perennialsteps

In spite of chaotic preparation one day before the trip, my friends and I successfully flown in to Yogyakarta from Jakarta on Friday night. Ato droved us to Dieng, Wonosobo that night and arrived there at around 2 am. We stayed awake during the four hour ride from Yogyakarta to Wonosobo so Ato could drive in full consciousness. Hence, having to wake up at 4 am to start our journey at Dieng plateau was tremendously grueling. We had a quite short-lived trek on a hill to see the sunrise and the mountains view. The sunrise with its mountains view is picturesque as predicted. However, the predictability of the view had made it less stunning.

What amazed me were the facts on how the local people use the steam from the craters, which are abound here, to generate electricity, get relatively wealthy from harvesting potatoes and other vegetable related plants, and learn English with its Dieng history every once in two weeks for free to prepare themselves as guides for foreign visitors. I am grateful for them to live far above poverty line thanks to the economics benefit from the crops and decent infrastructures. Alas, there is a trade-off for that. The crops have been replacing the forest over the hills. As far as your eyes can see, mostly there are only crops on the hills. It rather contradicted with our guide, Mr. Wow, effort to convince us that his hometown is scenic. His zeal to show Dieng’s beauty to us was mind-blowing, but sometimes it was bothersome when all you wanted was the quietness in front of the scenery. It is a dual view from spending seven hours in Dieng plateau. It might be not comprehensive enough.