K2K, Java, Week 3

JAVA – Week 3

07-02-17

Goa Gong Caves to Pracimontoro

https://www.strava.com/activities/921788842

Up at 7am for our last breakfast at the best surf camp on this planet. The weather was looking amazing and as we ate our brekkie and drank our coffee we sat and admired the islands just off shore and the nice formations of waves rolling in. Our driver arrived at 8am and packed the truck with our bikes and our gear,  we were hitching a ride up the mountain to explore the stalagmite caves before continuing our cycling journey. We said our farewells to Rod and staff and climbed into the truck and were on our way once again.

The road out was through the jungle, up and down steep hills and with some great navigating from our driver we managed to miss most of the large pot holes. It was a good solid hour’s drive to the caves and once at our destination it was time to place all our bags back on the bikes, say good bye to our driver and push the bikes into the entrance of the caves.

We are so glad Rod suggested we come to the caves, as they were just amazing. One place that should not be missed if ever visiting this area. The caves were very wet and humid as we came in through the entrance into some narrow passage ways, the air felt really close. We didn’t have to go too much further until the cave opened right up into a very large cavern. Slippery steps took us down through the cavern allowing us to investigate all the different types of formations. There really was quite a lot to see, sometimes the lighting was a bit odd, but we really enjoyed it and easily spent a good hour within the cave exploring.

After an ice cream and cold drink at a warung once we finished our exploration of the caves, we were then on our bikes and back on the road. The ride today was up and down with a pretty good road surface. A little bit of pushing the bikes up a couple of steep pinches, but most of the riding was pretty enjoyable. We did have 6km of dirt and road works to ride towards the end of our ride today, we were expecting this, as Rod had mentioned it as this section of road has been in progress for the last 3 years. We were just very fortunate that there hasn’t been much rain the last couple of days as this section of road would have been an absolute muddy bog. So as we rode the rough and bumpy sections we just smiled and were thankful for dry and dusty. It felt really hot and humid today on the bikes, the temperature was showing 37 degrees on the garmin, and by the end it was really starting to zap the energy right out of us. We were about 4 k’s away from our destination when we stopped at an Indo mart for a cold drink and a quick bite to eat.

We arrived at the Green Hotel, checked into our clean comfortable room with air con and hot water and then crashed out for about an hour. We ventured outside and we were offered a lovely coffee from the guys at reception, and then went to see if we could organise a place to walk to for some dinner. It was suggested that the nearest warung was about a 2km walk down the road. Oh!!!! That’s ok we needed a walk, so we ventured off down the road, walked a tad over 2km but couldn’t find anything really open, so back we came. We were about half way back when we stopped to check out a group of people watching some guy all leathered up doing tricks on his motor bike. Here was a tiny warung that was open. We had a choice of bananas, peanuts, soft drink and chicken noodles. So we grabbed 3 bananas, a packet of peanuts still in their shells and a drink each. This was our dinner and we were very thankful for it even if the drinks were warm. On the way back we got stopped three times for photos with the local kids and lots of waves and hellos from locals as they drove past.

08-02-17

Pracimontoro to Yogyakarta

https://www.strava.com/activities/921788930

We got an early start. The hotel had organised a toaster and some bread for us for breakfast. It was lucky we had some peanut butter and vegemite in our bag still. Instant coffee too, after the great coffee they gave us the afternoon before, never mind.

We had no idea of today’s terrain, but it was going to be sixty four k’s to our hostel in Yogja. We started off with a nice down, we were still up at around 350metres. This was very short lived, and the punishing rolling hills started again. Up 50, down 50, sweat some more. We had already planned a decent stop about half way at Wonosari, we were going to need a good meal.

We got there about 9:30, which surprised us, considering the climbing we had done. Rod had recommended a café called “Hafe”. We laughed about whether it was just a typo, but anyway, we found it and had some second brekky. Mary struggled to find something she wanted , but we ate and headed back to the bikes. At this point, the chef came out to meet us and was totally overjoyed. He was amazed at our story, and just couldn’t stop giving me big man hugs. He was a great guy, and just another example of how nice and welcoming the people of Java are.

The riding became a bit flatter and our legs were pushing the bikes on well. We had some final climbing to do before beginning the long switch back descent down onto the plain that Yogjakarta sits on. There are a lot of cafes and restos at Bukit Bintang taking advantage of this hazy view, which was pretty cool. The quality of the places was quite low however, we can usually sniff out a good one, but this time we couldn’t. We had a quick bite and a cold drink and began the descent.

The final run into Yogja was fast and busy. We enjoyed it though. I was thoroughly ready for a cold beer when we rolled into our Hostel, called Sae Sae. This turned out to be a great choice of places to stay. Really set up as a backpackers, but it is really chilled out, has a great lounge area, and a young guy making cool food in a little warung on the premises.

We had a nice double room, shared bathroom, but that was ok, and the location gave us great access to the cool side of Yogja, with great cafes, restaurants and everything else you could need just a short stroll through the back lanes of the area.

09-02-17

Happy birthday to me J.

https://www.strava.com/activities/921788955

We had decided that we would ride out to the Prambanan Temple today after a nice breakfast at ViaVia. The ride out was 19k’s. It was really fast on our unloaded fat bikes, but we arrived really sweaty as usual. We were excited about checking this place out, which includes the main Hindu temple and a Bhudhist one on the same site, but a reasonable walk at the other end. It was good to get there early, by the time we had a good look around the Hindu temples the crowd was building, and it was extremely hot and humid. We walked in the direction of the Budhist temple and went to the on site museum on the way, which was stunning. We were the only people in there.

The museum was a series of really nice pagodas in a beautiful garden setting, and was very chilled out. We went for a cool drink before heading on to the Siwu Bhuddhist Temple further along. This was very impressive, although a lot of the restoration work was very haphazard and poorly done. The best thing about this was that no one else was there, they don’t want to walk that far. So other than a little girl and her dad, and a group of guys who turned up in a golf cart for a selfie at the gate, we were the only ones there. We spent quite a lot of time exploring the little nooks and crannies of this site.

We found our way back out and were bombarded by the enormous crap market that you are forced to meander through before you can get out. We then took off on our super light bikes, and took a different route back, through the city centre, which was slower and a few k’s longer, but at least it was some territory we hadn’t already covered.

After that, we chilled at Sae Sae for a while over a cold beer before heading out to “The Mediteranean” for my birthday dinner. This was really special. Western food was a real treat, and it was seriously great food. I had a great day.

The rest of our time in Yogja was just seeing some local sights, eating great food, a little bike maintenance and some further route planning. We are realising that we will have to skip a section at some stage in order to get to Padang in time, but the hard question is how. At this stage we think we will ride the next week to Bandung, and see if we can fly direct from there to Padang. So we will head off to a local travel agent to see what the story will be for flying with our bikes. 

13-01-17

Yogjakarta to Borobudur

https://www.strava.com/activities/921789014

We said goodbye to the crew at SaeSae. They said goodbye to us by one of their staff quickly going home to get his special bike that he had built himself. It was very tall, see photo. Everyone else called it a circus bike. We had an awesome stay here, and would definitely stay here again, but forget about the main tourist attractions and just explore the back lanes for street art, great coffee and food of all types. We love Jogja.

We are trying out a new mapping app today called MapsMe, that I downloaded. The highlight of this app is that it works while offline, you have to download maps for the district you are in, but it will also choose better cycling options than the main road if they are available. Compared to google maps that is. So we were very excited that it showed a better option to get to Borobudur than the main road.

So we went and had our last Jogja breakfast and headed off through the back lanes once again. Our route took us away from the main roads and quickly got us out of Jogja into semi rural areas. We followed narrow lanes, edges of canals and rivers, the possibilities of this app were really starting to excite us. We had a wonderful ride today, it was like a carnival atmosphere, everyone so genuinely pleased to see us. We were catching glimpses of Mount Merapi ahead, occasionally revealing itself from behind the high clouds around the peak.

We twisted and turned, rolled through rice paddies, tiny villages in the jungle, and one productive rural scene after another. We crossed a very major looking river after having to backtrack after my iphone overheated in my map case, another problem I have to solve. This caused us to miss a turn, but only cost us about a kilometre.

After crossing the raging torrent, we had to do a bit of climbing, nothing too drastic, but one really steep pinch that beat Mary. Even then, there were three ladies, dressed in their Hijabs sitting at a local bus stop. One of them ran down the hill to help Mary push her bike up the last bit of the hill, while the other too laughed and called out all sorts of encouragement to their courageous friend. Terima Kasih Teman.

As we rolled through villages, men would shout out to us “Borobudur Sir”?  We would call out yes, Borubudur, and they would call back,” that way Mr./ Mrs. You are going the right way”. I so love Java.

We came into the village of Borubudur and it immediately gave us a good impression. This is a major tourist site, something we normally avoid, but we were definitely drawn here. We found a lovely café, just across the road from the Temple, and had a cold drink and a snack while we tried to work out where our accommodation was, all we really knew was that it was in a tiny village just out of town. We had booked for two nights, so that we could spend all day tomorrow at the Borobudor temple. So we asked a nice policeman for directions, “one k up the road and turn right sir.” Ok, we did that. Then what? We asked someone else, “Go down towards the small hospital and turn left before you get there”. Ok, we did that. Then we are going up this muddy lane which seemed to be forever, though extremely beautiful. Another kilometre and the road turned into a muddy track. Just as we were thinking we should turn around, a guy on a farm bike came past and we asked him. He pointed behind us to an even smaller muddy track going up and around a huge tree and said, “just there”. So up we went and stopped in front of a few houses that we couldn’t even see from where we just were, and on the gate a sign, Jolan Jalan, our homestay.

Well, what a welcome we got. Jolan and Uus, their two children, a sister Irul and their Auntie. There were several other family members who we didn’t meet until later, but they were all lovely. Irul and the Auntie (sorry, we never did get her name) went into let’s look after Mary and David mode, and off we went. Before we knew it we sat down, coffee was on the way and the inquisition began. Jolan is Swiss, married to a lovely local girl Uus. They run their homestay as a family and are doing really well. They have four rooms, two up and two down, and are set in behind the family with the big communal kitchen in between where all sorts of delights were cooked up for us, with vegetarian options always available for Mary. We loved staying here and would totally recommend them.

14-02-17

BOROBUDUR TEMPLE

We were both really excited to go to Borobudur Temple as it is the largest Buddhist Temple in the world and Buddhist Temples always seem to attract us. As soon as we were up, finished our delicious banana pancakes, fresh fruit and coffee for breakfast we were straight on the bikes and heading out of the village and back to town. Everyone in the village wished us a good morning and waved us on our way. We got to the gates of Borobudur and found a car park to park our bikes. The car park attendant said they would be safe with him, handed us two bottles of water and said “you be back at 12”. It was 9am and we answered “maybe longer, maybe 5 hours”. He just looked at us and laughed.

We entered the gates, bought our tickets, were handed more water, had our sarongs put on and we stepped into the Temple’s grounds. The surrounds were beautiful with large green lawned areas, beautiful established gardens and large shady trees. As we headed towards the temple, sadly three elephants walked past us all set for the day ahead taking tourists for rides. I knew there were elephants here at the temple but I wish I didn’t see them. Just makes me so sad to see them forced to work with the mahout sitting on top with his probing hook, the thick heavy leg chain on the front leg of the elephant and knowing the training method they use to break the elephants spirit. This is all in aid of tourism.

Shaking that bad energy off, taking a few deep breaths, we continued in the direction of the temple. Our first glimpse of the temple emerged. It literally took my breath away and I felt a chill all over me. I really don’t know how to explain the feeling I had with this vision. I was speechless, it was just so surreal, we were both in awe.

We climbed the first set of steps up to the first terrace. Here we walked clockwise around the whole of Terrace one, taking our time and looking at all of the 104 Buddha statues that sit in niches and all of the reliefs on our left and our right sides. The reliefs are stone walls made from stone blocks and have been hand carved in great detail which tells a great story. No two reliefs are the same.  Many of the statues are damaged in some way. Some damaged by natural causes like from weather, volcanic ash and earthquakes, but disappointingly many have been damaged by humans. People over the years, before it was a protected site, have come in and removed heads from the statues and in doing so have destroyed other parts of the statues and the reliefs. Many of them were being sourced by prominent museums around the world. So much work has gone into repairing the temple and protecting it from future damage which is fantastic to see. It has now been given the respect it deserves.

After completion of Terrace l, we climbed the steps up to Terrace II here again there were 104 statues. Terrace III has 88 statues, Terrace IV has 72 statues and Terrace V has 64 statues. These five terraces are all in a square shape and as we walked around slowly we were finding ourselves always looking up to Buddha. Each Buddha on each compass side on Terrace I, II, III and IV has the same hand gesture. On the east side the hand gesture is of Bhumisparsa mudra which means ‘earth is called as a witness’. On the south side the hand gesture is of Wara mudra which means ‘giving blessing’. On the west side the hand gesture is of Dyana mudra which means ‘silent or meditation’. And on the north side the hand gesture is of Abhaya mudra which means ‘unafraid of danger’. On Terrace V all of the Buddha statues on all four sides have the hand gesture of Witarka mudra which means ‘giving lecture or speech’.

As we completed the walk around Terrace V we stepped up to Terrace VI the first of the three circular levels. On these terraces are 72 Buddha statues and each one actually sits inside a stupa. On Terrace VI there are 32 statues, Terrace VII there are 24 statues and on Terrace VIII there are 16 statues. All of these Buddha statues have the hand gesture of Dharmacakra mudra which means ‘law or rightful principle’.

Finally, we made it to the very last terrace where the main stupa sits. This is like a huge dome that looks like it sits inside a large lotus flower. An unfinished Buddha statue was found buried under a walnut tree in the temple yard and some experts believed this statue was meant for the large stupa. Other experts now doubt this assumption, considering that the temples’ roof (Arupadhatu) is the level that symbolizes formlessness element. The Buddhists believe that this is the highest form of Buddha, and as a result the Buddha would have no form, so no statue would be required.

So much was seen today, so much was felt, and so much was learnt. As we walked slowly around each terrace we found that we were by ourselves most of the time. So many people just walk straight up the steps and then back down again not spending the time, taking it all in from each side of each terrace. This made it so special and we found we were able to absorb everything that this special place had to offer. Dave was in his absolute glory spending quiet time taking photos and admiring all the detail on the reliefs. I spent time on Terrace V and VI in a bare foot silent meditation which was a very special moment for me to walk a part of this ancient temple, bare foot, in silence and absorbing the energy from my feet up. It was strange as before Terrace V the black volcanic stone pavers were really hot but on these two levels they weren’t.

We just wanted to stay up there at the very top forever. The view was amazing. We could see Mt Merapi as it appeared out from the cloud cover, we could see over the whole of the temples’ grounds, the villages and food bowl on all sides and the mountains way off in the distance. After climbing down the stairs, we went and sat under the shade of a beautiful old tree. Sitting cross legged and facing the temple I closed my eyes and spent time meditating. It just felt so right to just be in silence and be connected. We are both so thankful for having the opportunity to visit this beautiful, respectful monument to Buddhism.

Lots of deep breathing was required as we made our way out of the grounds. They usher you out on a long winding path through all of the materialistic stalls, one after another, around every bend, until you finally come out the other end feeling exhausted. We made our way over to the car park to find our car park attendant all packed up and waiting for our return. We were gone over 5 and a half hours and by the looks of things he had been waiting for our return for quite some time. We had speedy legs on the bikes back to our homestay as we could see rainy weather coming in. We made it back without getting wet. The rain soon set in and it didn’t let up all night. 

K2K, Java, Week 2

K2K, JAVA – Week 2

31-01-17

Malang to Blitar

https://www.strava.com/activities/855564407

You never know what sort of day you are going to have until you get out of bed and have breakfast. We woke early and were pretty much ready to go before our planned 7:30 breakfast. Yhosie prepared a traditional breakfast for us, rice, vegetable soup and eggs. Of course, a nice coffee as well. Yhosie’s dad was keen to get us out to look at his antique bikes and said that one of his friends had come over to show us his bike as well.

We polished off breakfast and took our bikes around to the front of the property. We were greeted by Yhosie’s dad and his friend, who was dressed up in period Indonesian Army uniform. Yhosie was interpreting for us. The newly arrived bike was apparently an English made bike, but was Indonesian army issue. He had it fitted out complete with a beautifully made leather frame bag, complete with revolver and spare ammunition. He also had a canvas pannier, rifle bag with rifle, and a helmet. They said that they had two other friends coming over and they all wanted to take us out for a bike tour of Malang. How could we refuse. I was made a member of the antique cycling club with a very kind gift of a club ring, it felt like a badge of honour that I wore with pride that day.

So once the other two friends arrived and introductions were over, we set out on a tour of this glorious small city, with group photos all along the way. I was quite amazing, all the locals knew them, as they meet for a ride every Sunday. We went to the government offices, the independence statue, we passed the Army Museum and finally a walk through the rather disturbing bird market. They then took us out onto the road to Blitar, our destination for the day, and we said our goodbyes and thanks, and we were on our way. A couple of hours later than we intended, but we wouldn’t have missed that for the world.

Milang sits at an elevation of around five hundred metres, perched in a saddle between two large volcanoes, Batu and Semeru. For this reason, Malang is just that few degrees cooler than the coastal areas, and was very pleasant, despite the rain.

This also means that our first twenty k’s today were a very gentle descent, so we caught up some of our lost time. We stopped at a bakery to grab some quick calories and shared a mini sponge cake in the shape of a love heart and a chocolate donut. The bakeries are all full of so many different sorts of cakes and pastries but it’s a bit difficult to tell what any of them are and what they would taste like so the good old chocolate donut is a pretty safe option.

We then turned west towards Blitar. This road was quite good, we had a steep descent into a river valley around a reservoir with a hydro power plant. The climb back out was really long, but a good grade of around 5-6 percent most of the way and we really enjoyed it and handled it well.

We were a couple of k’s away from where a hotel was that we were going to check out and feeling pretty hungry as we had skipped lunch when magically an awesome looking café appeared on our left. We stopped and rode into the driveway and were quickly helped by the car park attendant, parked the bikes and ventured in. The place was alive with lots of young people, cool music, great vibe, coffee, gelato, icecream, and all sorts of delicious recognisable food to choose from. Dave of course had an espresso, me a cappuccino, we ordered some fries and a serve of fresh fruit salad. Coffees were really awesome. Fries perfect. Fruit salad was amazing but they had dribbled mayonnaise and sprinkled grated cheese on top. We are not really understanding the whole grated cheese thing on fruit salad. We had a great time here and the staff who were really cool young people all wanted to have their photo taken with us as we were leaving.

We checked out a hotel about 3 k’s down the road that looked pretty good from the outside. The room rate was around our budget and included breakfast. They offered us toast if we wanted instead of traditional breakfast which sounded pretty good to me. Our room was really nice and had a hot shower so it felt very luxurious. With showers done we ventured outside again and walked the block to see if there was anything interesting for dinner but found that the hotel café was problem the pick tonight. With a light dinner we found ourselves retiring early once again.

01-02-17

Blitar to Trenggalek

https://www.strava.com/activities/855564432

We had the option of toast for breakfast again, so we took that opportunity, clutching our vegemite ready to go. There were glancing looks of consternation as it arrived however, it had strawberry jam on it. Ok, we could deal with strawberry jam, but, the mountain of shredded cheese on top? Holy mackerel. I suppose you could say that it was “cheese on toast”, a bit of the old welsh rarebit, but no, this was just wrong on so many levels. We ate it though, of course.

The previous evening, we had trouble getting money out of an atm. We were running low on Rupiah, and had to sort it out before we left town. We found an atm next to an actual bank and it still didn’t work. So I went into the bank, to see if I could find someone to help. There was so much help on offer, a concierge who could speak English directed me to a staff member who could help me. The security guard had me jump the cue, and I was next in line. The young lady helped, but eventually she suggested we try a different atm at another bank at the rear. Either that or we were going to have to call ANZ in Oz and see what was going on. We were worried our cards had been cancelled. Meanwhile, I found out that they had a currency exchange available and we changed some aussie dollars just in case. Mary was out in the car park looking after the bikes and while all this was going on inside she had a lady on a bicycle approach her who sold her 2 muffins from her baking basket, had photos taken with the car park security guard and had more than half a dozen people stop and check out the bikes. Never a dull moment hanging out with two fat bikes. We went to the next bank along and tried there, and yep, it worked. So at least the cards weren’t cancelled.

Cashed up, we rode on. It was a nice flat ride, through villages and open farming land. About halfway we arrived in a fairly large town looking for a lunch option. We stopped in front of what looked like a nice traditional coffee shop. There was nice music playing. The owner spotted us and came out and invited us in. He sat us down and coffee was ordered. It turns out that there was a karaoke session on, and the joint was jumping. Everyone was trying to get us to sing, but we were trying to explain that they really didn’t want us to. Ok, if you not sing sir, you must dance. And we were dragged up to dance, as this was the last song before call to prayer at noon, and no-one is allowed to have any fun at that time. So dance we did, tried to pay for our coffee, but no, this one is a gift, thank you. Lots of photos and videos were taken of the crazy Australians dancing in their cycling shoes. It was the most ridiculous, but most fun thing ever, totally hilarious. The song finished and we were ushered out the door, goodbye sir. No lunch for us. Our usefulness exhausted. Back on the bikes, we just couldn’t stop laughing. We never did get lunch but we did enjoy the freshly baked muffins that Mary purchased from the lovely lady on a bicycle early.

As we continued on getting closer to our destination we could see dark heavy clouds approaching. They were moving quite slowly and we were hoping they would stay away long enough for us to ride our last 5k’s. We started to get just light rain and then before too long it was becoming quite heavy, so we ducked for cover. We found a shop that had a veranda so stood under there and saying hello to the lovely young girl working in the shop. She didn’t speak English so smiles and a little laughter were exchanged. Before too long an older lady appeared and she brought us out two stools to sit on. Then she offered us a tasting of these round ball things which were a dried fruit with puffed rice in them we think. They were really tasty. Not knowing what anything really was in the shop and thinking we should buy something while we waited for the rain to stop we ended up just grabbing a soft drink. With that in hand the old lady then offered us a tasting of this really weird looking large crisp bread. We have no idea what this was, not even a guess but it tasted ok. There was a little conversation trying to happen but we had no clue what was being said when Dave said something about papaya and the old lady started laughing her head off. She then went out the back and told someone else the conversation and she too came out laughing. Happy to share the jokes even if it’s on us.

Finally, time to head off as the rain was easing, we headed into the town of Trenggalek, spotted a hotel and rode in to check it out. We were met by a lovely girl at reception, organised our room and were shown the way by two sweet girls. So tonight we had a lovely bedroom, but no hot shower. Actually no shower at all just the traditional tub that’s filled with water and a dipper to use to wash yourself with. The whole hotel seemed really quiet and when we went to have dinner in the restaurant we were the only one’s dining. The staff were amazing, so polite and professional and very courteous. It felt like we were dining somewhere really posh as there were so many staff on hand and one waitress stood back from our table with one hand behind her back and was on call if we needed anything while we dined. The meal was really lovely and set us up for a good night’s sleep.

02-02-17

Trenggalek to Panggul

https://www.strava.com/activities/855564462

We had a good solid sleep, it was a lovely quiet place to stay. Breakfast was really good in the restaurant, with omelette, toast and good java coffee. This really helped set us up for a big day on the bikes.

The first 12 km’s was pretty flat and cruisy, but the light rain didn’t give up. Then the mountain climbing began. It was beautiful, the valley, the terraces, the jungle. We only had 50ks to go today, but we knew there were some hills, we just didn’t have any idea how many or how high. The climb started steadily, no big deal, but as we went forward, the grade kept increasing. It went up and up. There were several false peaks, wishful thinking perhaps, but it just kept going up. There were several steep pitches that we had to walk, and even those were hard to push up. The climb topped out at about the 22k mark and around 800metres. Our accommodation last night was at about 25metres.

We had a nice descent after that down to around 450metres, still raining though. We were seriously wet by now, but had to keep going. Then the rolling hills started, we kept going for the next ten k’s varying between 450 and 550metres all with really hard grades, we were getting really tired, and did I mention the rain?  Finally, we found the last crest and plunged down a beautiful but potholed road down to the valley floor below and our destination, Panggul. It was still raining lightly.

As we rode the valley floor, we stopped to take some photos of the terraces. A little further on, we noticed a group of young boys, fishing in the rice paddy channels alongside the road. They were after Eel. It was a very nice seen, and they were having a great time.

We found a place in town for a much needed coffee while we collected our thoughts. There was only one accommodation option in town, the Hotel Ratu. So we headed that way. They had a room ok, and the price was just ok, no breakfast, no wifi, no hot water, and the room was pretty ordinary. Oh well, we have had worse. Actually, on discovery of the soggy cigarette butts placed up on the top of the wall tiles we decided that we hadn’t had worse. We weren’t sure if they had been put up there to dry for later use.

03-02-17

Panggul to Pacitan

https://www.strava.com/activities/855564462

Well we couldn’t get out of this hotel quick enough. I am officially renaming the Hotel Ratu, the “Soggy Ciggy Butt Hotel”. Say no more.

We went to the local Indomart and found a half loaf of wholemeal bread, what a surprise, so we bought a jar of peanut butter and that was breakfast with a coffee from a warung up the road.

Straight out of town the climbing started again. We knew this was going to be a tough day.  They weren’t long ups, but they were steep, we often had to get off and push. When the rain started, and we had only completed a bit over ten ks in an hour and a half, we were starting to think that we wouldn’t make it to Pacitan. We had made unconfirmed arrangements to get picked up and taken to our resort at 3pm. The rain got even heavier. There was no 3G connection all the way, so we didn’t know if it had been confirmed.

We pushed on, but thought that maybe if we flagged down an empty truck, we could get a lift. We had a quick break at a small village and got a drink and an icecream. This was half way roughly and it had taken us four hours to travel 28k’s. We were a bit down about it. We asked the guy who served us at the warung if he knew of someone with a truck. He didn’t understand but we thought that he was saying that after the next hill, it was all flat. That gave us some hope, so we pushed on. We only had to do 30k’s in three hours for goodness sake. The rain got heavier.

After the fourth hill, we actually weren’t going too bad. And then miraculously, we topped out on the last hill and then the last ten k’s into Pacitan was a beautiful easy descent into town along a really cool river valley. We got there at 2:30pm and messaged our resort that we had arrived and where we would wait for pick up. We had a sinking feeling that the messages weren’t getting through. We had a cold drink and something to eat and waited, still no response.

We decided that we would wait until 4pm and if we hadn’t got a response by then, we would have to start looking for somewhere else to stay. At 4:15, we got on the bikes and headed off to a nearby hotel in the city. That wasn’t a problem and we got settled and cleaned up, and dry. We sat down in the hotel lobby using the wifi, it was about 6pm when we noticed a local guy outside talking to a security guard about our bikes and he came in side. “Are you Mr David and Mrs Mary? We’ve been looking for you”.

Our first thought was, how on earth did you find us? All of a sudden, four emails arrived on my phone. It turns out that they had a power outage today and had no internet all day, and were a bit distraught that they hadn’t been able to communicate with us. Obviously we had already checked in at this hotel, so we arranged for the driver to pick us and our bikes up the next morning at 10am and we would still stay out at IstanaOmbak. We sent off an email to the resort to explain and make sure that the driver didn’t get into strife. The poor guy had checked every hotel in town looking for us, following a trail of sightings by locals along the way.

We still haven’t seen another touring cyclist on the whole trip, so we are very unusual around here. We found a nice little warung just down the road from our hotel and had a really nice dinner followed by a coffee in an interesting little coffee shop on the way back.

04-02-17 to 07-02-17

Our stay at IstanaOmbak

https://www.strava.com/activities/855564483

Our driver met us at the hotel, spot on at 10am. He loaded our bikes and gear into the back of his truck, we climbed into the front and were on our way. He only spoke a little bit of English so the drive was pretty quiet, but really enjoyable as we just sat back and enjoyed the scenery. We came to a lookout area, an old Japanese bunker where our driver stopped so we could take photos. The view was amazing, you could see the whole valley floor with the town of Pacitan, the river that flowed through the valley, and the river mouth right out to the sea. It was so thoughtful of our driver to stop and show us the view from this vantage point.

Turning off the main highway three, we then headed through the jungle and small villages on this tiny winding mountain road in the pouring rain. It was very steep, both up and down, and the road seemed to be one continuous pot hole. It was lucky our driver knew the road well. We had to keep the windows down for two reasons, one, it just got too hot and the windscreen would mist up, bad idea. Two, my head was banging against it as we plunged through the pot holes. Getting wet on one side was a far preferable option.

We finally arrived in a sleepy little village on the coast and into our accommodation, IstanaOmbak Surf Resort. Now this is a cool place, yes, it was going to blow our budget, but we really needed a few days R&R. The beach is a white sand beach, and regarded as a pro quality left and right hand break. Many pro surfers come here, and Rod, the Aussie owner is a former surf pro himself. This however, is the low season, and we were the only two guests, awesome.

Rod and his partner Dewi are awesome. They really looked after us, the food was great. Plenty of Bintang on ice at all times, lots of other drink options including Mary’s favourite fresh juices. The weather wasn’t the greatest for our stay, but we knew that was likely. But it did change often, and if it was windy, you could just walk over the headland and drop onto a beach the other side and out of the wind.

The rooms were great, classic thatch roofed beach bungalows, with lots of options for couples, families and groups of friends. Rod has done a great job designing the place, the communal areas and bar are an awesome and comfortable place to chill out and ask too many questions. There is also a great infinity pool that overlooks the beach. And, the work is ongoing.

We stayed here three nights. We did some minor activities, went for a ride along the river and over to some other beaches about five k’s away, walked the beach and through the village, had an awesome massage, ate, drank and slept.

We would thoroughly recommend staying here, and is easily accessible by flying in to Yogyakarta, Rod arranges pick ups if you give him enough notice. 

K2K, Java, Week 1

K2K, JAVA, Week 1

12:01 am 24-01-17 Kawah-Ijen Trek

https://www.strava.com/activities/944094281

Midnight alarms are hard. After very little sleep, we dragged ourselves out of bed and got ready to leave. We made a quick coffee, and didn’t really get the time to drink it. Our guide, Aruel and driver had arrived to collect us. So we were bundled into the back seat of a Triton Ute and off we went, through the jungle, and up to the base of Mount Ijen. This took about one and a half hours in the vehicle.

The walk to the crater rim was quite steep, but on a well made path. It’s a popular trek, and there were others on the path, mostly local Javanese and a few from other countries.

Also, there were the sulphur miners, heading up with their trolleys to get another load of newly formed sulphur from the volcanic vents at the base of the crater. They then carry the sulphur blocks in around seventy kilogram loads, in two woven baskets and a spreader pole of bamboo to go over the shoulder. Then it’s up the very steep technical path, to the crater rim. Here they load the sulphur onto their little trolleys with a drum brake on it, and guide them down the hill to the road. The round trip is twelve kilometres with heaps of climbing. They are often wearing thongs as footwear for the climb. These guys are super human. It’s not for us, to view this as an unworthy career. In western terms they are paid a pittance for the sulphur. But these guys have made a decision to take the hard path, in order to provide for their families. And perhaps more than they can earn from other means, otherwise they wouldn’t do it.

We continued on our path up to the crater rim, our legs felt good. The rim tops out at around 2400 metres. We had to put our gas masks on from here, as the sulphurous smoke from the volcano swirled around us. The path into the crater is quite hard from here. A loosely made scramble of rocks and volcanic ash, mixed with occasional light rain made for some slippery spots, especially as it was pitch dark. When nearing the bottom, we were seeing glimpses of the blue fire. This occurs as gases escape from vents that instantaneously combust on contact with the open air. This creates a swirling blue flame as the gas burns off and it is quite spectacular. This was mixed with the scene of the miners, working right into the vents, collecting the liquid sulphur as it comes out and starts to solidify. It reminded me of a childhood scene from the Brewery Christmas display at the Torrens river near Adelaide. It was a figure of a man hammering away on an anvil inside a volcano, making thunderous noises. This was very real however.

We tried to get some photos, but the smoke often thwarted us. A little later the sky began to lighten and we could start to see the crater rim above us, outlined against the sky, and the acid lake below us.

Once the sky became light, the blue flames disappeared, so we headed down closer to the lake for some photos before starting the long climb back up, always getting out of the way of the miners and their loads as they make their ascent on the same path.

Once we got back up over the rim with Aruel, we could begin to see the countryside around us. Magnificent views of the surrounding peaks, all volcanoes themselves, towering above the jungles below, intermixed with the occasional coffee plantation. Hmmm, coffee. Time to head down the mountain. We strolled down, it was a really enjoyable walk, such great views, but we both had a little knee pain afterwards from the descent. Once again, it’s the going down that hurts.

Back at the bottom, and into the car, it was time to visit a nice waterfall on the way back which was cool. Once the guys dropped us back to our accommodation, we said our thankyous and goodbyes and were delighted to find that breakfast was on its way. And of course, some great Java coffee. This was about 9:30am.

We spent the rest of the day in a daze between sleep and being awake. Chilling out. Unfortunately, Mary had a pretty bad headache for twenty four hours afterwards, probably the sulphur fumes.

We surfaced around 5pm and ordered a takeaway pizza, smashed that and went straight back to bed and slept right through the night, until 3:30am.  The call for prayer started up, on three sides, from three different mosques quite close by. All different and competing with each other in a cacophony of noise, lacking any tone whatsoever.

Believe it or not Banyuwangi has a major UCI cycling event held every September. It is a 600km road race called ‘Tour De Banyuwangi’. And the last stage is up the mountain road to the base of Mt Ijen. How punishing would that climb be?  We thought about riding that road until we were in a vehicle and drove it, and were pretty happy it was only a thought. It is so steep in sections that even the vehicles sometimes have problems getting up it.  When we drove up there, a van in front of us had to stop, unload the passengers to make it lighter to get up the tough pinches. So now we are on the look out for a Tour De Banyuwangi cycling shirt. 

25-01-17

Banyuwangi to Banyuputih

https://www.strava.com/activities/855564243

At breakfast we met a lovely elderly lady, Ellen, who was also staying at the homestay and she was Indonesian but lives in Holland. She had many great stories to tell us. She was here in Banyuwangi to visit her children and grandchildren. She walked with a walking stick as she had a skiing fall recently and hurt her leg. She was sure it wouldn’t stop her getting on a motor bike later in the day to tour around the village. She was very proud of turning 80 this year. We really enjoyed listening to her life stories while sharing breakfast with her which then led to us leaving a little later than planned.

After saying our goodbyes and having photos taken by our hosts, we were back on the same road as we travelled in on, as we decided with consultation with our guide Aruel to head on up the north side to Mt Bromo, instead of tackling it from the south side. So we had to go back 11km’s to the port area where we started from. We took a short cut that ended up being 3k’s longer but at least it was in the right direction. Here we could see Bali across the straight once again.

It was a really enjoyable ride following the coast most of the way. We were only about 5km’s away from our next homestay in Banyuputih when the rain started. It totally bucketed down, so we took shelter under the veranda of a small shop. Here we waited for it to ease, and once it lightened off we jumped back on the bikes. After only a short few k’s it dropped its bundle once again, this time even heavier. We could see a group of people and motorbikes sheltering under a small roofed area so decided to join them. Here we waited it out for another good half hour. While waiting we were trying to scope out a place to stay. We found a cheap, hostel style place on Airbnb that was only a few k’s up the road. We decided to go with that, as the rain didn’t look like it was going to let up. Finally, it was light enough to ride in, but the road was just a stream with deep puddles and pot holes full of running water. We decided to go for it.

Within a few minutes the rain got really heavy again, it was a real fight with the traffic, everyone trying to avoid the puddles. This practice is really important as there are a lot of really large potholes, so if you can’t see the road surface through the water, you mustn’t ride through it or it will get ugly really quick.

We arrived at the turn off and finished the last kilometre to our homestay, just across the road from a national park. We met the ladies and gentleman who run the homestay and a very little, attached Warung. They weren’t expecting us, but that was ok, they showed us into a room, and after we had a shower, they brought us coffee and fried banana. It was great.

We were getting a bit suspicious about the payment for the room. To cut a long story short, the owners son, who set up the Airbnb account, didn’t tell his parents. It took a lot of phone calls and messaging to sort it out. Mummy was not impressed with her son.

Meanwhile a nice French couple, John and Anna, checked in as well and we chatted with them for a while and decided to find some dinner together. Then the rain started again, the owner’s warung was closed. We tried to get the old fella to understand that we wanted to find a close warung, so he rang up his wife and got her to come back (she had gone out) and open the warung to make us dinner. This really wasn’t what we wanted, but by the time we understood what had happened we didn’t have a choice, without seeming like horrible people.

Then we had to explain that Mary was vegetarian and once she understood that, she took me out into the kitchen to show me a pot of what turned out to be beef stew. The rest of us had a choice, beef stew and rice, or nothing. We agreed that we would try it. I have no idea what it was called, but despite the little chunks of beef being very chewy, it was ok. It did have flavour. Mary ended up with rice and a few leftover bits of fried tofu and some peanuts. At least the company was awesome.

26-01-17

Banyuputih to Situbondo

https://www.strava.com/activities/855564270

We woke up early, had a cup of coffee and got out of here as quick as possible. We skipped breakfast, as we thought that we would stop early to get some somewhere else. But straight away, the road started heading up through the National park, climbing all the way. It turned out that there were no warungs for the first thirty kilometres or so, and the first twelve of that was all up, not steep, but enough to make you work for it. We had to stop and help a guy who had come off his motorbike with a big load of grass on the back. I helped him unload it and get his bike upright again, he was ok. It was only after heading off, that I realised he had got his load of goat fodder from in the national park, this seems quite normal. The ride up this long hill was beautiful, riding with the national park on both sides of us. The traffic was busy but very friendly with lots of waves, smiles, laughter, hello’s and thumbs up from the passing traffic. We pulled over at one point for a drink stop and a lovely old guy on a motor bike travelling the other way did a u turn and came up to us to have a chat. He didn’t know much English but we chatted anyway. We did however find out that there was more climbing to be done and he was spot on with that one. There were lots of monkeys on the side of the road with lots of really cute little babies hanging on to their mothers for dear life.

By the time we found somewhere to eat it was just an Indomart, Indonesia’s answer to 7eleven. We just got a packet of biscuits, and a lemonade and sat on the front steps and smashed them. Not very healthy, but calories were needed quick. We headed on and finally came into the big smoke, Situbondo. The road diverts around a big central market, where Mary found a stall selling trimmed pineapples. She had to wake up the store keeper who was having a little nap in order to buy one.  We then sat in the gutter and ate the delicious juicy pineapple while working out somewhere to stay. This was proving difficult, but it was only lunchtime, we had plenty of time to find something. We did the lap around the market, and found a nice café with free wifi, so we could relax, eat some more food and find somewhere to stay. This was a cool place, a bit like a chain store café, probably modelled on a starbucks or something, but the coffee was really good.

We found that there was a hotel about two k’s further down the road so we went there to see what the rates were like. It was within our budget, so we got the room and headed for the cold shower.

We got chatting with a lovely Indonesian couple who live in Sydney who had come back to Java to sell their family property. Alex was a very kind man whose auntie owned the motel. He ordered us coffee and sat with us and chatted for over an hour. Naomi, his wife was a really lovely lady too and we had some good conversations with them both. We had an early dinner in the restaurant and then headed back to our room for a good night’s sleep.

27-01-17

Situbondo to Banyuglugur

https://www.strava.com/activities/855564279

Our room rate included breakfast in the restaurant and we were lucky that the waiter offered us a western breakfast of toast and jam plus an omelette. When ordering coffee in Java, you do need to ask for no sugar, as it regularly comes potent with sugar. We enjoyed our breakfast, the bikes were all ready to go, so we pushed them up through the foyer and outside into the car park. Here we met Alex and Naomi who both wished us safe travels and waved us goodbye.

Yesterday we had the great joy of a head wind and today it decided to continue and blow right into us. We rode again following the coast road which was a really nice ride but again very busy traffic. The traffic now seems to be busy and a little more crazy, but we still feel safe out there and everyone just goes around us. The large buses however have a different set of rules. They don’t like to slow down, they bulldoze their way through the traffic and only give you the bare minimum of room as they pass. As we approached one very large town, the traffic was chaotic. The local passenger bus frequently stopping to drop off passengers via the back door and picking up new passengers via the front. The conductor, I suppose that’s what you would call him, often let people off as the bus was still moving. He smiled and laughed each time we caught up with him. We are now seeing more and more bike passenger carts, we think they are called becak/pedi-cabs, many taking a full load of kids off to school. Push bikes are increasing too with many being ridden by old guys heading off to the rice fields and some even being ridden with loads of freshly cut grass on them heading back to feed their livestock.

We approached our accommodation for the night, a petrol station!! This was a really new complex that caters for the masses travelling by motorcar and buses from Jakarta to Bali and vise versa. There are two cafes, a large two story rest area, a supermarket, fuel pumps, a restaurant and brand new rooms down the back. Our budget room was clean and tidy but only had cold water. You have to pay extra for rooms with hot water, so we are making do with the cold showers for now. After a refreshing rinse and scrub we headed outside to go for a walk and look around. We tried to get down to the beach to check it out, but there was a lot of building going on and we couldn’t get through. As we started to walk back up towards the main road, two motorbikes with 5 kids rode through the premises. They were laughing and carrying on, looking a bit like they were up to no good. They too couldn’t get down to the beach, and rode up to us, stopped their bikes, introduced themselves, shook hands with us, and wanted a ‘portrait’ taken with themselves standing next to us all in good fun. They were not much older than about 12 years old and were so excited getting a photo taken and chatting with us, they rode off with shouts of joy.

We continued on our walk up to the main road and ventured out on foot. It was a totally different feeling walking this main highway on foot. Even though we walked on the side of the road we really felt that it was a lot safer out here on a bike. We got lots of hello’s, waves and smiles from school kids waiting for their bus, from little kids playing in their front yards and from lovely families hanging out on their front porches watching us as we walked past. We really must look very different, as even walking we created a lot of attention.

We had an early dinner in one of the cafes at the complex and headed off to bed early once again.

28-01-17

Banyuglugur to Probolingo

https://www.strava.com/activities/855564297

Despite the location of the hotel, it turned out to be nice and quiet, a good sleep was had. We loaded the bikes and rode over to the Resto for breakfast. The choice was rice, noodles, omelette, tempeh and coffee. We do have to get use to this style of breakfast, and despite feeling quite foreign to us, I think we actually do ok on it.

The ride was quite uneventful today, we had a little climbing to do around a big coal burning power station early on, but after that it was quite flat. Regular villages, with lots of rice and vegetable fields in between. The rural scenes were nice, especially when we got glimpses of the mountains in the hinterland.

We had the usual interaction with the locals as we rode, including two security guards from the power station, who chased after us in their car to get photos. Pretty funny.

As we came into Probolingo, we realised that this was a much bigger city than we had thought. We are noticing that the old main streets in these larger towns are very green, with lots of overhanging trees, which really improves them. I wonder if this is a legacy from Dutch colonialism?

We started to look for a café, so that we could sit down and have some lunch with wifi, so that we could check out the accommodation options. We ended up at a café called DC19 that was very friendly. They had the music pumping, a cool fat bike parking attendant, and very enthusiastic staff to help us out with the wifi, food and coffee choices. You know, prior to our trip, several people have tried to give us a bad impression of Java, especially the people. But we have had nothing but the most friendly, helpful and genuinely happy people interact with us. I think it’s all about what we bring as visitors to other countries, a smile, a willingness to try and take the time to communicate, and being prepared to laugh when it goes wrong. We love Java.

We found a couple of homestays for around 150000, $15aud, that had availability, but one reviewer mentioned that there were several close hotels that offered better value for just a few dollars more. So we headed off for the last few kilometres to check out the options. When nearing our homestay location we noticed a quite flash hotel and thought, what the hell, let’s find out the price. So we went in and asked, we could get their budget room for $25, this included breakfast, but cold shower. It looked nice though, so I went back out to ask Mary what she thought and we decided that we would go with this one.

When we walked back in, the nice guy said that he could do us a special price of $15. We hadn’t tried to negotiate, but we readily agreed. This rate still included brekky. So he took us off to our room, we passed all the nice rooms, into a dark passageway and to a tiny little room. Don’t get me wrong, this was probably still better than the homestay, perhaps, but it was cheap. We only found out how cheap later on when Mary used the hand basin, only to find her feet getting wet. Haahaa, the plumbing wasn’t exactly connected underneath. We need to remember to ask to see the room before we say yes.

29-01-17

Probolingo to Cemoru Lawang

https://www.strava.com/activities/855564312

We knew we had a massive day ahead. It didn’t help that we slept terribly. Probably had something to do with going to bed too early, but once 3am call to prayer woke us up, that was it, no more sleep.

The day ahead was not a problem for distance, we had about thirty eight k’s to do. The problem was the climb. Our hotel was only a smidge above sea level, eighteen metres according to the garmin. Tonight’s stay was above two thousand two hundred metres. We had heard of people who had made it up by bike, but not many. Most touring cyclists, and there are not many of them, just rent a jeep and get them to take them up. We weren’t prepared to admit defeat from the bottom however, so we resolved to see how far we could get, we knew that bail out options were available.

We went to breakfast early. The normal fare, but I was starting to worry as Mary wasn’t able to tolerate the offerings this morning, she did eat, but certainly didn’t enjoy it. Even worse, the coffee was terrible. Luckily, we had some nice fruit that we had bought the day before, see how we go.

We got a few k’s up the road, and ran into the Sunday morning market. It was wall to wall, Motorbikes, Bicycles, Becak’s, Goats, Chickens, you name it. This was a road two minutes earlier. It was a lot of fun though. We eventually made it through, and made good time for a while, the road was going up but only about one to two percent. The grade slowly started to change, we were getting kickers at about fifteen percent, but then we would get a rest at five percent. We could do this climb, if it continued like this. We got another five k’s done, but now the road was going up continuously at fifteen percent, with occasional breaks around ten. We just couldn’t keep going, despite a few rests and a couple of “hike a bikes”. Seriously, we have never, ever, sweated like this in our lives. We spotted a guy with an empty light truck, and he knew. He knew, he had spotted us. 200,000 rupiah later, Larry and Priscilla, were in the back of the truck, Mary and Dave in the front, and off we all went. It was only after a little while, that Mary looked through the back window to make sure that the bikes were ok, that we realised that the truck driver’s three kids had also jumped in the back. Why not have a free trip up to Bromo, while the crazy fat bikers are paying. Cool by us, and they were really nice kids too.

If anything, the road got steeper, we looked at each other and knew that we had made the right decision. We felt bad about it, but we had to get over it.

The views on the way up were great, not of the crater rim so much, that was shrouded in cloud and mist, but the homes, the rice terraces, the cabbage plots on the side of mountains. It is seriously beautiful and dramatic.

By the time we got to the top, we were shivering in our sweat soaked clothes. It was genuinely cold at the top. We found a warung and got a nice hot coffee while we worked out where we would stay. A funny old guy came in and just started giving me a shoulder massage, 10000 ok? Oh why not. He was really good though, sorted out a few knobbly bits and then started on Mary, 20000 now, ok? It was pretty funny. But the best massage I’ve ever had for $1.

By the time we organised our accommodation, the rain had started. Our room was really nice, and we had a hot shower, sort of.

We were not going to get a good view this afternoon, it was bucketing down, so we headed to the hotel restaurant and had some hot chips and a cold beer for me (finally) and Mary a coffee. We made the mistake of sitting by the window. This guy outside was trying to sell us beanies, because it was cold. He would hide behind a column and the beanie turned into a puppet and popped out from behind the column with a voice saying “Brrrrrrr, Beanie sir?” It went on and on and on. It felt like I was in a Doctor Who episode, where if I closed my eyes, this guy was going to appear alongside me and say “Brrrrrr, Beanie Sir?” before turning me to stone.

The rain didn’t stop for the rest of the afternoon, so we just stayed put in the restaurant until dinner time, had an early meal and then off to bed. An exciting day of riding is planned for tomorrow.

30-01-17

Cemoru Lawang to Malang

https://www.strava.com/activities/855564373

We woke slowly to the continuing sound of light rain on the roof. We weren’t sure if it would clear,
but decided to get up, have breakfast and see what it looked like by then. We really wanted clear conditions for the crossing of the Tengger Crater, not for our comfort, but for the views. Breakfast was really good, we actually had toast available, so a mad dash back to our room was required, to get our one tube of vegemite. So Good.

As breakfast went on, the rain stopped. The cloud was still really low, well, we were at 2200metres, so that happens. We decided to go for it. We got our bikes loaded and headed for the National Park boomgate. Well, it turns out that the entrance ticket we bought on the way up yesterday doesn’t actually get us into the Park, just the village lookout, that we never went to because it was bucketing down. They wanted 220,000 rupiah each for us to enter. This was a lot, especially as we weren’t expecting it. We felt like we were being ripped off, so I went back and discussed it with the owner of the hotel we stayed at last night. She said that the amount was correct, but a lot of visitors have been complaining about it, since the government put the price up recently. Locals only had to pay 7500 rupiah. I was a bit annoyed about it, as there had been no mention of it before we got there. We had researched quite a lot, including the official website. We were stuck. The alternative was to go back down the mountain to Probolingo, and around to Malang, but that would add about 100ks on. Also, we had no intention of climbing Bromo, one, we didn’t have time and, two, we suspected it was enshrouded in cloud.

Our normal attitude is that we don’t want to be the sort of traveller who haggles the price for everything. We either pay a fair asking price, or walk away. But in this instance we had to negotiate a better outcome, all we wanted to do was ride across the park and out the other side. I went to chat with the guy, finally with much discussion with the ten other attendants that do nothing but advise the ticket guy, we agreed that if we bought one ticket and just rode across without climbing Bromo, that would be fine. Phew, still expensive, but it was much better than twice that. Imagine if in Australia, we charged twenty times the normal price for a foreigner to enter our National Parks, imagine the outrage.

Rant for the day, over.

The boom gate lifted and we went on our way. We got our first view of the inside of the crater. It was amazing. We couldn’t see the internal volcanos, as they were covered in cloud down to about two hundred metres above the crater floor. We descended the access track, a drop of about 200metres, and rolled out onto the “Sand Sea”. The sand, is really volcanic ash, it was quite compact due to the wet weather. We pedalled across it quite easily. There were quite a few tour four wheel drives taking people to and from the base of Mt Bromo. I don’t know if anyone was doing the climb, you wouldn’t have been able to see anything if you did. But the crater floor, was amazing. You could see the rim, all the way around, but not the top of it. The scale is massive, on reaching the other side we measured it as ten kilometres from rim to rim, not in a straight line, but the path we had travelled. We had to ride for a few minutes through the sulphur smoke from the Bromo crater, it wasn’t as strong as when we were at Ijen, but it turned the whole landscape quite surreal. There were several water courses to negotiate and towards the far side, quite a lot of mud that had been stirred up by the four wheelers.

We stopped for lots of photos, and some video, hopefully we captured it.

The way out over the crater rim was much higher on the way out than in. A very narrow, but newly sealed road, negotiated its way up and over the rim. By the time we got half way up, we were riding/pushing through thick fog once again. As we crested the rim, we put jackets back on and began the long descent towards Malang. This was going to be a fun ride too.  Luckily the National Parks guys at this end didn’t ask to see our one ticket, instead, one of them helped Mary push her bike up the last nasty pinch. They checked that we knew where we were going and sent us on our way with smiles and waves.

The way down was steep, we had heard that the road surface was really bad, but at this stage it had been newly sealed. The ridge we were descending on was a knife’s edge, it was lucky we were in thick fog, or it might’ve been really scary. We just got hints of the massive drops on both sides of us. The brakes were copping a really hard time. At one stage about five k’s down, I noticed Mary’s rear brake totally smoking. I got her to stop and we both let the brakes cool for a while. The scenery, though still foggy in places, was magnificent. A small village nestled on a razor back ridge with vegetable gardens that you could almost call vertical. Once again, the people were very friendly and genuinely pleased to see us passing through. About ten k’s down we found a cool little warung, clinging to the side of the ridge and decide to stop and have a coffee. It was warmer here now, and we could get rid of some layers.

From here on the road surface degraded to the previously rumoured cobble stones. The slope however, didn’t let up.  This was going to get tough. Our hands were struggling from the constant brake pressure, and the bumps were getting even bigger. We had to negotiate around a lot of bike swallowing pot holes, but because we had to slow the pace down a lot, the brakes were staying cooler. I thought that the opposite would happen. Eventually the grade lessened, the road surface improved, and we were free wheeling on towards Malang. Naturally, the traffic volumes picked up.

We stopped at a nice looking Warung for lunch. They were really nice, but had no vegetarian options. We were about to leave, when a nice young guy who could speak English introduced himself and suggested that he could have a fruit salad made if we liked, we readily agreed. The salad came out, but it was topped with mayonnaise and grated cheese. WTF. But, surprisingly it was really nice.

We twisted and turned through the streets of Malang, our homestay was near the city centre (Kota Malang). What a beautiful and well kept city this is. We loved it, it had a real cosmopolitan feel to it. Lots of nice coffee shops, bakeries, etc, so we just had to stop and try one. It was really good, the first cake we have had on the trip.

A little further on, and down a back lane, Google maps was convinced that we had arrived at our homestay. Not according to this old lady who came out and told us that we had to go down another lane, turn right, turn left, go down, turn left again, and that’s the place. I was sceptical, how did this lady know where we were staying, we were in the middle of a city of five million people. I showed her the name of the place on my phone. Yep, that’s where to go, all in Bahasa of course. So, off we went, and then a kid came past on a motorbike and she told him to take us there. OK, seriously, the young kid took us straight to the front gate, but it was over a kilometre further on, how did she know? I still don’t get it. Strange forces at work.

The homestay, hosted by a lovely lady by the name of Yhosie, is awesome. A traditional home, with our own room out the back and very welcoming. Yhosie’s Dad was very interested in us, and explained that one of his passions is antique bikes. He rides a 1945 Japanese military bike, left behind by them after the war, which then became an Indonesian Police bike, before he acquired it. I asked him if I could take some photos in the morning, I can’t wait.

It’s pouring rain again now, it looks like we might go hungry if it doesn’t let up soon, Goodnight.