Bromo experience!

Bromo... what a crazy trip!!

The day after Merapi we bought a tourist pack to visit Volcano Bromo, in east Java. This volcano horribly erupted twice causing the top of the mountain to have a large crater and a vast sand sea around it about 200 m deep approximately. The crater was formerly the vast sand sea then some new hills gradually came up forming seven new mountains. Of those seven mountains, Mt. Bromo is the most active volcano erupting many times and forming new crater.

Before we visited Bromo, we went to another mountain called Mt. Penanjakan (2.706 m.a.s.l) to see the sunrise. It was very nice and we could see Mount Semeru (the highest mountain in east java with around 3.676 m.a.s.l) and other volcanos which are inside the National Park.

The views were amazing, really but personally, I will not recommend you to do it. If you want to visit it, you should go without tourist agency (as I always say and prefer), taking public transport, eating in traditional places ("warungs" in the street) and talking with local people who are not involved in a tourist context.

I have to explain that it was my first bad experience travelling in Indonesia because of the people from the tourist agency who only see that you are "white" and their eyes change into  dollar signs ($_$).

Other thing to bear in mind is the season to visit Bromo.

Of course, rainy season is not recommended because, as I said before, there is a desert around the volcano. But what I mean is that do not visit Bromo in Idul Fitri (Festivity after Ramadhan) and neither in July and August because it will be full of people.

The place, in my opinion, doesn't look natural. Someone built a stairs to go up the volcano in 10 minutes (it is good for old people or disabled people... but to go there, for them is not easy because of the sand... then, we have the same problem with or without stairs). And some people offer to rent and ride a horse to not walk 15 minutes from the place where the jeeps stop until the foot of volcano (where the stairs start). It makes a lot of dust, whick makes it, with the sulfur smell, very difficult to breathe. 

What is the best thing of that trip?

Well, we enjoyed a lot making jokes all the time, we ate a lot of chocolate waffles (the best waffles I've ever eaten) and I saw the biggest crater I've ever seen!!

After this trip, our ways separated. Felix and Anastasia went to Bali to continue enjoying their holidays, and I went back to Salatiga to continue with my voluntary service. 

Merapi!

The day after the "Temples route" in Jogjakarta, we decided to climb Merapi Volcano, situated on the border of Central Java and Jogjakarta regency. Merapi  (2930 masl) is the most active volcano in Indonesia and the most dangerous because of its proximity to the big city Jogjakarta. 
In bahasa indonesia "merah" means "red" and "api" means "fire". Then, I can say I climbed "Redfire Volcano"!!

Sunset from New Selo

From Jogjakarta we took a bus to Magelan and we stopped half-way there to take an ankota (small bus) to Selo or New Selo (the village on Merapi's foot).

We had the contact of one friend of my friend from Borobudur because to climb Merapi you need a guide.  We met him in New Selo and we went together to his house sharing time with his family, talking about their experiences when Merapi erupted in 2010 and also a few months ago... 

At 12 in the night we started climbing Merapi and we arrived at the top around 4:30 am to see the sunrise. 

From the top of Merapi. In the left side, Mount Merbabu

At the first moment I thought "OK, This is really hard, Mariate... but maybe only the first ten minutes... You can do it!!" After one hour the way was a little bit better and then, suddenly, it started to get worse and worse.. The last hour I was climbing like a wall full of sand, full of small stones and volcanic rocks (where if you don't want to fall down it's better not to catch of them) that easily break.

I made one step and I went back more than a half of that step that I already did. Crazy, right?

But finally, we made it and it was really worthwhile. 

Behind me, the crater

Here comes the sun...

I was very tirded and I didn't take many pictures but you can imagine the views:

Imagine you are on the top of a volcano, behind you there is the crater giving out a lot of smoke, a few meters under you there are a lot of clouds, onn your left side you find the top of Mount Merbabu and in front of you the sunrise and the sun! 

After enjoying those views, eating some cookies and  taking off all the warm clothes that we were wearing going up because of cold temperatures, we went down and it was really funny! How can it be possible that the thing that a half an hour before was scaring you, after that time was funny? I'll explain it to you: we went down doing like sand-board but without a board. I was floating!! 

Just we arrived down, we took a car and we went to the terminal in Muntilan to take the bus back to Jogjakarta. 

In our hostel I died, completly. I slept like an angel! But the day after... I couldn't get down from the bunk bed! I had pain in all my body after Merapi! 

Merapi, me and the sun

Jogjakarta and Prambanan Temple

In August I received a message from my friend Félix from Germany:

"hey Mariate! My girlfriend and me are going to spend a few weeks in Indonesia and it could be nice if we can meet somewhere!" My answer was "of course! We will meet!"!!

We met in Borobudur village because they wanted to visit the temple for the sunrise and after that we went with indonesian and Czeck friends to "Festival Lima Gunung" ("Five mountains Festival") in Merbabu mountain where we could enjoy paintings, indonesian traditional dances, javanese music... It was amazing!

The day after, we moved to Jogjakarta. The first day there we walked around the city enjoying street food, watching street art, visiting museums (Batik Museum), "shopping" in the traditional clothes market... and we also drank another beer in our hostel (Backpackers Homestay Casa Raffles) celebrating our meeting!

street food

street art

Batik Museum

Daily life in Jogjakarta

The second day in Jogja, we did the "Temples route". The first temple that we visited was Prambanan Temple. It is part of the Temples Complex which has been defined as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. It is a complex made up of five temples, but at the moment it is only possible to see two of them (Prambanan and Sewu Temples) and not completely. What happened with this complex is that, a few years ago, a earthquake destroyed an important part of those temples

Prambanan Temple with Shiva's temple in the middle. 

Talking about Prambanan, I can say that in the beginning the total number of the temples was 240 temples. As you can see in the pictures, it is all almost destroyed. But they are rebuilding these temples, for example: Shiva's temple, who is the most important God in Hindu culture because (she/he) is the God of Destruction and who has bigger temple in the middle of Prambanan Complex and Ramayana relief inside, followed by Brahma Temple and Vishnu.

Ramayana reliefs

We also visited Sewu Temple, a Buddhist Temple (you can appreciate it looking the "estupas" because in buddhist temple they are more round than in Hindu's).

Plaosan Temple has two Budhas in the main door

Parts of the temple destroyed

Budhist estupas

Budha in Ijo Temple

The proximity of both temples shows a tolerance between two religions in the past.

And talking about my experience, you can also can feel this tolerance between religions because when you are inside the complex, you are involved in a Hindu and Buddhist culture also hearing the meditation music from the speakers and it is interesting when, sometimes, you can also listen a mosque. That feeling is amazing! After visiting the first two Temples, we walked around one hour (thanks to our map and the people in the villages) until we arrived at Plaosan Temple.

Plaosan Temple

It was also nice. Imagine that you are walking or riding a bike along the road, with ricefields and tobacco plants on both sides, in front of you the road full of sand and at the end a mountain. And suddenly, you find a temple in the middle of these ricefields! Isn't it amazing? And the most important thing: it was not a tourist temple, I mean without tourists, without foreigners... only people working rebuilding that temple.

Plaosan Temple

Our way finished with a fourth temple: Ijo temple. It was also amazing, but I don't have pictures to show you because we were too tired to take them. We had to walk up a mountain around one hour, without water, with a lot of sun, very hot temperatures... but we did it and we are proud of that.

After that long day we came back to our hostel to have a dinner, drink a beer and rest for our next adventure: Volcano Merapi!