Trip to Bromo, Madakaripura and Ijen

Sunday, 17-Mar-2013 3:13 PM, at this time last week I was in Madakaripura Fall, ready to leave to Kawah Ijen. It's been a week since then, I have to force myself to write this before I forget all the details.

12-Mar-2013 is a national holiday here in Indonesia, celebrating Hari Raya Nyepi where all Hindu will stay at home or Pura, not doing any other activities but praying. This 12 date was on Tuesday, so we decided we are going to have a trip which will require us to take leave on the Monday.

Ticket reservation was done earlier, several months back. We took flight from Jakarta to Surabaya, and rent a car to go from there. Airplane ticket costs us around IDR 800,000.00. There are 11 of us, and each one of us pays another IDR 1 million for any other costs, like car rent, food, inns, etc.

1. We gather at Soekarno Hatta Airport Terminal 3, on Saturday, 4 PM. Our flight is at 6:55 PM. There are 11 of us, so better to gather early than to rush.
   
2. Come check in time. We all go inside and was asked to check in thru nearest check in machine. Looks like Air Asia needs to cut the queue time by providing check in machines. The machine will print your boarding pass and determine your seat. However, it doesnt go as perfect. I check in 8 persons, there are only 3 papers coming out. The officer says paper runs out and asks me to queue instead. Besides, I also need to drop in luggage. Airport tax is IDR 40,000 per person. And Air Asia policy now is to have each person buy minimal 15 kg checked in baggage.
   
3. We wait at gate 5 until about 7:15, as usual, delay. Flight took 1 hr and 15 minutes to Surabaya. Not so much of bad weather, turbulence during flight, was nice one.
   
4. Arrive at Juanda Intl Airport Surabaya at about 8:30 PM, waiting for the luggage to come out. Once completed, we called the rented car to pick us up. It was a big Isuzu Elf car, and everyone was happy because it means no cramp leg. The car provided us with a snack box which immediately finished before the car has driven out of the airport. The rent is IDR 950K per day, and can only be rented max of 2 days. It is inclusive of driver cost and also fuel charge so no additional cost.
   
5. We go directly to the motel near Bromo area. The drive took us about 3 hours. There is traffic along the way, I was already sleep so I didnt really know that there was an accident which causes the traffic.
   
6. We reach the motel at about half an hour pas midnight. It was freaking cold, I havent checked my watch for the temperature but I figure it is about 13 degrees Celcius.
   
7. The room is very basic, only 1 double bed, and 1 bathroom. I saw water heater but dont have the guts to try, from my experience, with this room rate, things tend to not functioning :), it was IDR 200K per room, so I wont complain.
   
8. We wake up at 3 am, wash my face, brush teeth and went out to see the sunrise. We took jeep to get to Penanjakan. The rent is about IDR 550K, and it can fit up to 6 people. There are many people selling masks, hats, gloves, they sold it for about 20K. I'd say this is some sort of disposable thing. Your bought it there, you use it there, and you throw away.
   
9. The ride doesnt take too long, only about 30 minutes, and very unfortunate for us, there are soooo many tourists there which makes it possible to park the jeep near the stairs to sunrise view, so we have to walk for about 15 minutes. Dont get conned by Ojek there. They will say things like It's very far, Keep your energy for your walk, etc etc. And you have to pay IDR 20K. Well, you can do that of course if you want to make charity to them, so keep your intention straight, just dont buy whatever they say to you. If you want to walk, just walk, it wont kill you walking there.
   
10. We took a break, giving chance to do Shalat Subuh. I took shot of the stairs from where I shalat, just to give you clearer picture of the tiring walks all those Ojek says to you.Sorry if the picture is not so nice because I don’t have my tripod with me so I have to hand hold it. If you see in this picture below, we have to walk from the house at the far end, and the place where I took the picture is already halfway.
    No doubt is very packed of people.
    
11. A little up, we come to a place where we can see the sunrise shine to the crater, it is supposed to be damn good view, but these people will not just walk away, and giving us chance to shoot, so instead of picture of very dramatic sunrise, we have a picture of people head and BTS tower. See below. If only I am muuuuch taller than them, it wont be a problem :) The only way I can take this picture is by holding the camera both hands as high as I can and set the aperture to the widest and God helps me :).
    
    I also tried taking the picture while jumping, it doesnt help much either because in this darkness, you need to be as slow as possible when hitting the shutter button.
    
12. When the sun finally peeks out from the hill, everyone is clapping their hands and tried to steal the golden moement. As you might have guessed, I dont have much luck with me.
    
13. Feeling desperate, we go back down but not without stopping by at the nearest small diner. At this point, everyone has been separated from each other. Thanks God we have created whatsapp group to communicate, but it doesnt really work for me because apparently there is no Indosat signal up here. I have to stick to group leader, Wury, so that I dont cause trouble. As usual, we have instant noodle as the best served food and pisang goreng, and sate kentang.
    If you see at the picture, there is a roundish yellow food in a stick, that is sate kentang, and it tastes none other than potato :p
    
14. On our way down, it wasnt that dark anymore, so I could take some pictures with liberty wkwkwkkwkwk. There goes the jeep that we rent, yes the red one. Actually, the sky is not that gray, it's very blue but it is not shown as blue blue here because I have to compensate for the darken area below. If you want to see how blue it is, check out picture above. It is as blue as that. Now you see why the other 2 are not as blue, because it will compensate the darken area.
    
15. Next destination is we are going to hike to the crater. From this spot again we took the Jeep. This picture below I took from inside the Jeep. From this spot, it took approximately 15 - 20 minutes to the crater.
    
16. From this spot, we have to walk up to see the crater. Enjoy some pictures below. The first one is the Jeep parking lot. We parked here and walk across and then up.
    This one is the same hill as before, and the rock hill next to it, it leads to the crater. You may guess that the sun feels so close to your face, so freakin hot, and yet the wind breeze, so ... it's a dilemma of the mother weather.
    This one below shows the rock hill we have to climb to see down the crater. You see on the right side is the hill I just took.
    
    This one shows you the Jeep parking lot. You see the colorful thin line at the far end, that is the Jeep parking.
    
    This is where we get closer to the stairs. You can see there is tire tracks. Different case for motor bike, you can go much much closer to the stairs compared to Jeep. There standing, is one of my friend.
    
    This is the starting point of our climb. Dont worry, if that girl can make it, so can you.
    
    Now in this picture below,you may not be able to see, but there is a stair at the top of the hill which you have to climb. And it's all nothing but dust, horse, and people there.
    
    Now, this is 1/3 of my way up, the east side.
    And this one is if you look down.
    
    Now after a while, we will reach the bottom stairs, sorry I didnt take pictures upclose of the stairs but I did take it from up. This is how it looks like at the bottom. If you look down, on your left will be the hill we saw at the parking lot, and down is the wiiideeeee ocean of sand.
    
    
17. Now that we're up, of course we want to take some crater pictures. My suggestion is to walk around the crater to find a good spot, because in my case, I dont have the luxury of walking around, so I just took whatever spot I have and I came up with something mediocre like this one.
    
    I also took picture of the stairs I've been thru, you see the yellow line, that is the stairs.
    
    You saw that the stairs is very crowded, so we look for alternative and found this sliding track where there are also some people slide down.
    
    
18. Now, after we've seen the crater, we go see other places which is Bukit Teletubbies. Why named like that? Simply because the hills are in round round shape like Teletubbies series. Unfortunately, we dont take many pictures due to limited time, so just a sneak peek of how it may look like:
    
    
19. From Bukit Teletubbies, we went back to the inn, take a shower and regroup to go to Air Terjun Madakaripura. From this inn to the fall, it took about 1 hour drive. Along the way, we stopped by to have lunch. It looks like this place is very popular to local youngsters, because the cook who also the owner keep saying "bro" at the end of the sentence, EVERY SENTENCE, so we call it warung Bro, while the real name is "Imbuh Dewe" or "Self Service".
    According to the driver, this Air Terjun is not very popular because there are bandits there so might as well take care of your stuff. We thought of using local guide if it is not very expensive. It's nearly rain at that time, so I left my camera at the car.
    To see the fall, you have to cross rivers, so if you plan to go here, prepare yourself to get wet. I didnt. But I went close enough to the fall, it is located behind a hill and to get there, you have to sacrifice your clothes for God of Waterfall which means you're going to be soaking wet even if you dont swim or do any other water activities. It is just by default, you're gonna get wet.
    I have mentioned that you have to cross rivers. The river is not so deep, not until your knee, however, if you dont want to get wet, you have to jump from stone to stone, and these stones tends to get slippery. There are some local people who will force you to take their help and they will charge you IDR 100 K per guide. By then, we were forced to take 2 guides.
    
20. We left the fall at around 3 PM and heading to Kawah Ijen or Ijen Crater. This Ijen is located in Bondowoso, my home town. SO whenever you came by, dont forget to ping me. We stopped by Papin Restaurant for our dinner.
    
21. We were staying at the Catimore homestay. This place is near Ijen Crater, 1 hr drive to the 1st checkpoint of Ijen Crater. Again, I forgot to take pictures here. This place is quite popular among tourists, I can see that there are some foreigners also stayed there when we first arrive. But dont let this description fool you. The place is not easy to find, especially at night. No street lights, only lights came from car's. Plus turns out the access is soooo damn bad, makes us doubt, is it the correct way to the inns. One lesson learnt is if you are given a cell phone number for reservation, double check by asking the inn's landline number, just for clarification sake.
    
22. We arrive at about 9 pm, again no mobile reception here. Well, you'll get lucky if you are using Telkomsel number, because that's the only reception you can get. The room rate isnt very expensive, 180K for 3 beds and 200K for superior double bed. We do have working water heater here, however it doesnt look like your common shower, where there is an overhead shower only. You will find a shower and also a pile. This pile is for you to collect the water.
    The rented car stopped here. For the next day, we're going to use another car. Unfortunately, from this stay up to the first checkpoint, will require a car and it will take about 1 hr there, so no chance we're gonna walk there. The inn offered us a ride there, not for free though, it cots us IDR 400K. It's a Mitsubishi L300 car, fit for 11 people, thanks to an extra long chair inserted in the middle row. The chair face back so not really that comfortable, plus it's a hard wood chair anyway.
    On our way to the homestay, we passed thru 2 gates, I dont really know the difference but I do know that the first gate is the gate to Kawah Ijen, dont know what the second one is for. We had to pay to pass. It's not an official thing, but the officers there gave us clue that they want us to pay. First one is IDR 50K and second one is IDR 60K.
    At the homestay, we gather to discuss what time we are going to leave the next day. Information we have from inn's security is there is this Blue Fire which can be seen from 1 am to 4/5 am. So to see that thing, we have to leave at 1 am. Here's the drill : 1 hour to the first checkpoint, and 2 hours walking up to the crater. No matter how much the guys want to see the fire, all the girls in the house dont feel like waking up at midnight and leave at 1 am. So, we decided to leave at 3.30 am.
    
23. I think I forgot to mention that the temperature in Bromo when the sun has risen is about 18/19 degrees Celcius. It just suddenly crossed my mind because I have to write that we do wake up early and my bones are like shattering here and there. The temperature meter at my watch shows about 11 degrees celcius. So I double up my clothes, brush my teeth, and jumps out to where everyone has been waiting.
    Each one of us were given an egg and 1 sandwich. I finish my sandwich at the car and put the egg in my jacket's pocket. I watch the time and it is like what the people has mentioned, 1 hour drive to the nearest post.
    
24. Once arrive at the post, we go Shalat Subuh at one of the small shop which is still open. They also sell some kind of sulfur soap as souvenirs. If you want to give back to the community, you can buy it there. Just a note, this place is sooo untouched, not like Bromo where you will find everyone smiling for money. When someone smiles, it is sincere here. This is a picture of us preparing in the small shop. You can see that outside is very dark.
    
    
25. The hike starts at about 4 am. The track is clearly defined so dont be afraid youre gonna get lost. We all set our iPod and apps to count steps and calories. I think it is the cold temperature and elevation which prevents us from walking fast. Well, as a clue, 5 minutes walk and break. This picture is taken after 20 minutes walk. The metadata shows 5:12 in the morning.
    
    Along the hike, we can see some basket is being left stranded at the side of the track like below. A little chit chat with the sulfur farm, they said "Who's gonna take it anyway?, Even if it is taken, they wont make it pass the gate."
    
    
26. 15 minutes later, at about 5:27 am, we start to see the sun shine, but it is still dark. Not so much of a cold, but definitely dark. You can already see the path without flashlight though.
    
    This is 15 minutes to 6, not even close to the end of the hike yet.
    
    And this one is approaching the end of the hike.
    
    
27. The end of the hike is actually a post for all the sulfur farmer to rest. This is how it looks like from upper view. I also take a photo of pretending to carry the sulfur basket on my shoulder which I found quite famous among the foreigners around here. I catch some tourists does actually carry those on their shoulder and take photo of it. Undoubtedly, this is super heavy.
    
    
28. Past this point, the view are getting better and better. Take a look at this. This one is taken at about 6:06 am.
    
    This is my friend walking towards camera.