Indonesia - Java
Trip Start
Unknown
1
37
51
Trip End
Ongoing
Malang, Java, Indonesia
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
I flew directly to Yogyakarta ('Jogya’) from Singapore, deciding to miss Jakarta due to the heat and the negative reports from other travellers. I had a month on my visa, and as it’s a huge country, needed to choose my spots carefully. Yogya, like many Indonesian cities, is characterised by endless roads of market stalls and shops, busy people going about their daily lives, mopeds and mobile phones. The two key reasons people come here to visit is to explore the Buddhist temple Borobudur and the Hindu temple Pramnahan, built in the 8/9th Century. Both are well worth the visit – the history behind each is fascinating; their construction so many moons ago equally impressive as the construction of mediaeval cathedrals in Europe, if not more so. The most interesting and beautiful of the two temples, in my opinion, was Borobudur.
The king of one of the three dynasties ruling Java in the late 8th Century built the temple to raise awareness of Buddhism among his people, having returned from studying the religion in India. Planning and construction took 125 years to complete. I hired a guide who was excellent and worth every bit of the $7 I paid for two hours. He told me that the temple had been covered by a volcano in the 11th Century, and was only re-discovered as recently as the 19th Century. The temple, made up of seven levels each representing a step closer to Nirvana as one ascends, is covered in intricate stone carvings depicting Buddhist stories. My favourite was the story of the monkey and the bad bull (see pic). I wouldn’t do the story any justice by recounting it here (mainly because I can’t remember it all)! In the early 1970s every stone (1m in total) of the temple was painstakingly dismantled, taken away and cleaned. It was then put back together again (my mum & gran would jump at the chance to do that puzzle!).
After a few days in Jogyakarta, I took a 11-hour minibus to Malang, which I shared with an Indonesian family, a catholic nun and a 77-year old English and Javan teacher who was a descendent of a Javan King in the 18th Century. We stopped for lunch and dined with the nun and the teacher and learned about the challenges of keeping local culture and language alive among young people in the face of Indonesian
I also, somewhat embarrassingly (particularly as I studied history at uni), had no idea Indonesia was a former colony of the Dutch, who initially profited from spices on islands to the East near Papua. Very little Dutch is now spoken (around 2% are fluent; predominantly the older generations) but many colonial buildings have survived since Indonesia was granted independence in 1945 (after a brief occupation by the Japanese during the Second World War).
The other highlights of Java were Mount Bromo and Mount Ijen, two active volcanoes to the East of the island. Public transport connections to reach these two places are extremely long winded, so I opted for a private car from Malang. The owner of Sunrise tourist agency organised this on the day after the Champions League Final, a depressing yet jaw-dropping game where United were completely outclassed by Barcelona. We got talking about football and the merits of the Barca team and Messi, and he mentioned he was chairman of a football organisation in Malang and that they were playing an 11 aside game later that evening. I jumped at the chance to play. If there’s one thing I miss travelling, it’s playing football regularly, and we popped over to Malang’s stadium for a game in the scorching heat. My side, thankfully, were made up almost entirely of the local Indonesian police force, who were extremely friendly and invited me back the following week (I made my apologies). The Indos absolutely love their (Premiership) football, which raises the question, why are they so bad at it? Hopefully none of these guys will come across this blog! But out of a population of 240 million people, one must ask why their national football team is one of the worst in the world.
I set off for Mount Bromo the following day, a 4 hour drive North-East of Malang. Bromo village is high up in the mountains and as a result pretty cold and covered in mist. It’s primarily acts as a gateway for tourists to the volcano, and had a melancholy, ghost-town feel about it. I checked into a hostel there, watched some locals play a game of volleyball, then had dinner, where I met a few travellers, among them Ruud, a young Dutch chap, and Fabian, a young German chap, who accepted my offer of a lift to Ijen and Bali the following day.
The Bromo viewing point is accessible via licensed jeep or motorbike, and is best viewed at sunrise. I was up at 3.30am for our 4am departure. After half an hour’s drive, a group of seven of us got dropped off and made a further 90 minute hike up to the highest viewing point. It was completely dark and in some areas we hit steep, muddy terrain. When we finally got there, it was completely clouded over; there was absolutely no visibility whatsoever! Very disappointing, but that’s the luck of the draw. (I did manage to get a photo of Bromo from a lower viewing point later on; see pic). The jeep then took us to Bromo itself, and we trekked for an hour each way over an incredible martian landscape (see pics) to the top of the active volcano (see pic of me living life on the edge). We returned to the village afterwards, had breakfast, and met Ruud and Fabian and set off in the car to Ijen.
Driving to Ijen was an experience. The only road to the village was terrible, a single lane with goods lorries bombarding down the mountain in the opposite direction. Upon arriving at Ijen’s valley, we were greeted by some stunning scenery. In the foreground, lush jungle with monkeys, birds and a colourful array of flowers; in the background, Ijen volcano and a couple of forested mountains against a beautful blue sky. I was blown away by the beauty of the valley, without doubt the most beautiful area on Java I’d visited. We arrived at a pleasant guest house in a small village near Ijen, which had a big coffee factory. We spent the evening playing cards, swimming and enjoying the hot tub, which was absolute bliss after the hike up Bromo. The next day, Ruud, Fabian and I awakened at 5am and headed for the base camp of Mount Ijen. From here, a steep 3km climb to the top of the volcano, which was great exercise, then a 1km climb down to the edge of the crater lake. The volcano is a tourist attraction but, as it pumps out sulphur from its crater, is also used for mining (sulphur is used primarily in medicine and cosmetics). Local people can earn a much improved wage mining sulphur than, for example, farming, though this comes with the obvious health risks, and many miners die young. What I found staggering was that each miner carries between 60-80kg on their shoulders (the weight of a human being) from the crater lake up to the top, then 3km down back to base camp. Two round trips are made per day, which earns them a total of $8. What’s more, the vast majority of these guys chain smoke filter-less cinnamon flavoured cigarettes. There were over 100 miners there that day; all good natured and willing to stop for photographs (at the cost of a thousand rupiah or a cigarette).
In the afternoon, we made the 2 hour trip to the East coast of Java, where our driver dropped us off for the 1 hour ferry to Bali.
