Brrrrrr!-omo

We are leaving Milwaukee because we are just sick to death of being cold. We just can’t take it any more! It’s a fact: we both love being hot. One of the reasons we are loving being in Asia is because it’s so warm here.

Most of the time. Sunrise at the top of an Indonesian mountain, however, is most definitely NOT one of those times!

We left Yogya yesterday morning on a tourist minivan service direct to Gunung Bromo, the famous volcano in the eastern part of Java. We spent 12 hours in a van with six other travellers -- and mind you, this is a trip of only about 400-500km. There is no such thing as a freeway in Java once you get outside of the Jakarta region, and the majority of the trip was on two-lane road.

However, don’t think for minute that a two-lane road means two orderly lines of cars, buses, trucks and motorbikes. Oh no, my friend. We’re in Asia now, and two lanes is plenty for passing -- in both directions -- plus a motorbike lane or two. Our driver, a haggard 60-ish Indonesian guy with a couple of teeth perpetually clenching a kretek (clove cigarette), felt it was his moral duty to overtake any other vehicle brazen enough to get in his way, and make every single passing/passed vehicle (and pedestrian, for that matter) aware of his presence by sounding the horn, not just for a moment, but for as long as they were in the same time zone.

This was, in every sense of the word, an exhausting journey. When we pulled over at a road-side eatery for some nasi goreng (fried rice, which you can get to go in a plastic bag), David and Elise, the very nice French couple who had been sitting next to him in the front seat, said, “We haff to ask eef we can please rotate seats every sree hours or so? We can no longer take seeting up zere weeth him, eet ees too scary!”

But we eventually did make it in one piece to the hotel on the edge of Mount Bromo. Of course, by that time it was dark so we had no idea where exactly we were; we grabbed some dinner and headed to bed, because the wake-up knock would come at 3:30am for the jeep ride up to the top of the next mountain to see the sunrise over the crater.

Getting up at that ungodly hour is tough any time, and especially after a day like that, but throw in a temperature of 40°, and it was pretty hellacious. Or more accurately, arctic, since I think lack of sleep probably intensifies the chill. Let’s just say we’re really glad that we stopped at REI in Houston and picked up some fleece sweaters!

But of course, it was well worth it. Gunung Bromo is a smoking crater resting in a sea of sand and ash in the caldera of a big ancient volcano, with yet an even larger volcano sending out puffs of steam behind it for good measure. Words cannot do justice to the beauty of the scene as the sun rose over the edge of the valley.

Sunrise over Gunung Bromo

Of course, it would be incredible to experience it alone with the beauty of God’s creation, but that’s not remotely possible. As you can imagine, it’s a pretty popular tourist destination, and we hardly had the place to ourselves. There were probably 500 other travellers packed together up at the peak, standing around waiting for the sunrise and jockeying for the best photo position at the rail.

Ah, to be alone...

After the sunrise, we took our jeep down to the bottom of the caldera to hike up to the top of the crater. The scenery on the way down is amazing; you would actually swear you were in Switzerland, not the tropics.

Yodels, anyone?

Once you get to the bottom it’s a moderately challenging hike through the ashy sand and up a steep stairway cut in the rock to get to the top.

Hiking across the sea of volcanic sand

The extremely challenging part is negotiating your way through the hundreds of guys at the bottom wanting to sell you a ride up on their horse. This is a feature at every big tourist site in Indonesia (and probably everywhere else we will be): hawkers. They want to sell you something, anything. It gets really annoying after a while because they are incredibly persistant. No matter how many times you try to politely smile and say ”Tarima kasi, no thank you,” they just keep on following you until they spot another possible mark. I don’t blame them, of course, since I’m a died-in-the-wool capitalist, but it does take the edge off the beauty you’re trying to experience.

Every beautiful thing comes with a price, I guess. You just need to mentally put on your fleece to insulate yourself against the unpleasant part.