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Gunung Bromo or How we got to Bali
Entry 31 of 32 | show all | print this entry |
The journey from Yogya to Bali was one of the longest jouneys we've
done so far, the visit to Bromo, although eventfual and spectacular,
was only really a pit stop on an epic journey across a relatively short
distance - 350 miles in 36 hours is not really a good return even if
you only spent a few pounds on the transport.
So before I start, I realise I've gone on a bit about journeys and bad
drivers etc and to be honest this journey wasn't the worst, it just
seemed to take about 5 times as long as it should have. We left at 5am
from Yogya and were driven by minibus to a place in Probolingo, a sort
of transport connection place near Bromo, the journey was good because
we were the only ones on the bus and so could stretch out. We were
greeted in Probolingo by a hunchbacked man and a man with one eye and
had to wait in their dingy hut which passed as a tour company HQ while
they asked us for some pund coins or notes for their "collection"
(about 5c in Euros). We eventually got to Bromo at about 8pm, ate and
had a short sleep before we got up again at 3.30am for a jeep which
took us to a viewpoint for sunrise. At the top of a mountain
overlooking the massive crater which Bromo and another 2 or 3 volcanoes
are located in stood in our (rented) coats and shivered, waiting for
the dawn. As it got lighter and the sky went through a chameleon like
variety of coulours, the view of the crater and its explosive
inhabitants got better. The smouldering Bromo had a constant stream of
sulpherous smoke coming from it but was in the shadow of a much larger
volcanot which periodically had small eruptions, sending plumes of
smoke into the sky every 20 minutes. The view was spectacular and well
worth the early mornig rise and cold weather.
We hopped into our jeep and drove down to the floor of the crater which
tok around half an hour. By this time it was light and when we reached
the crater floor it was like a black desert with notheing there exept
for smoke and of course the looming figures of the volcanoes. We
reached a group of blokes with horses and rented two to climb up Bromo
itself, having not been on a horse since I was about 10 I wasn't too
confident and neither was Jen, having been thrown off las time she was
on one. Fortunately the horse was more of a pony and it looked like it
wouldn't be much of a drop if I decided to jump off when it inevitably
went wild and started bucking so I got on. The higher we climbed up the
volcano the more the sulphurous gas affected us and evenntually by the
time we reached the top it was pretty unpleasent, especially staring
into the volcano itself and getting a lungful of the stuff, apart from
that it was impossible to see anything half of the time. It was still
pretty cool trotting along pretending to be some sort of post
apocalyptic cowboy, you just had to ignore the sniggering man leading
you along and making you feel more like a post icecream 6 year old on
Skegness beach.
Like I said, as we left, despite having done quite a bit, our visit to
Bromo was a bit of a pit stop, we weren't even there for 12 hours
before we were back on a minibus and driving (slowly) back to
Probolingo past lush green hills and farms set at near 90 degree
angles. We then had to wait an hour and get on another bus which had
the sort of air conditioning that merely circulates evryone's sweat
rather than cools you down. We were on that for about 8 hours before we
arrived at the ferry to Bali and had to wait agin for about 90 minutes
while all of the local vendors boarded our bus playing guitar, selling
mangoes, cigarettes or sunglasses before we could get on the ferry. The
ferry itslef took about an hour and a half, most of which we spent
meeting the stares of our fellow passengers and listening to loud
Indonesian music (which is also rubbish).
Eventually we got to Bali, a relatively small island, nevetheless it
took us around 3 hours to travel the 50 odd miles to Denpasar, Bali's
capital. From there we got a taxi for another hour to Kuta, late,
tired, covered in other people's sweat and in need of a room and a
drink, both of which we got.
Again apologies for another post about a journey, Bromo was amazing and
definately worth it but to spent 36 out of 48 hours on a bus. Needles
to say we've decided to fly to Jakarta from Bali rather than get the
bus which we were considering. HA!
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