Tag Archive for: volcano

Indonesia is a country that surprised us in many ways. I thought I knew how Indonesia was, as I have been in Bali years before, but Bali is very different from the other places we visited.

Indonesia is the 4th biggest country in the world with regards to its people, so it is easy to imagine how much variety it has to offer. We summarized 5 curious facts about Indonesia.

Fact #1 Photographs

In Indonesia, we definitely took more pictures than in other countries, but not with our camera. Many of the locals wanted to have a picture taken with us, much more than in China or in India, which sometimes felt quite funny. Once we’ve been stopped by the police as they wanted a selfie with us. You might think they are so crazy for pictures because they do not see tourists or „white“ people very often, but no no no, they ask tourists for pictures in order to get more likes on Social Media. But while most people asked nicely for a picture, many times pictures of us were taken in a sneaky or pushy way what we did not like. We do not take pictures of other people either without asking them.

Fact #2 Islands

To discover Indonesia takes a lot of time, as the country is the one with the most islands in the world. In total, the country counts more than 18.000 islands and more than 900 of them are inhabited. The biggest ones are Borneo, Papua/New Guinea and Sumatra. The capital Jakarta is located on the island of Java, the most populous island in the world.

Fact #3 Big bigger Indonesia

Indonesia’s biggest Islands are also some of the biggest ones in the world. And not just the islands are big, but also one of the biggest stadiums (Gelora Bung Karno Stadium) in Asia is located in Indonesia. Lake Toba in Sumatra is the biggest volcanic lake in the world and Jakarta is the biggest city in South East Asia and the second biggest conurbation city in the world. Borobudur temple in Central Java is the largest Buddhist temple in the world with more than 500 Buddha statues. Indonesia is also home to the biggest Muslim community in the world. Also, the biggest flower and the biggest snake are found in this country.

YOGYAKARTA JAVA INDONESIA

Fact #4 Volcanoes

The volcanoes are a magnificent part of the country and of the well-known “ring of fire”, which stretches along the Pacific Ocean’s coast and sum up more than 60% of the active volcanoes in the world. In total, Indonesia counts around 150 active volcanoes.

MOUNT IJEN JAVA INDONESIA

Fact #5 Durian

Indonesia was the country where we had our first encounter with the Durian fruit. The fruit looks similar to the Jack fruit but has a terrible smell, similar to sulfur. It smells so bad, that in trains and hotels it is forbidden to eat it. I tried it and I cannot say I liked it. However, there are some people that like it very much and I guess it is depending also on the fruit itself if it is ripe enough or not.

DURIAN FRUIT

Image by truthseeker08 from Pixabay

See more pictures from Indonesia here.

Sumatra is the second-largest island of Indonesia and just one of the 17000 that form this nation, which makes it hard to decide which one to visit and which one to give up on.

Our previous planned itinerary included also the island of Bali, but after the time in North Sumatra we decided to spend more time in Java and make Bali a destination for future travels.

We returned to Medan for a flight to Malang, in East Java, and continued with the train till Probolinggo. While in Sumatra the transportation options are poor and limited, Java is well connected by a well-maintained network of buses and trains.

Moving around

Booking tickets in Java was easy. We used the mobile apps Ticket.com and Traveloka which are both great for booking almost anything, from transportation tickets to attractions, accommodation and food. After the payment, you will receive an electronic ticket with a bar-code that needs to be scanned once you arrive at the station. The process is made quite simple. You will find a bar-code scanner that will automatically print out a ticket, without needing to queue in front of a counter, which saves a lot of time and stress.

Arriving in Probolinggo

It took us approximately 4 hours by train from Malang to Probolinggo, where we rented a room for 3 nights. We decided to do so as visiting Mount Bromo is made easier from here. Of course you can travel further to Cemoro Lawang and spend the night there if you don’t wish to wake up too early.

We joined a tour organized by our hostel, together with other 4 people, and left early in the morning in order to arrive in time for the sunrise. It took us 40 minutes from the parking place to the viewpoint. It was still very dark outside and the path was narrow. We used the torch of our mobile phones to light the way. Other people used headlamps. The landscape from the viewpoint was really beautiful, but so believed also the more than a hundred people that came to see the sunrise in the same place. We recommend climbing a few meters higher and getting a place just for yourself. There are spots also on the way to the official viewpoints where you can stop for a more private experience, but climbing till the top will guarantee you a much better view… even if you’ll have to share it with more people.

BROMO INDONESIA

 

Seeing Mount Bromo has been an amazing experience and although we could have continued the day by crossing the “sea of sand” that surrounds the volcano and climbing up to the crater, we felt happy just with seeing the sun rising over it.

BROMO INDONESIA

 

Mount Bromo was the only attraction that brought us to East Java, but meeting other travelers on the way inspired us to use the chance and visit another one of the many volcanoes on the island. We used the last day in Probolinggo to recover our energy and to get a good sleep before our trip to Banyuwangi, the access point to Mount Ijen.

More pictures from Mount Ijen and Indonesia you will find here.