Land of volcanoes

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Got into Jakarta in the evening and had arranged to go on a tour to Bandung to see the Gunung Tangkuban Perahu volcano (mountain of the overturned boat). A couple of the other crew were keen to go as well. We got picked up early in the morning and drove the 4 hours to Bandung. The drive was pretty tedious but we all managed to have a bit of a sleep in the van.

We finally made it there and then drove up the windy road up the mountain. We got out where there were several people hounding us to buy souvenirs. We walked across where we got amazing views of the volcano. It is still active and you could see small hot pools and steam rising up. The smell of sulphur was quite strong. We took some pics then walked half an hour through the jungle to the base of the crater. The jungle was really beautiful with lots of ferns and lush greenery with lots of butterflies and chirping insects. We walked on the crater trying to avoid the hot pools where temperatures reach over 100 degrees Celsius. The guide bought along a couple of eggs which he put into the rock pools, sure enough within ten minutes the eggs were ready to eat.....pity we couldn't have cooked any bacon and toast to go with it! We walked down through the lava fields then made our way back through the jungle to go to our next stop.

We drove to a hotel resort where we had a traditional Indonesian lunch sitting out by the pool. It was really nice and a good chance to try some traditional indonesian food. On the way back to Jakarta we passed through several tea plantations. It felt like the longest drive ever, we finally reached the city and of course it was peak hour so took another two hours before we made it back to the hotel.

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