Good weather, 99% certain, he said
Trip Start
Mar 23, 2007
1
43
46
Trip End
Ongoing
Dieng Plateau, Indonesia
Monday, June 11, 2007
This involved 5 buses in total for just a 4 hour journey, so if you think our transport system isn't linked up then think again.
Very quiet place. There is one restaurant and we were staying above it. Booked the only guide in town to get us up at 3.30am to walk up a hill in the dark. Sounds like a great idea. Although we spent the one and a half hours it took to get up there sort of grumbling at each other and finding it hard to understand how the muslim community get up at 4.30am every day (Java is something like 75% muslim), it was pretty good -despite the clouds. We are destined to not see the sun rise or set without cloud. You don't often get such a stunning volcano backdrop though, they are everywhere.
On the way back we saw where we had been and it was such a beautiful walk through farmers hillside fields. they grow mostly potatoes up here but they don't eat them. they eat rice which they have to buy?! So, Paul and I went crazy with the potato ordering and had boiled potatoes for the first time in some months, and oh it was good.
there is loads of geothermal activity up here as well so we wandered past an enormous pool of bubbling mud. We later hired a moped and went to look at more pools of bubbling mud and steam coming out of rocks and stuff. Isn't the inside of the earth just fascinating. We still can't ride a moped to save our lives though. As Paul stalls constantly when we go up hill and I do ridiculous wheelies that put us on the other side of the road we are constant amusement for the locals. If i knew the indonesian for 'stupid tourist' i bet i'd hear it all the time.
