Take-Aways

Indonesia is an overwhelming country. First there is the sheer size and diversity. It spans three time zones and gathers peoples of different languages, origins and religions. Then there is the nature. Dramatic, hostile yet fertile, in parts overpopulated in others empty. One volcano succeeds another across the archipelago and despite the frequent tremors and explosions people live a stone’s throw away from lethal and imposing peaks. This is the nation that owns Krakatoa and with it the record of the world’s biggest explosion. Mount Merapi, North of Yogyakarta has the dubious distinction of being one of Indonesia’s most dangerous volcanoes making its presence known with a distinct regularity. We visited three of these impressive mounds on Java. The volcano near Garut in Western Java and Bromo and Ijen on the Eastern side. The downside is that everyone who does these excursions is obsessed with the sunrise. This translates into 3am wake up calls, leaving you completely wasted by about breakfast. And so the colder and grumpier we set out, the more we came down awed and impressed by sulphur fumes, gaping craters, bubbling lakes and steep climbs. In Garut, we could console our sleepy bodies in the hotel’s hot springs. By the time we got to Eastern Java, we kept our motivation up with thoughts of lazy days in Bali. Garut was the first encounter. We set out in the dark and walked up to reach a plateau of sulphur geysers the mouths of which had turned a fluorescent yellow. The air was cool but I could warm myself by stopping every now and then to touch the warm rock. Higher up, in the crater, was a silver lake, cool at the edges and bubbling hot in the centre. This one had last erupted in 2002. Mount Bromo was certainly the most spectacular. The crater just sprung out of a landscape that was something between the moon and a Mongolian steppe. An ochre and grey dessert with a big gaping mouth breathing fire and smoke. Ijen we took at our own pace. Up a steep – very steep – mountain at 9am. Around the bend was a big crater, the biggest of them all with a huge lake inside. Volcanoes are the last thing you see in Java on the East. On the ferry to Bali, just a stone’s throw away, all I could see was a big, tall majestic cone and us moving away from it like very frightened refugees. Here, in the middle of the water, between the two legendary islands of Java and Bali you are deceived. Neither looks like what they really are, green, lush and very different from each other. The next two weeks are all about a summer holiday – at last!