. Initially I had felt a little apprehensive because of all the media hype about fundamentalist Muslims and was concerned about me-a single female travelling alone. No need to have worried at all- everyone was just helpful,kind friendly and happy.
For anyone reading this post, I travelld from Yogjakarta to Surabaya by train very comfortable and very cheap. Stayed a few days in Surabaya- not a wonderful place, but met a young Indonesian guy trying to help travellers like myself, called Welly who showed me around- very heplful young man. Speaks English, Korena and Mandarin and now lives in Bali.
From Surabaya I caught a train to Probolinggo at 9am, arrived 12 noon, got local bus to Ceremo Lawang right near Bromo and stayed the night there. Went on 5.30 am tour the next morning to see the sunrise, and Gunung Semeru in the distance and go down in the jeep across to where one climbs up the stairs to see the crater of Bromo. Wow, it was something else- just wonderful.
Once I had finished at Bromo, there was not much else to do, so I got the local bus back to Probolinggo and found a bus to Malang- arrived 4 hrs later. Gfoour, there is a very good tourist office in Malang that organises tours to Bromo- one of my friends Paul from Aust,went on one of them on Christmas Day.
Stayed at Hotel Santoso in Malang-50,000 per night, no hot water, no breakfast- juts coffee or tea. Lovely old Hotel right in the middle of everything.
After 2-3 days in Malang ( did motor bike trip with Eko- my ojek man.) I travelled on the umderside of Bromo to Lumjang and then to Ambulu to meet a Dutch internet friend Jan in a small village.
From there I got an ojek (driver and motor bike) from Ambulu to Jember (no buses in afternoon and taxis wanted 100,000 to travel 33kms.)He was an excellent driver and in no time I was in Jember.
Stayed 3 days, met some really lovely people and then left my big backpack at Hotel Anda in Jember and got bus to Bondowoso to see Kawah Ijen.
Stayed at Hotel Anugerrah in Bondowoso (60,000) and found a guy in the street(he was having his motor bike repaired and we started chatting) who would take me the 80 kms to Kawah Ijen the next morning. We had fun, I did not speak Indonesian- only words and he did not speak English-only words.
Got to Kawah Ijen- safely and walked the 3 kms gradually uphill to the crater. Quite strenuous for me, but my young ojek looked like he was going to die- too much smoking- only 26 yrs old.
Could not see the beautiful lake for minutes until the mist disppeared.
It was an amazing sight the colour is so beautiful- greenish blue.
Met many of the men coming out with the heavy loads of sulpur they mine way down in the crater. Stopped at the weighing office and saw the dockets- 50-86 kgs and they are only paid 400 rupiah/kg.
Such horrid back breaking work and suffering the sulphur fumes allday for such little return.
We do not know how lucky we are here in Australia sometimes.
After viewing for awhile we returned to Bondowoso, becasue my ojek needed to get back by a certain time. I was disappointed because I wanted to walk down into the crater- oh well, another excuse to return one day.
Next afternoon I caught the train back to Jember and the next morn at 6am caught train back to Surabaya,spent the day and then caught the evening train to Jakarta- 15 hrs long.
The weekend was spent in Jakarta with a Welsh friend Mark in Jalan Jaksa(not such a bad place as people say) who had taken me around Klaten one of the earthquake areas in mid July.
From Jakarta I go the train to Bogor- spent a couple of days there with my special friends and on 4th August flew to Padang in West Sumatra to begin my 3 months there.
Pamela.