Holy Smokin' volcanoes !

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Our itinerary & timelines:
Fly from Jakarta to Surabaya -> Acco at Surabaya -> hire rental car & leave from Surabaya at 12 am to reach cemoro Lawang which is the base of volcano at 2.30 am - > rent 4 WD from cemero Lawang to take us to Mount Pananjakan in around 30 mins, to get in time for the sunrise at 5 am & to Mount Bromo -> return.

Ok , so we aren't trekkers in the traditional sense, actually in no sense whatsoever! But we were very keen to witness the sunrise at these volcanoes, an iconic panaromic image of Indonesia. Were booked at Surabaya as we were travelling with our baby , so decided to leave him sleeping warm & cozy at a nice safe hotel with his nanny while we manage this midnight escapade. The hotels at cemoro Lawang are way too basic & freezing as hell!

Soon as we landed there we sprung out our arms & ammunitions, each of us wore a thermal inner, a sweater, a warm jacket, woollen cap. So were we warm enough ? Not quite, so we rented out a giant eskimo styled jacket for 25,000 rp each! Made for ridiculous snaps! So there were guys renting out jackets, masks, 4 WD jeeps (a princely sum of 450,000 rp for a round trip per jeep) and pointing out Mount Bromo in what seemed like a large black hole, end of the universe of sorts. Our retro styled jeep then sprung into life , we jumped right in and thanked our senses to have been carrying our music in a pen drive. Off we went , our chauffeur for the midnight journey navigating adeptly thru endless ridges in the "sea of sand" and driving right to the top of Mount Pananjakan. On the way of course we realised we weren't alone, with several other jeep headlights beaming from a distance. Once we were atop of course it was like a gathering for a concert. A 5 min walk to the viewpoint thru the numerous warungs offering the much cherished piping hot coffee , which had to be gulped down quickly before the freeze in teh air vanquished the element of life in it. The viewpoint was lovely and breezy, with most people dressed as eskimos (we weren't the only ones!) ,clicking the cameras away , waiting for the sun to appear.

Once it began appearing of course it was difficult to take a picture without those hands holding cameras reaching out high up in the air! Like a concert didn't I tell you?

The hue then gradually extended over the primary attraction. The inactive, stately, perfectly ridged "Mount Batok", the kinna active (as latest as 2011) whitish by it's volcanic ash & it's top blown off "Mount Bromo", a tengeresse temple next to these, the plateau like "sea of sand" where they all lay, and the backdrop of the mighty "Mount Semero" at a distance, that belched out smoke every half an hour or so. What made it even more surreal was the endless layer of soft fluffy white clouds blanketing the area. We ran around the entire view point, taking pictures from every angle possible. The crowd gathered there were school children, Indonesian, Europeans, Asians, all seemed to thoroughly enjoy the spectacle.

On our way back we feasted on some "pisang goreng" (banana fritters) and barbecued corn on cob. Slowly as Dawn turned into morning we started peeling off teh layers of Eskimo attire one by one to return to normalcy.

We got back to our jeep and were driven on a bumpitty rickety drive down the Mount Pananjakan to the sea of sand to visit the Mount Bromo crater. You could see a long line of jeeps parked there and plenty horse men waltzing around looking for customers. Plenty of photo ops here too. With our time restrictions we chose to skip the horse + walk up to the crater and drove back to out rental car to go back to Surabaya.

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Photos

Sunrise
Sunrise

Sun rise at Bromo
Sun rise at Bromo

fluffy clouds all around
fluffy clouds all around

On the sea of sand
On the sea of sand

Cemero Lawang
Cemero Lawang

Barbequed Corn
Barbequed Corn