3 Days, 2 Volcanoes, 24hrs of Transport, 9hrs of Sleep

We knew we wanted to see Kawah Ijen and Mount Bromo; both are meant to be spectacular volcanoes in their own rights. Kawah Ijen is where miners hike up the active volcano and down into the crater to mine sulphur. Mount Bromo is a huge tourist attraction with mystical clouds and beautiful viewpoints.

We started with a tree hour bus ride to the ferry that joins Bali and Java. From there we road the ferry for an hour and were fortunate to meet up with a local woman who told us which hotel to go to in order to book a ride to Ijen. We also met a couple of guys from France on the ferry whom we would spend the next two days with and share transportation costs with (most annoying people ever!).

After lots of negotiation and a very short night of sleep, we would depart for Kawah Ijen at 1:30am. We arrived at the starting point of the trail at 3am. From here we had a steep 2km hike up to the rim of the volcano in the rain and darkness. On our path up the volcano we only crossed local miners working the night shift, themselves on their way to the top so they could climb in the crater and fill their bamboo baskets with sulphur. We reached the top in 90 minutes and were fortunate enough to meet a kind young miner, Antonio, who asked us to follow him into the crater.

The whole point of climbing Ijen at night, in the pitch-black darkness, is to see the volcano’s blue flames. 

The inside of the active volcano continues to be so hot that the sulphur gases released are blue. After witnessing the amazing flames, we asked our miner friend if we could go back up to the rim of the volcano. It was here that he explained that the only way out was to go all the way to the bottom of the crater and take a path out from the other side. Going back up where we came down would be too difficult, especially if the winds changed and we were caught in sulphur smoke. Having made it this far, and our “guide” telling us he wanted to show us where he got the sulphur from, we chose to trek on. It was really worth it.

Once we reached the bottom Antonio showed us how he would break off rocks of sulphur to fill his basket. He also showed us the liquid sulphur that still bubbled below our feet. Antonio used to fill his basket with 100Kgs, but has reduced his load to 70Kgs since he had his son; he was all too conscious of the toll his work would have on his life span. The sulphur would be sold back in the village 3 Km away for $0.06 per Kg. This 4hr trek back and forth would net Antonio approximately $4.20. He would do this twice a day, five days a week for two weeks and then rest (he would also do all this in flip-flops as he couldn’t afford shoes).

While in the crater we also had a chance to look at the acid lake. It is the biggest and most acidic lake in the world, with a diameter of over 1km.

With this done, we thanked Antonio, gave him some chocolate and money ($5) as gifts and trekked back to the bottom of the volcano where our driver was waiting. His reaction to our small gifts was incredible, a very special moment for us!

We were back at our hotel by 9am and would be on the road to Mt. Bromo by noon.

The drive to Bromo was supposed to take 4 hours, but because of Ramadan celebrations (Ramadan would start the next day), we were stuck in traffic for hours. We wouldn’t arrive to our guesthouse until 7:30 at night. After a quick bite, a couple of beers and a good hour of negotiating to prevent the tour from all of a sudden changing price half way through, we were off to bed. The drive to Bromo for the sunrise would start at 3:30am. We were quite excited to see Bromo, one of Java’s most famous volcanoes. Unfortunately, everyone else on the planet was equally excited. 

When we reached the look out point for the sunrise, we realized, this would be no Ijen. We were surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of other tourists. Locals were selling trinkets, renting winter jackets (it was pretty cold at the top) and generally looking to make a buck any way they could. Tourists jostled for position to get a good photo, it was nothing like what we hoped for. The view proved to be great, but the experience, mediocre. We watched the sunrise and got back in our jeep and drove to the foot of Mt. Bromo where we would hike up the volcano for a different view. Both were beautiful, but far from natural.

With this done, we headed back to our guesthouse at 8am for breakfast, and were on the road to Yogyakarta by 9:30am. We wouldn’t arrive in Yogyakarta until 10:30pm. It was a gruellingly long drive.

All in all, it was well worth the effort. Despite Bromo’s commercialism, it was still beautiful to see, but it was nothing compared to the adventure that is Kawah Ijen.  

           

Bali Part 2

After our time in the eastern islands of Indonesia, we made our way back to where we started, Bali. We headed to Ubud in the centre of the island and the other main tourist location. Ubud is extremely “zen” to say the least. Everything is organic, there’s yoga everywhere and every hippy on the planet over the age of 30 seems to congregate here. AJ was recovering from her food poisoning and I was just coming down with mine. Our first couple of days would prove to be very slow!

After a couple of days of recuperating, we rented a scooter and checked out the local sites – lots of temples and the infamous monkey forest.

The best part of Ubud for us was all the western food. With so many tourists, they really cater to the west. Usually this would be a bit of a turnoff as we are here to experience the local culture, but after our food poisoning, we were pretty happy to have some familiar food. We took the opportunity to soak in some of the culture and watch a Balinese Kecak Fire Dance performance. 50 people chanting around traditional dancers telling a story, topped off with a dancer putting out a fire with his feet. It was very impressive. 

After a couple of days in Ubud, we moved on to Amed on the east coast. A quiet costal village that consists of one street lined with a couple of home stays and restaurants. The highlight of Amed is the incredible snorkelling. Just a few feet off the coast there are beautiful coral with tons of fish. The visibility was incredible, so we ended up spending most of our days with our faces in the water. We did however, have time to get out to watch the local cockfights. It was very cool to see, and not nearly as gruesome as we expected, virtually no blood. The people in Indonesia are crazy for this stuff. Unfortunately the show was cut short when all of a sudden everyone packed up their chickens and ran away. When we asked what was happening, we were told that someone had been tipped off that the police were coming (cock fights are illegal in Indonesia, even if they are everywhere). 


We were also fortunate enough to crash a local party and be invited to another party with some locals and our new Russian friends! 

After our time in Amed, we moved on to Lovina, another very touristy spot. We took a cooking class here for an afternoon and tried out the local hot spring. The cooking class was great, the hot spring, so not great. Green murky water just isn’t that appealing.

Overall Bali was really nice, albeit extremely touristy. Food was good, accommodations clean and cheap. It was the perfect place to rest up before we would venture into the next island – Java! 

Ayam Sereh

We received this impromptu cooking class about a month ago in a local restaurant. We had eaten there three nights in a row, and this was one of our favourite dishes, so we asked if we could go in the kitchen to see how its made. They happily obliged. Here is the video AJ put together. 

The Journey to Kelimutu

Flores is the most eastern island of Indonesia’s Nusa Tenggara archipelago. The island was once a Portuguese colony, but not much remains from this time except Catholicism. But this did mean that for the first time in a long time we weren’t in a Muslim part of the country; we would begin to see pigs on farms and pork on the menu. Flores' claim to fame, beside the fact that it's beside the Komodo National Park, is that it is home to Mt. Kelimutu and its three striking summit crater lakes of varying colour. We would spend a week exploring Flores as we worked our way towards Kelimutu.

First things first we hung out in the port town of Labuan Bajo for three days as we appreciated sleeping in a real bed, not eating rice twice a day and having daily showers – all simple things we came to really miss after our four day boat trip. We were fortunate that some of our friends from the boat trip were still around to hang out with, this made the Labuan Bajo that much more fun. We also went for our first open water dives since we got certified. The Komodo National Park is considered in the top dive sites on the planet and consistently described as world class. Our dives were no exception. The highlight of our day was on our second dive when we saw six sharks (3 black tip and 3 white tip) a couple of green sea turtles and a five-meter manta ray. An absolutely amazing site to see! Here is a video of what a manta ray looks like, we didn’t take this video, but it looked just like this:

After this amazing experience we booked a car and driver for the four-day drive across the island to see Mt. Kelimutu. We would stop and sleep in Ruteng, Bajawa, Moni and Maumere. In Ruteng we slept in a beautiful monastery, it was so clean you could eat off the floor! We were joined in our car/tour by a nice guy from Switzerland, Julien; we got to speak French the entire tour. Crossing the island isn’t easy, there is one road and in parts, it’s barely a road. Our driver, Yophi, was an amazing driver and guide; he made sure we saw some really cool things!

We stopped to see natural hot springs, traditional villages, the blue stone beach, the spider rice field, the local alcohol (arak) making process and Mt. Kelimutu.

He was also able to show us the huge variety of natural flavours that come from Flores. Through various stops on the road and in the jungle we were able to see tamarind, vanilla, coffee, clove, macadamia nuts, cinnamon and cacao.

We had to wake up at 4am to be driven to the edge of Kelimutu. From there, we had a 20-minute hike to the viewing point where we would watch the sunrise. The lakes can change in colour depending on the minerals coming from the volcano. One is always blue, the other two change between green, red, black and yellow. For our trip, we had blue, black and more blue (maybe a shade of green). Never the less, it was an amazing site to see!

After Kelimutu we made our way to Maumere where we would catch a flight back to Bali. We had to hang out here for a three nights before we could get a flight out. Maumere was a serious dump; three days was enough time for AJ to get food poisoning and spend a night hugging the toilet. Overall, we were very happy with our Flores trip, but we were even happier to get the hell out of Maumere!

Im on a Boat

We were both certain we would be making our way out to Flores to see the Komodo Dragons, we just didn’t know how we would get there. With our options being pretty limited, either an expensive flight or a four-day boat tour that would allow us to meet people and see some islands along the way, we opted for the boat tour. The itinerary didn`t sound bad: four days and nights sleeping on the deck of the boat, meals included, unlimited drinking water, stopovers at small islands for snorkling, hiking, waterfalls and tours of Komodo and Rinca islands, the only two islands in the world with Komodo dragons, and all this for $155. 

Days 1 & 2

On the first day we were driven to the port where we boarded our boat, met the crew, met our guide (Vick) and joined the other 16 passengers for our tour. We were very fortunate to have an amazing and very international group of people - 4 Americans, 4 French, 2 Dutch, 2 Italians, 2 Austalians, 2 Spanish and of course, 2 Canadians! This is the first time we saw our sleeping accommodations. 18 barely one inch mats lined up side by side to cover the entire top of the boat and tiny blankets made for 5 foot tall Indonesian people. We chose two mats at the front of the deck as there was a little more space for my feet to stick out (the mats weren't even 6 feet long and I didnt want to have my feet on top of someone elses head!). 

The tour started pretty slow; we sat in the port for 3 hours because our boat's battery was dead. They tried to figure something out, but finally told us we would not be seeing any islands on our first day (they explained it to us by saying the itinerary we were given was no longer up to date - this was all part of the program). Instead we would motor through the night to another island where they could get another battery - we got a boost from another boat so we could get there, but this meant our boat couldn`t stop until we got to the big island. Motoring through the night meant freezing wind, small gusts of water (for those of us lucky enough who chose to sleep in the front of the boat) and rough waters. And to describe sound of the motor, imagine a helicopter landing next to you, all night long. We didn`t step off the boat for our first 18 hours on the boat. When we told our guide the night was horrible, he said that was only «level 2», the rocking was level 1, the bad first nights sleep was level 2, and level 3 would be our second night, as Vick put it ``a nightmare, where you think you die, but you survive.`` He was right! The only good thing about this was that Vick was able to buy us some beer at this island as I has planned pretty poorly and didnt pick up any beer in advance.

NIght two was terrible! Neither of us felt well for the entire evening (about 18 hours lying down), we just lay upstairs on the deck and listened to music as the boat drove through rough waters from 5pm onward. During the night the boat was swaying from side to side, bags were flying across the top deck, people rolling on to each other, 4 of the girls were sick and at one point around 2am everyone was awake with their flashlights looking at each other thinking WTF is going on!?! We covered ourselves with towels to keep warm and tried our best to sleep through it.

I have to admit our American friends were strong enough to sit in the front of the boat and drink for most of the evening... as we sat on the top deck feeling naucious, all I could think was I wish my stomach was strong enough to let me be down there drinking with them! 

Days 3 & 4

Once days 3 & 4 came around, everything changed. The waters were calm, we snorkled everywhere, went hiking, on day 3 we made it to Komodo island and saw the Komodo dragons for the first time. On day 4 we made it to Rinca island to see more (and bigger) Komodo dragons. We docked for the nights and had smooth sailing all day. We finally had the strength to drink the 6 Bintang we bought after the first night. Wild dolphins swam beside our boat, flying fish were everywhere, we saw flying foxes at night (they're like giant bats). These two days made us forget the first two horrible days. 

Day 3 was Komodo island. We trecked on the island for 2 hours, but weren't lucky enough to see the Komodos in the wild, we only saw them at the cafeteria where the park rangers cook. They are drawn in by the food. Never the less, they were an amazing site. We also saw deer and wild boar on the island, the primary food sources of the Komodos. 

While the food on the boat was always good, this third night we were treated to fresh chicken. We know it was fresh, as they killed the four live chickens at the back of the boat. Unfortunately, they did this where they left us off the boat to go snorkling. AJ and I were snorkling through the water and we came across a floating chicken head! They throw all the waste into the water. 

We had an amazing time on this third day.  At the end of the day AJ and I were running low on beer, but fortunate for us we were ancored near an island. The local kids came out in canoes to try and sell us Komodo statues (the same ones we turned town on the island). 

One of the locals brought Bintang for sale. It was 4$ a bottle, but considering delivery in the middle of the ocean, it seemed pretty reasonable - we bought two. 

The last day brough us to Rinca island. This is a much larger island, with monkeys and water buffalo, and lots of Komodo dragons. When we arrived on the island, our park ranger gave us a quick briefing and asked if any of the girls were menstrating - Komodo dragons can smell blood from over a mile away so it would be dangerous to go hiking on the island if this were the case. Unfortunately for AJ and another girl, this was the case. They were told they had to stay at the lodge/cafeteria. I trecked off with the rest of the group for two hours and saw one baby Komodo and one water buffalo. 

AJ stayed at the lodge with Cybil. This is the same lodge where we ended up seeing the Komodo dragons as they just hang around where there is food. AJ and Cybil saw some monkeys around the lodge so they asked a ranger who was hanging around if they could walk around a little bit. He accompangied them as they walked towards the monkeys until a baby Komodo jumped from the roof of a building (only the babies can climb, once they are big  - 3 yrs old - they stay on the ground) and charged at them. The ranger was terrified as he fought off the Komodo. The baby dragon left, but only for a little while as he ran around the building and charged again. After a second fight with the dragon, AJ and Cybil gave up on the tour and went back to hide in the cafeteria. This proved to be the most adventure anyone on the boat would get while visiting the islands, and they didnt even have to walk two hours in the heat! 

All in all the boat tour was worth it because we saw some amazing things and met some amazing people. After Rinca island the boat was parked at the dock of the town where we would spend 3 nights. We chose to get the hell off the boat, book a hotel room and skip our last night on the boat (12 other people did the same thing!). The opportunity to have a shower for the first time in four days was too big to pass up! We hung out with our boat friends for two nights as our group dispersed. I would recommend this trip to anyone who wants to see the Komodos, just don't go with Kencana Adventures! 

Lombok - Senggigi, Senaru & Kuta

After the amazing experience in the Gili Islands, Lombok was very different. We started with a night in Senggigi, which all in all, was a pretty lousy place. Not much to do and our accommodations were terrible! The only good thing about Senggigi was meeting a nice Irish & French couple (both living in Cork, Ireland) with whom we would continue our travels with for the next week.

After a quick night in Senggigi we moved on to Senaru, up in the mountains and jungle of Lombok. The village’s claim to fame is its two waterfalls as well as the fact that it is the base for hikes up the biggest mountain in Lombok, Mt. Rinjani. We wouldn’t be climbing Rinjani, but we did go for a five and a half hour trek through the jungle, rice paddies and local villages to see all the sites.

We saw monkeys, the two waterfalls, locals working in the rice fields as well as the local men carrying the 25kg bags of rice into town barefoot (1 hour each way, all day long). Our accommodations were terrible; we were very happy to have our mosquito net (special thanks to my friends at Aimia) to keep cockroaches, preying mantis’, spiders and everything else off of us for the night.

After a terrible night’s sleep in Senaru we got a driver with our Irish friends and made our way to Kuta beach in the south of Lombok. The highlight of the five-hour drive was when our driver stopped in his hometown along the way to have us taste pancakes made at his families food stand. He explained that if the locals saw tourists eating there, they would also eat there; it was a win-win for everyone! We also stopped in a small village where Sarongs are made by hand; they dressed Anne-Julie in the ceremonial wedding dress.

Kuta beach was great. We had amazing accommodations with hot water! It had been almost two weeks since we had a hot shower; only cold and sometimes salty water everywhere else. The locals from all across Lombok vacation in Kuta. It would appear that many of the kids had never seen white people, which made AJ and I famous for a day as they all lined up to take photos with us.

In Kuta we rented scooters and toured the entire area searching for the best beaches. We tried out all the local bars, constantly got harassed by the local kids selling bracelets (we entertained a couple of kids for an entire night), and ate at a great restaurant who on our third night allowed us into the kitchen for an impromptu free cooking lesson (the video is coming soon!).