Indo - Bkk 2015 Day 1 & 2: Mt. Bromo, Indonesia

DAY 1: 15 MAY 2015

Mt Bromo at sunrise

It's time for another adventure with the girls and this time we chose Southeast Asia

as the region for our 10 days trip.

Mt. Bromo was introduced to us by Amanda's friend and Michelle's sister went there before as well.

So, I thought that it would be a nice short trip after practicum!

We only started planning the trip about a month before our intended departure date as

we were all busy with work.

We booked our flight to Surabaya with Tiger airways for S$98, without checked baggage and we safely arrived in Surabaya airport at 9.30am.

Prior to embarking on our trip, we decided to book with Mr Wawan from the tour company

Bromo adventure land (bromoadventureland@yahoo.com).

It is definitely possible to do the entire trip on your own but we didn't have the time to do the

plannings and take the risks as well.

As we were travelling in a group of 4, the cost for transport, accom at ijen and a tour guide 

for 3 days came up to Rp 1,500,000 (around S$153) per pax, which was reasonable 

given the distance we will be covering.

So we met our driver, Ari and we were all set for our ride to Bromo.

Along the way, we managed to get a SIM card with 8GB of data at a telecom shop 

for Rp700,000 (around S$7.10).

However, there were definitely other SIM cards available for sale with a smaller amount of data

at half the price but the sales assistant decided to keep mum about it 

until we placed the 8GB one into Michelle's phone.

Thankfully we only had the intention to get just one SIM card and turn on the hotspot to share.

After a 4 hours ride, we arrived in Cemoro Lawang, the village closest to the entrance to Mt Bromo.

The hotel we booked, Yog Bromo Homestay, was also strategically situated next to Cemara Indah

hotel and it was just 20 metres away from the famous Mt. Bromo view point.

As we did not have the intention to book through a tour company, I booked this hotel through

Agoda and it costs around S$46 for a double room.

However, if you were to book through a tour company, accomodations would have been

settled and it would be of a cheaper rate too.

Oh well, at least we had hot showers and a great location!

Us at the Bromo viewpoint

Mt. Bromo from the view point

The viewpoint gave us an excellent view of Mt Bromo and the smoking crater.

There will be villagers selling beanies and scarves but you can just refuse and they wouldn't

bug you anymore.

Our guide brought us to a local restaurant in the village to have our lunch.

The prices were definitely cheap compared to Singapore, and the food was quite good.

The only thing which I disliked was the fact that there were many houseflies flying around.

Luckily none of us were done with food poisoning the next day.

Menu at a local restaurant

Nasi goreng and Gado Gado

After lunch, we decided to take a walk around the village and we chanced upon a
makeshift stall selling Bakso (meatballs with noodles)!
And we decided to buy a bowl to try.

Bakso

The broth was the best we had in Indonesia!
It was so flavourful and we couldn't stop drinking it.
The meatball on the other hand was good but it wasn't as dense as I wanted.

After having a bowl of bakso, we ended up at the viewpoint yet again to try our luck at sunset.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to see a sunset, probably because of the clouds.

 

As we were at higher altitudes, it started to get cold during the evening.

So, if you were to visit Mt. Bromo some time in the future, please remember to pack a thick

jacket and pullovers!

We settled for an early dinner because we wanted to watch the milky way at 12.30am.

Our guide brought us to a makeshift stall selling chicken satay.

If I remembered clearly, it was selling at Rp15,000 for 10 sticks.

We bought the last 40 sticks and no regrets!

Satay stall at Cemoro Lawang

Chicken satay with peanut sauce

The chicken satay was the best I have eaten in my entire life.

The meat was so tender and it came with a super awesome peanut sauce.

It was so good that all four of us finished the satay and the sauce in less than 5 minutes.

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DAY 2: 16 MAY 2015

So as promised, we woke up at 12.30am and went to the viewpoint to watch the milky way.

We could actually see the milky way with our eyes!

There were many other stars such as orion as well as pluto!

I couldn't catch the milky way using the canon S100, but Michelle managed to capture it
using her DSLR!
I can't wait to see the photos she took, super gorgeous!

Time passed really fast and it was time to return back to the hotel and pack for the Bromo sunrise!
A jeep ride was already included in our package and it is the only mode of transportation
up to the Penanjakan peak from Cemoro Lawang.
If you were to come from Malang city, a motorcycle is another option.
The distance between Cemoro Lawang and Penanjakan peak is about 15 km long and it is
not feasible to walk there unless you start hiking at midnight.

Anyways, we set off at 2.30am with our jeep driver and guide.
There will be a checkpoint where we had to pay an "entrance fee" to get into the national park.
Previously I have read up online about this entrance fee and it is actually not a legal
implementation by the government and they wouldn't be able to issue you an official
receipt if you were to demand for it.
The usual entrance fee was Rp217,000 per person and Rp317,000 during public holidays.
It was a public holiday but our guide managed to negotiate for a rate of Rp210,000 per person.
The fees are insanely pricey but we didn't want to spoil our holiday and went ahead with
what was quoted.

The jeep ride took about 30 minutes and we had to take a short walk to get to
the sunrise viewpoint at Penanjakan.
We waited in the cold for more than 2 hours for the sunrise and the only thing that kept us
occupied was the sky full of stars and the milky way above us.
But all the wait was worth it when the sun began to rise.
We could see a sea of clouds surrounding the mountains and volcanoes, together with an
orange horizon in the background.

Sunrise with a sea of clouds from Penanjakan Peak

Sunrise with Mt. Bromo and Mt. Semeru

As the light rays began to shine onto Mt. Semeru and Mt. Bromo, we could see them in different

shades and colours against the paddlepop sky.

By the way, I did not edit these photos at all, and some were taken using an iPhone!

Aren't the colours gorgeous?

After the sunrise, we got back into the jeep and headed to the base of Mt. Bromo 

to hike up the crater.

There was a major jam on our way down and we only moved 1km in an hour.

The four of us were totally unaware due to the fact that we KO-ed during the entire span of the jam.

Our guide was the one who told us that when we woke up and he told us that there were

a thousand jeeps on Penanjakan that morning and we wouldn't be able to get there if we left at 3am.

Anyways, we finally arrived at the base of Mt. Bromo after a long ride down.

There were two modes of transportation available: horse or by foot.

If you were to go by horse, it would cost Rp 50,000 for a return trip from the foot of Mt. Bromo

to the horse stop just before the stairs.

It will take about 2 hours if we were to get to the crater by foot 

whereas a horse would only take an hour.

However, I really wanted to walk up and I hated horse riding ever since my first ride in Jeju island.

In the end, we decided to walk up despite the fact that the horse ride 

was a cheap and comfortable option.

Way up the crater

The initial part of the walk was rather unpleasant as volcanic ashes were 

flying all around due to the galloping of the horses, making it hard to see and breathe.

Thankfully we brought surgical masks along and it really came into handy!

Infamous 200 stairs up to the crater

It took us about 20 minutes to get to the foot of the staircase.

The stairs was definitely easy to climb and not much of a challenge, in my opinion.

We took about 15 minutes to get to the crater due to the long queues.

There was another faster route which was basically climbing up the side of the volcano with

no stairs or railings at all to aid your climb.

I didn't want to risk it so I didn't mind waiting for the stairs.

Smoking crater

We finally got to the top and saw the crater!

We could walk on the rim of the crater but it was too dangerous for me, so I skipped that.

But at least I sat down on the rim and "dangled" by legs in, haha.

After spending some time on the crater, we decided to head back to the jeep as we

were on a tight schedule to get to Mt. Ijen.

The ride to Mt. Ijen took approximately 7 hours with a rest stop in between.

Unlike Mt. Bromo, we had to drive through forests in order to get to 

our accomodation, Ijen Resto.

It was a pleasant stay except for the fact that our room did not have any hot showers and

the walls were really thin.

So, that was the end of our day 2 in East Java!