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| Surabaya? |
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| Surabaya train station accidental selfie |
We basically spent our time in Surabaya enjoying what city life had to offer. We stayed in a cheap 2-star chain hotel called Pop! to recover from all the rock solid beds and crappy showers we’d been experiencing so far. One of Surabaya’s calls to fame, apart from the recent terrorist bombing, is its ridiculously large shopping malls. We visited two of them. One we went to on our first night to have a food court dinner. I don’t think its really fair calling it a food court dinner because the food court is actually a bunch of pretty nice restaurants, just all in the one building instead of a long a street. The other mall we went to was where we spent most of our full day in Surabaya.
As the largest of 10 incredibly large malls in Surabaya, Tunjungan plaza was more like 6 shopping malls connected in to one. It had 5 different food courts, 3 cinemas – one with an IMAX screen, arcades, clothes shops, grocery stores, pharmacies, doctors…it was more like a small suburb than a mall. We spent some time playing video games and saw Deadpool 2 on the IMAX screen for an extremely affordable cost. I video called my brother while in this mall and even over a video call half way around the world, he was feeling the anxiety that being in those places for small town folk like anyone from Australia would experience. The feeling is even more intensified when you step outside and see the slums and people who would probably never be able to afford a meal inside living basically on the door step. What a world we live in.
Our true reason for going to Surabaya is that it was necessary to go there to get to Mount Bromo from Semarang. We had looked at different Bromo tours from Surabaya online and none of them offered what we were looking for. They all tried to fit in too much – horse rides and jeep rides and all this stuff we weren’t interested in, or they were too hectic, long hours in a car for not enough time actually getting to see the thing you were going to see. So we decided to get there on our own. We’d done it for every other attraction in Indonesia we’d wanted to see, why stop for our last stop?
Online information about how to get to Mount Bromo without joining a tour is complicated, contradictory, and downright hilarious. The biggest running theme amongst all websites is just how many scam artists there are at Probolinggo – the gateway town to Mount Bromo. Probolinggo sits on the train line to Surabaya and is the closest stop to Cemoro Lawang – the village at the crater of Bromo. We arrived at Probolinggo train station armed by being well versed in the common, and not so common, scams that are run in this area. You see, Probolingo is yet another area where the mafia runs strong. Unlike in the movies where the mafia gets its money out of highly illegal activities like drug and weapons trafficking, in reality the mafia gets its money out of moderately illegal activities like accepting payments for protection from local business from the mafia, controlling the taxi monopoly within an area, or even running “tourist information” centers that do nothing but lie.
So were we nervous trying to get from Probolinggo to Cemoro Lewang? A little. Not because we were rushed for time, but because we were constantly on edge; second, third, and even fourth guessing every interaction we had with anyone who was taking money.
In the end, our entire trip to, around, and away from Bromo was completely scam free. When we got to the train station in Probolinggo. we joined forces with another traveling couple for strength in numbers. We got into an angkot together and were given an actually decent price to get to the bus station. Scam number one avoided.
Scam number two that we knew was very common was that the taxi doesn’t take you to the bus station, but just takes you to their friends “tourist information center” up the road from the bus station. We already knew exactly where both of these places were, so when the taxi stopped at a place that wasn’t the bus station and told us to get out, we all just sat still. We said to the driver, we want to go to the bus station, not this place. At this point, a man who had been standing by one of the Bromo buses walked over and gave us a price to get up. We did know that the bus to Cemoro Lawang would not go unless all its tickets had been sold, and we also knew the price for a bus worth of tickets. This man that approached us told us we could leave then, and quoted us at a price per person that we knew was as good as we could get. We reluctantly believed him and got out of the taxi, worst come to worst we would’ve just walked the rest of the way to the bus station.
Once we were out of the taxi, the story changed. The bus wasn’t leaving yet, it had to be full. He did have some other people but not a full bus load. At least he didn’t try to change the price on us. Another guy ‘working’ at the ‘information center’ tried to tell us about his brother’s accommodation or his uncle’s jeep tour or blah blah blah. When we told him we had everything booked, which wasn’t even a lie, he walked out and sat down with his mates across the road. Eventually we all loaded into the bus, and the bus drove us down the street to the actual bus station, where some other travelers were already waiting. Scam number two avoided.
We made friends with the other travelers, and eventually a few more people showed up, and we had more or less a full bus. We were all happy to chip in to cover the cost of the one or two empty seats, knowing that it was going to be the best we could get.
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| Cemoro Lewang |
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| Spotted in Cemoro Lawang....are those WA plates? |
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| Cemoro Lawang from a distance |
After a pretty spectacular drive up the mountain, we arrived at Cemoro Lawang in the early afternoon. Grabbing a quick bite, we and a few of the other travelers we had befriended at the bus station, decided to head down into the caldera and to the crater. One of the benefits of staying at Yog Homestay, was that a review had pointed out it is a 2 minute walk from the alternative entrance to the Bromo National Park caldera. In the past, the mafia I spoke of before had controlled entrance to the national park and so buying tickets had been mandated with an iron fist. Since then, the government has stepped in and issued official tickets at a completely unreasonable price. However, since it is government controlled, the local mafia doesn’t care if you get in without a ticket. That is why there is a well known alternative entrance to the park right next to some sort of guard house where you can easily walk into the caldera without paying any ticket. This is where we made our way in.
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| Just after getting down the caldera wall |
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| The sea of sand (and rocks) |
We walked for about 40 minutes, following jeep tracks and a chain link fence to the base of the Bromo climb. Rain was slowly coming on, as as we made it to the small temple complex at the base of Bromo, it began to bucket down. The temple complex was closed, so we took shelter under one small corner of stairs leading into it.
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| The temple from a distance |
Eventually the rain died down enough that we could keep walking, and we decided we might as well head for the crater. We walked up the base climb, and then finally to the few hundred stairs, visibility not improving at all.
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| Faces carved into the sand |
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| The final stairway to the crater |
When we reached the top of the crater, it was still very cloudy and we couldn’t see any view or even down into the volcano itself. We were pretty disappointed.
We walked back down to the temple, and as we arrived parts of blue sky were beginning to open up. We waited around this area and slowly watched as the fog lifted.
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| Waiting for the fog to lift |
Soon the crater of Bromo was in full view, as well as Bartok. Eventually we could see the edge of the Caldera and the whole sky had come blue!
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| The fog lifting |
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| Bartok in full view |
Somewhat begrudgingly, we did the climb again to the Bromo crater.
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| Taking a break looking out over the caldera |
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| We could actually see the stairs this time |
This time the view was worth it.
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| Looking down into the crater |
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| Along the craters edge |
By this stage the sun was already close to setting behind a far mountain, so we knew we didn’t have much sunlight to spare. We began the walk back to the caldera edge, and made it to the climb of the caldera not long after it was dark. Luckily we had all brought torches with us, so finding our way wasn’t difficult at all.
At one of the few local restaurants, I chose what was on the menu as a cheese, tomato, and egg jaffle. No menu in Indonesia is particularly reliable, so I was super happy when an actual jaffle came out on a plate. Not many foreigners know what a jaffle is, and most people back home don’t ever think to put an egg in one, so getting one of my favourite simple meals in a remote village known for ripping off tourists might be one of the better surprises Indonesia has had to offer so far. Over dinner, we agreed to meet up very early the next morning at Yog Homestay to hike to King Kong lookout point to see the sun rise over Mt Bromo.
Getting up real early was difficult, but doing the hike to King Kong in the dark while tired was even more difficult. The track begins as a road, which turns into a paved walking path, which turns into a boulder scramble, which turns into a narrow dirt track with thick bush either side. As many tourists walked this pilgrimage, it was the blind leading the blind as everyone followed the group in front of them, and I’m sure the front group didn’t know where they were going. We would discover walking back down in the light that the rock scramble was far more difficult than it needed to be as there was a much easier path at that point just 5 or so meters away.
In any case, we made it to the lookout point with time to spare, as it was still dark on our arrival. We waited and watched, huddled together to stay warm, for the sun to rise.
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| Awaiting the sun rise |
It got brighter, and brighter, and eventually we realised the sun had been up for some time already as it was fully in the sky above us. We hadn’t seen it come up for the ridiculous amount of cloud that was around.
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| The sun is up? |
The only reason we saw at all was the cloud was slightly thinner for a moment, allowing an image of the sun to actually pass through to us. Fairly disappointed, we waited and waited for the view to clear up, hoping to get that iconic image of Bromo you see if you do a google image search. Unfortunately it never really got anywhere near that.
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| Best view we got |
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| Reality of how bad this view is |
Eventually, sick of waiting, cold, and wanting to head back to Surabaya that same day, we began walking back to Cemoro Lawang.
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| Making our way back down |
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| Still farms even up here |
Once there, it wasn’t too hard to find enough people to split a bus ride back down to Probolinggo for a reasonable price. We waited a little for everyone who wanted to come together, enjoying the now clearer views below the cloud that was still blocking the view at the lookout.
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| Bromo and Bartok |
Eventually everyone was ready to go and we had an easy trip back down to Probolinggo, where we only had a short wait to take the train back to Surabaya. In Surabaya we'd already booked another night at the same 2-star hotel we’d stayed in just nights before, although it felt like weeks had passed. The soft bed, hot shower, and proximity to big cheap meals, were all very welcomed after big hikes and long days.
We had one night in Surabaya, and then we were off to Malaysia on the most empty plane I've ever been on.
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| Enjoying the plane to ourselves |
I just watched Too Many Cooks. It's your fault, and I feel like the best way to tell you is via a comment on your blog. "Too many cooks! (too many cooks)". Should I admit that I never previously realised that the family's name is 'Cook'?
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to travelling the world - you can never have too many cooks.
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