Kaboomi!!! Journeying through Java...

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After a long day travelling from Hong Kong, we eventually transited out of Singapore and took an evening flight to Jakarta. As the plane came down we could see many brightly lit fishing boats scattered across the sea, which we thought at first were the runway lights and were confused as to why we weren't landing (in our defence, it had been a 14 hour journey)! It took a while to get from the airport to the city - the taxi driver told us "Friday night is always busy in Jakarta". Having said that, every taxi/bus we took during our 3 day stay got stuck on roads clogged with traffic, so we're not sure it was just a Friday thing!

We were so tired that we slept well on our first night, despite the local mosque giving us an early morning wake up call. We soon realised that this would be a common occurrence as we travelled through Java. Luckily, from hostel-living, the ear-plugs were close at hand and we managed a long lie-in to make up for the 4am disturbance! Our first Indonesian breakfast was in our hotel's cafe, where we had fried rice (nasi goreng), chicken satay (sate ayam), fried egg and a monster sized prawn cracker (called a shrimp chip)...yum!

After breakfast we decided to brave some of Jakarta's "sights"...As we stepped out of the hotel we were instantly hit with the hot, soupy air and realised why the guide book referred to the city as the "big durian". Freedom Square was just around the corner from our hotel though, so we walked across to take a look (taking a short detour via the station, where we picked up our train tickets for the rest of our travel through Java). We navigated the streets without pavements, dodged the motorbikes and tried our best to ignore the locals staring at us! It was not the best welcome but we continued anyway to the National Monument which stood in the middle of the square. There was some sort of event going on, involving truckloads of armed soldiers and crowds of people, so we only stopped for a brief look.

We had decided to experience Jakarta's public transport system and take a bus up to the remnants of the Dutch capital, Kota. This was not our best idea as, while we were on the bus, a strange Indonesian guy started up a conversation with us but looked seriously offended when Mark said "it was very hot". He then continued to talk to us but again gave us an angry stare when we said that Jogyakarta was supposed to be "very nice"! We think we were somewhat lost in translation and he was obviously very protective of his city of Jakarta. It was all very strange and put us a bit on edge, as we were surrounded on the bus by locals. Luckily, he got off at the next stop and we were able to enjoy the rest of the journey undisturbed!

Our bus journey back to the hotel was eventful again. We stood in a queue waiting for the bus with the usual staring (which we thought was because we were the only western tourists there). Once we boarded, we discovered that we were in the women's line and had ended up in the ladies-only area of the bus...oops! Fortunately there were some Indonesian tourists who had made the same mistake, so they explained the problem to us and we all made an embarrassed retreat to the general section of the bus! We decided that was enough of being down with the people for one day and that maybe we should stick to taxis in future.

Jakarta was initially daunting and the hassling made it less fun but once we found Kota's pedestrianised market street and the main square we were more at ease. We saw the old colonial buildings and sat upstairs in a lovely cafe (Cafe Batavia) where we could watch locals riding colourful rented bikes around the square, each with matching hats. We walked to the canal, as suggested by the guidebook, but unfortunately many of the surrounding old buildings had fallen into dis-repair and the canal itself was more of an open sewer - no thanks!

Alison and Neill (our uni friends) arrived the following day and we revisited the colonial square for drinks at the cafe again, as we were scratching our heads for other things to do in Jakarta... This time though, we took a taxi!

It turned out that, on a Sunday, the square was absolutely heaving with locals enjoying their day off. We were approached by a couple of teenagers who wanted photos with us and then we appeared to become celebrities as more and more groups of people asked us to be in their pictures, even going so far as to request specific poses ('chibi-chibi, an Indonesian girl-band, being a favourite)! We obliged, to be polite, but after about 10 minutes we needed to get some shade and away from the chaos. It was time to head back to Alison and Neill's smart hotel and make use of their pool and spa!

On our last evening in Jakarta, we ate satay and tasty garume (a local fish) at a cafe and then found a bar on "backpacker street" serving incredibly cheap Bintang beers (although, for some reason, everywhere was pretty quiet). On our route home the pavement had been removed, revealing the sewer below, while it was being replaced by workers. It was either walking on the busy road or dodging the stinking holes, so we chose the latter as the workmen slept on the concrete snoring loudly.

We took a few trains on our journey through Java, as it was a cheap way to travel and meant we could see the endless rice paddies and enormous volcanoes fly (well, move at a sedate pace) past the window. Fortunately Alison and Neill had brought us a fresh supply of Percy Pigs (thanks again guys!), which helped us through the long journeys. They also brought Hazel some nice toiletries and even a small bottle of Malbec for Mark (which made his day), what a treat!

Our first travel leg was to Yogyakarta (known to the locals as "Jogja") where we were greeted at the station and driven to our accommodation by a very friendly local driver, what a nice change! We were staying in a lovely B&B, which was very smart and set in the middle of a rice paddy and so had lovely views all around it.

On arrival, we were introduced to the staff: Frans, an excited Dutchman (the owner of the B&B) who helped us arrange all our trips and ensured we had a relaxing stay and a steady supply of Bintang. He was keen to help us try local food and drove us out to a restaurant on our first night where we tucked into more fresh garume, cap cay (vegetable stir fry) and some fried tempeh (a patty made from fermented soy beans, which sounds weird but tastes delicious) - all for less than £2.50 each!

Richie was the resident chef and manager of the B&B and spoke very good English. He was keen to impart his knowledge of Java and the surrounding area, and also made amazing banana and chocolate pancakes! We also had a couple of drivers during our stay - one was an IT student who appreciated Mark's Java programming jokes (including Java being "class", which is a reference non-IT dorks should just pretend isn't there!); and Awe, who was probably the star of our stay. He was a politics student and was our main driver during our time in Yogyakarta, taking us to temples and volcanoes and showing us around the market in town. He also rescued us from a giant locust who was terrorising us by hopping around our outdoor bathroom - what a hero!

We shouldn't forget to mention that we were also greeted by Sizu (the small fluffy white dog with a prominent lower jaw) who was often collapsed around the place, but joined us on our walk around the local village. She gained much interest from the locals but we're not sure if this is because they don't have dogs as pets in Jogja or because they thought she might go well with peanut sauce!

Frans took us for a walk around the local kampung (village) and pointed out the fruits and vegetables being grown (including bananas, which I'm reliably informed are actually a herb - but nobody likes a smart arse Neill!). Yogyakarta was a huge contrast to Jakarta. The air was much cleaner with blue, clear skies and amazing sunsets. Richie told us that the weather is very predictable so they can grow their produce all year round and that there is little change in the length of their days because they are almost on the equator. The main local diet is chicken (ayam) and fish, mainly catfish (ikan lele), with rice or sometimes potatoes (apparently even McDonalds do rice as standard and, if you really want fries, they will try and find some from the back room and cook them up on demand).

While in Yogyakarta we visited Java's two "must-see" temple complexes (Borobudur and Prambanan). The first, Borobudur, is famed for being the single largest Buddhist structure in the world. It was in good condition and the detail on the carvings was incredible. Presumably being buried in ash for centuries by a Merapi (the nearby volcano) eruption, before being rediscovered (we have the brief period of British reign in Java, and Mr Raffles, to thank for that), helped with the preservation. As we entered the grounds we had to go through the special "foreigners entrance", where we were given free water and coffee (which helped the early start) and there were clean western toilets, phew. We were also made to wear sarongs before entering the temple complex, although we are not entirely sure why as they didn't really cover more than our shorts and nobody seemed to mind that we were wearing vests because it was so hot.

The steps of Borobudur temple were steep but, once up, we had fantastic views across the immaculate gardens and jungle to Mount Merapi in the distance. The top level had many bell-shaped stupas decorating it, which each contained a buddha statue. They had removed the top of one so we could see the buddha inside, which was in impressively good shape considering it dated from the ninth century.

At 8:30am Borodudur was fairly quiet and, thanks to Frans' suggested early start, we had managed to beat most of the tourists, who appeared later on. The visitors were mainly from Java, as Yogyakarta is the most popular holiday destination within the country, but also included swarms of local school children who were dying to try out their English on us and have photos taken. We appeared to be a bigger tourist attraction for them than the monument itself, so we did a couple of geography coursework-esque interviews and photo stops ("chibi-chibi"), then made our way back down.

We stopped by the museum on the way out to see eruption photos and the hundreds of missing pieces of the monument which still awaited puzzling back together. Finding the exit wasn't easy, as we had to force our way past locals trying to sell us souvenirs and over-sized sunhats but we eventually made it, only to be stopped in our tracks when Neill had a massive yellow praying mantis jump onto his T-shirt! It was a group effort to guide him back down to the floor, as he looked pretty menacing... and so did the mantis, who continued to watch us intently as we photographed him from a safe distance!

Next up on a busy day of culture-vulturing were the Mendut Temple and Mendut Buddha Monastery, which we'd spotted on the way past and had wanted to stop at because there was a massive tree in the grounds (which looked like a strangler fig). Once Awe had splashed out £1 on four entry tickets, we thought we ought to at least feign interest in the temple and monastery so we wandered round for a few minutes, and then took the desired tree photo and hit the road again.

After another unscheduled stop, this time for a magnum to stave off hunger (it was lunch time!), we headed up Mount Merapi to take a 4 wheel drive tour over the lava fields of the 2010 eruption. Geared up with hard helmets and clinging to the metal frame for dear life, we could see the road rushing past through the gearbox as the car scrambled up the volcano. Our ancient jeep was in fact an American vehicle which had come from Vietnam and, while it might have been ok back in the day, it was pretty uncomfortable once there were three of us wedged into the tiny back seat! The trip was fascinating though, so worth the bruises.

First up, we saw groups of local men working hard to fill lorries with volcanic sand, which is apparently used for construction. This only brings in £10 a truck load, however, and is one of the many examples we saw of the fantastic work ethic here - providing for your family being the most important thing a man can do. We also visited a village which was destroyed in the eruption. The villagers have turned their ruined possessions into a museum, where we saw skeletons of their cattle and all sorts of melted household items (including a clock that had stopped at 00:05, which is when the cloud of toxic gas hit the village). Our driver showed us the old volcano warning system, which involved knocking a stick against a hanging piece of hollow wood to sound an alarm - whilst this worked successfully three years ago, and everyone was evacuated, unfortunately the villagers didn't have time to take much with them.

Higher up the steep slopes of the volcano, we saw the bunker that had been used by a few people in 2006 when there wasn't enough time to evacuate fully. Unfortunately the bunker was in the middle of the path the lava had followed in the 2006 eruption, so it hadn't been used the next time the alarm was sounded. There were some amazing views to be had from here though, as there was a canyon which the lava had channelled out of the rock. This had since been eroded away by rain water, leaving a precarious drop in the current dry season. Our ride back to meet Awe involved bumping over some very rough terrain but also included the best bit of the trip - a high-speed splash through a stream that resulted in poor Alison (who Neill had gallantly given the front seat to) getting absolutely soaked!

After that it was back to the B&B for a delicious, and much-deserved, late lunch of noodle soup that Richie had made for us!

That evening, and the next morning, we grabbed a lift into town in order to have a look around Jogja itself. We went to the slightly manic Sosrowijayan area for dinner - finding a nice but slightly touristy, café where we had some more fried tempeh and tried out gado gado (chopped vegetables and egg with peanut sauce) as well. The next morning, Awe took us around Yogyakarta market, which was really great as he knew where all the interesting stalls were and did some excellent bartering for us (and got us local price, we think)! We tried out a few local fruits, including one that looked like an armadillo and some berries that tasted like tomato, as well as the more familiar but enormous jack fruit. With varying amounts of success, we tried a few local sweets too, including an eccles-style cake filled with bean curd and a sugary coconut fudge but we wimped out of trying deep fried bat, which is apparently good for asthma!

We wrapped up our visit to Jogja with a quick look around the sultan's water palace, which was originally built for him to frolic with his concubines. Much more interesting than this, though, was the batik shop we made 'just a quick stop' at... Hazel and Alison practically bought the place out of bags, cushion covers and table cloths when they realised what bargains there were to be had. Alison can claim she was researching her family history, as she has a batik artist in her gene pool but sadly Hazel had no such excuse!

Our final stop of the day was Prambanan (to which, in hindsight, we wish we'd dedicated more than a couple of hours as it was stunning), which is known for being the tallest Hindu temple in the world. The building in the middle of the complex (Roro Jonggrang Temple) rises up to 47 metres and is dedicated to Siva, while the smaller ones north and south are dedicated to Vishnu and Brahma. Being in the middle of such a huge, ancient structure was awesome and it was amazing to think that the temple was, for some reason, abandoned only 100 years after it was first built in 856AD. Sadly an earthquake in the 16th century demolished most of the complex and it wasn't until the 1930s when restoration work began. Putting the millions of pieces of stone back together is one giant 3D jigsaw puzzle and, despite the great work done so far, Prambanan was surrounded by blocks of stone that are yet to be pieced back together. Tourists were made to wear hard hats and climb the central tower at their own risk due to the instability of the structure, but unfortunately we arrived too late to go into this area.

Within the Prambanan Temple grounds we walked north past the ruins of Bubrah and Lumbung Temples. We could see the work being carried out on these, but they were far behind the re-construction of Prambanan Temple and Sewu Temple - which we then approached. Sewu Temple is a Buddhist temple, built by the Hindu King (Rakai Pikatan) for his Buddhist Princess. We wandered around the ruins and climbed the steps into the central temple to take photos across the complex. The stone carvings on the walls were well preserved as were many of the Dwarapala (large statues holding clubs) which guarded the entrances to each building.

As we were short on time, we had to skip the main museum, but did find a spare couple of minutes to check out a baby deer eating leaves and a lonely cassowary! As we left Prambanan in the dark, Awe came to find us and ensure we could find our way back to the car. After our earlier enthusiasm around the market, he had bought us a couple of freshly cracked coconuts to drink. So we sat in the cafe and compared our dirty feet (flip-flops are not ideal for dusty temples) while Awe went to evening prayers.

The next day was another early train to Surabaya. We were sad to leave Jogyakarta behind and could have easily stayed longer to enjoy the fresh fruit for breakfast and the days packed with exciting activities. That is not to mention the great tasting cheap coffee we get now we are in Java!

We caught a three hour taxi from the station to Mount Bromo. Surabaya was busy so it took us a while to get out of the city and into rural Java where we wound our way up steep hills. As we gained height the temperature dropped from 36 to 20 degrees, which was quite a shock when we first jumped out of the car. As we were now most of the way up the mountain, we could see that the locals were growing tomatoes, cabbages and onions with no sign of rice...it was almost like being at home!

Our trip started at 3:30am the following morning and we awoke to a very eggy smell filling our room. Hazel immediately blamed Mark for the smell, who pleaded his innocence, so we put it down to the drains in our bathroom... Once we went outside we put two and two together and realised that the smell was actually caused by the sulphur dioxide coming from the active volcano we were staying on, doh! It was a cold morning, so we wrapped up warm and reached for our face masks. There were local men by the roadside selling hats and coats, even though they looked more in need of them than the tourists did. We had organised a Jeep for the four of us to go to the Gunung Penanjakan viewpoint, to look over the Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park at sunrise. As our Jeep climbed the steep hills, we could see the headlights of all the other Jeeps behind forming a snake up the mountain...we're not sure where all the tourists had been hiding but at least we were at the front!

We stopped at a cafe-shack for warming cups of kopi and tea before we trudged to the top, feeling seriously unfit but suffering because of the high altitude. Neill had overheard a guide suggesting the best spot was away from the sunrise and looking into the crater and, although it was hard to see why in the dark, once the sun started to rise the other tourists crowding over the far side wished they had been standing in our places... We had the best of the volcanoes right in front of us and fantastic views across the top of the clouds! It was well worth the early start and the walk to see into the massive Tengger crater, across to Bromo and we even had Semeru belching out smoke in the distance, amazing!

We then descended into the Tengger crater and onto the 'sand sea'. The Jeep stopped and it was over to us to walk over to Bromo. It was dusty in the crater and the sulphur dioxide (and who knows what other poisonous gases) scratched the backs of our throats - this, combined with the high altitude, made it slow going as we hiked across the sand and up the steep steps. Once at the edge of Bromo's crater we could see down into the central pit and were convinced we could see something bubbling through the smoke. Either way, the views from there were breath-taking and it felt like we were on a different planet!

After breakfast in our hotel, we took a car to Probolinggo train station, sadly bid "Selamat tinggal" to Alison and Neill and each went our separate ways. They went west to Surabaya, from where they were flying to Lombok, while we went east to Banyuwangi and the ferry to Bali. When we boarded our train we found we were sharing a large double seat and the aircon wasn't really cooling the carriage down... After two hours of sweating it out, and wondering where the other tourists who had been waiting on the platform had gone, the train guard informed us that this was "bisnis" class and that "eksekutif", where we should have been, was at the other end of the train. It turns out there were two carriages numbered with a 1 and we were in the wrong one, oops! Back in "eksekutif" class we found the reclining seats and air-con we were used to and ordered a meal as we recovered for the remaining two hours of our journey.

Banyuwangi is a town on the far east coast of Java and is most used by tourists to catch the ferry across to Bali, which we did the following day. It is also well placed for a trip to Kawah Ijen - the towering volcano nearby. It was another early morning start, at 4am (we decided against another sunrise, which would have involved a midnight start), to drive to the volacano drop-off point. It was cold again, like in Bromo, but we soon warmed up as we started the 3km hike up to the crater.

Ijen is not only a tourist attraction but also provides work for the local men, who mine sulphur from its crater. They have two baskets attached together with a piece of bamboo and carry them over their shoulders as they transport around 80Kgs of sulphur at a time. This would be impressive in any situation but bear in mind that these men probably only weigh about 60Kgs and are working at high altitude and in clouds of sulphur dioxide gas. Once they have hacked off their pieces of "yellow gold" from down in the crater, they climb up the steep sides (which Mark found hard work by himself) and then walk the 3km back down the side of the volcano! When we say "yellow gold" this is actually a lie as 1kg only sells for 1,000Rp and each worker will make 2 journeys daily, so will only get paid about £10 a day. This is the hardest work we have ever seen people doing for so little money.

We had barely started walking when we somehow managed to attract a worker, called Tom, who was our self-appointed guide for the entire 90 minute slog up the side of the volcano (it seemed that, with the low wages, those who could speak English did some casual, probably mostly unwanted, guiding work on the side). After seeing what these guys go through each day, we didn't mind too much and Tom's English was good enough to have a good chat with him on our way up. He provided good motivation as he'd let us know when "flat" sections were coming up and when we were near the cafe at the top...although his version of "flat" was our version of a 20% incline!

The "cafe" was perched on the hillside and also operated as a rest point for the sulphur miners and their weigh-in so they could ensure it was worth their while continuing down with their heavy loads. We each had a coffee for 25p as we watched a couple of weigh-ins, one of which was a whopping 90Kgs! The black coffee was made from the local robusta beans, grown in plantations on the lower slopes of Ijen and, despite the floating sediment, was sooo good - it might have been the early morning or the break from the steep hike which made it taste fantastic, but either way it was amazing value!

With cries of 'Hazel, jalan' ('Hazel, walk' - unsurprisingly, Hazel had been the one lagging behind when he was shepherding us up the hill), Tom hurried us on and up to the crater's edge...during the walk the sun had come up from behind a nearby volcano, so the temperature was rising and we had awesome views across the massive crater. There were no fences to hold people back, so the view down was also very clear and we could see the bright blue crater lake at the bottom and billowing clouds of sulphur dioxide gas. On closer inspection, you could see the tiny miners right down by the edge of the lake, right in the thick of the gas, emerging with their cargo of vivid yellow sulphur.

Tom took Mark down to the bottom of the crater, dodging workers with full baskets coming the other way. It was amazing to see the sulphur miners chipping away at the huge lumps of rock and the lake close up but, when a gust of wind caught the gas and blew it in his face, Mark realised why the sign at the top says 'no visitors in the crater'! Most of the time, you couldn't even smell the gas, as it was directed away from the working area but it wasn't pleasant at all when the wind picked up and you could imagine the mess if there were loads of passed out tourists at the edge of the lake! It wasn't a place where Mark wanted to be long, so Tom went off with our camera to take some close-up photos of the liquid sulphur. Mark in the meantime put on a gas mask (for tourists only - you understand) and stood back. It took an hour in total to get down to the crater bottom and up again and Mark definitely looked relieved when he was back on higher ground. What a morning though, and it was still only 8:30am when we got back to the car!

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