For travel tips and country facts: Indonesia

MURRAY'S DIARY for the complete story, INDONESIA:  

Part 2: Dieng plateau on Central Java to Bali

What an excuse – Dieng Plateau

The Dieng Plateau is close enough from Banjar Negara to cycle to the top in one day. The Dieng Plateau is volcanic scenery at an altitude of 2093m. And since the landscape is formed from a volcano, we expect it to be very steep again, just like southwest Java. We load ourselves with water and some energetic food (chocolate chip cookies) and start as early as daylight. After 12 kilometres we need to stop. Actually it’s Raymond’s bicycle that stops. The chain has this new habit of sticking in the smallest of the three front chain rings. Unlike mine, we haven’t been able to change Raymond’s chain. His smallest and middle chain rings are literally so worn out after 9000 kilometers that the spare chain we brought from home doesn’t fit anymore. In other words, the spaces between the shackles of a new chain are too small for the spaces on the front chain rings. Any new chain, whatever size, wouldn’t fit until Raymond changes the rings, which are rare to find in Indonesia. One relieve is that he can still cycle on his middle chain ring, which isn’t light enough to climb very steep slopes of a volcanic landscape. “What an excuse”, we say to each other. We have no alternatives this time, standing still at the slopes of the Dieng Plateau, and return from where we started.  

                                                    Anything better than Raymonds bicycle

A couple of hours later, after we dropped the bicycles in an economy room, we are on a bus to Dieng village and arrange a five-hour walk to the several highlights of the Ding Plateau. The next morning we are woken up at 4.30 after our guide checked the weather for clouds that would cover our sunrise from a spectacular viewpoint. We walk through the potato fields and get our shoes and pants wet from the morning dew. Unfortunately we forgot our torchlight and we have a hard time finding the muddy footpath and avoiding the rocks. 

A village near to Dieng has gotten rich because of their high quality potatoes that can grow in this cool and wet area. The inhabitants donated a part of their income for building the biggest mosque we have seen for such a small village. The walk is really worth it; we reach our viewpoint exactly at dusk and watch the spectacular view of the volcanoes in Central Java. After a breakfast of cookies we walk to a whole in the earth that bubbles and sizzles and sends a fume of damp in the air up to 50 meters high. We get as close as if we were to jump in a swimming pool, just an example of Indonesian safety regulations.

Muddy explosions  

Near to Purwodadi, somewhere between Semarang and Surabaya, my map indicates “Active Mud Volcano” in red letters, indicating a highlight of Java. That’s where we’re heading to, I would like to catch a mud bubble and bring it back home to my large collection of mud bubbles. This time it is not on the slopes or on the top of a mountain, the active mud volcano is just in between two small villages and on the flat lands of Central Java. No big touristy attraction because it is rather of the road for bus-tourists. I can see the fume already from a distance. “There it is, look”. As we get closer we can actually see where the fumes are coming from. We keep a distance of about a hundred meters (that’s where the pavement stops abruptly) but can clearly spot a bubble as big as two meters that builds up and explodes every minute. Never seen anything more fascinating than this funny mud bubble coming straight from earth.

The reds, oranges, whites and non-existents

On my map I have four types of roads, the red ones (main roads), orange (minor roads), white (other) and the ones that are in reality non-existent. The last two categories of roads are similar, either you will find yourself on a smooth asphalted road with nice scenery, surrounded by forests or rice paddies, or you will find yourself on a stony dirt track. Big possibility also that you find yourself looking for the road that was never there. Still we choose as many white roads as possible to avoid the hectic of the reds and oranges. The reds and oranges are two-lanes big and are used by all variations of transport at all sorts of speed. Public transport over these roads is a phenomenon itself, either from within the bus or from your bicycle. Somebody is using the claxon heavily behind me and from the sound I conclude it is a larger type of bus. Since I am cycling in the middle of the lane and there’s a lot of traffic on the other side, the bus has to wait to pass me. I cross my fingers knowing that a lot of accidents happen on the Javanese roads caused by busses. On the other lane I can see that a minibus is on his way to pass a motorcycle. The minibus is already halfway using my lane. I cross my fingers again, the touring bus behind me is now even more irritated and let me know by using the claxon again and again. I don’t dare looking behind me. The minibus on the other side pulls back to his own lane; the touring bus finally found some space to pass me but still pushes me aside. That’s the reason why I keep cycling in the middle of my lane, I will always have enough space to use in these occasions and I force the traffic to watch me. From the open door at the back of the touring bus the driver’s assistant waves at me happily. Just good friends.  

    non-existant road                                      white road                                             kitchen transport on orange road 

Mount Bromo – East Java  

As we are not cycling anymore steep mountains (“what an excuse”), we take public transport from Surabaya to Mount Bromo, one of the major attractions on Java. First a train to Probolingo and from there a minibus to Yoschi’s Guesthouse that we immediately position as the number one on our list of top guesthouses. The guesthouse arranges tours to the famous active crater and again we wake up at three in the morning to see the sunset from what is promised as yet another worthy viewpoint. It’s dark and very cold and when we leave the 4WD that drove us up the crater ridge, locals attack us: “rain coat, rain coat?”, “Mister, very cold, very cold”. 

They are right indeed, together with a hundred other people (mostly Indonesians) we have fallen victim of something called ‘freezing to death for a view of clouds’. Unfortunately it’s not a lucky morning but we have artistically interesting foggy pictures. The 4WD brings us to the crater (what a lazy trip, all by car), and we walk up to the ridge. From there we look straight into a 100-meter deep crater where a yellow sulphur whole is spitting foggy clouds, fabulous! But also, why is everybody coughing… Every time a sulphur cloud rises from the crater to the ridge where we are, it feels like several needles are touching your eyes and you start coughing immediately. But again, worth it!  

For sale: Mt Bromo hat

                The Bromo crater                           The active (spring 2004!) Bromo vulcano in the crater

Madura Island and back

Java Island is getting smaller and smaller once you come to the eastern side of it. The absolute end of the island consists mainly of the Ijen Plateau and volcano, and practically this means for cyclists that there are two major roads around the volcano heading for the small village of Ketapang where the ferry to Bali departs. According to other travelers both these roads are more hectic then you can imagine when hearing the word hectic. And so we unfold the Java map again and search it well for alternatives. All roads between Surabaya and Ketapang are major connections and we expect them all to be non-cyclable, or cyclable but not for fun. We choose to cycle over Madura Island and take the car ferry from east-Madura to east-Java and so we only have to cycle the remaining 60 kilometers from the ferry terminal on Java to Ketapang.

                                                            Madura Island

The first kilometers we cycle over a small road along the south coast. What a relieve, it’s quiet and we enjoy the views over the sea. People are poor though. We stop at what seems to be the end of our small little road, a military post. We need to cycle back and turn to the one main road that goes all the way to the east of Madura. It isn’t what we had hoped for, we are even more bothered by the people along the road then on north-Java. Busses and lorries have a bet on who can speed up most and in the end it’s a simple 180 kilometers straight to the east.

We keep on going, what else can we do, and reach the city from where we will take the ferry tomorrow morning. The hotel owner shows me the ferry schedule, proud that he can answer my question. it looks as though the ferry leaves daily at 14:00, arriving in the dark in a tiny little village that has neither accommodation nor accommodation close by. However, there is bus going all the way back to Surabaya and onwards over Java to Ketapang. We take a deep breath, a good sleep and the bus back to Surabaya.

Final destination – Bali Island

How nice traffic can be after hectic Java and Madura, I even start smiling at stinky busses and trucks. We take the northern route over Bali to Singaraja and plan to continue to the outmost east of the island, stay for a while in Padang Bai and continue south to Kuta beach, our final destination. It is really comfortable and easy cycling over the northern route. On the left is the ocean where at some points the road is as close to the beach as possible; on the right we pass a sort of monkey village where we spot monkeys in the trees, on the ground, on rocks, running after each other and climbing up the steep rocky hill.

Just east of Singaraja, we visit four different Hindu temples, look-alikes of what we have seen in Cambodias Angkor Wat (getting spoiled…?). But…. There is this one temple where we spot a stone-carving, making fun of a Dutch colonist called Van Nieuwenhuis, who cycles in flowered shorts.  Who thinks we still wear clogs and dress in traditional clothes?

Padang Bai is the place where lots of tourists take the ferry to Lombok Island. But we stay here for four days diving at Geko dives, www.gekodive.com. Bali is really fantastic for diving, with a great variety of marine life and a water temperature of 29 degrees Celcius even during the monsoon.

From Padang Bai it’s a short day cycling to Kuta beach, and from there it is only three kilometers to the airport. The last difficult target for today is finding carton to wrap our bicycles. You can see the question marks in people’s eyes: “what on earth does a tourist want to do with second hand carton boxes?”, rather than buying sun glasses, t-shirts, postcards, beer and too expensive fried rice. We cut the carton to pieces and take it on the back of our bicycles to the airport. There we wrap all parts we don’t want to get damaged and check in. 

Back to Amsterdam.