Listen up kids, it's time for more learning. You know that song by Baz Luhrmann, about wearing sunscreen? I have some amendments. Say you forget to put sunscreen on some vital areas (vital areas that enable you to walk, sit, etc etc), swim for the day, and then hire bikes along a rough, island path? It's not going to be an easy ride, is all I'm saying. Still, you're clearly on an island so drink some rum, watch the sunset; there's only so bad island life can be.
Indonesia, for the uninitiated, is entirely made up of islands; big and small, Muslim and Hindu, accessible and inaccessible. I began this stretch of the journey on Java, home of coffee. Jakarta - the capital city - is sprawling, busy and uninteresting, but I hung around to check out some family history. My Oma grew up throughout Indonesia before the war and her brother is still buried here. Public transport being somewhat difficult to navigate, I hired a driver (!) and spent the day cruising around, drinking champagne and walking red carpets. Well, sort of. I visited a grave and fell asleep in the back of the car.
From Jakarta, I travelled in the fanciest train South East Asia could manage (not sarcasm, it was fancy) to Yogyakarta, for a light spot of volcano hiking and temple templeing. This is the home of Borobodur, the biggest Buddhist temple in the world (don't google that - I haven't). It's an impressive site, and I would have spent more time exploring it if we hadn't been set upon by several small hoards of school children intent of practicing their English. Their teacher also popped by to help us practice our tenses, which was kind of him. Nearby Borobodur is Prabanan, where we accidentally tailed a university group for a few hours; it was a day of learning all 'round.
After Borobodur came the first of our volcanoes: Mount Bromo. To visit Bromo it's possible to take public transport most of the way and stop at Cemoro Lawang, a town just perched on the edge of the crater. Personally, I like a town brave enough to hang out that close to an active volcano. Across the sandy desert of the crater sits a temple and then the volcano itself, which sort of looks like it might have been dropped there. Now, this one we didn't actually climb, due to the small matter of it gently erupting a tiny little bit maybe. The best view is from the mountain overlooking the volcano, which can be climbed in around two hours without a guide. Great! I love a 2 a.m. start for a sunrise! Everyone knows how great I am at mornings.
From Bromo, we travelled to Ijen, volcano the second. This one is famous not so much for its volcanoness, but for the large lake that sits in the bottom of the crater (apparently) and the blue flame that spits out next to it. So yeah, this one you really do have to get into. The final ascent is up a fairly steep path, although its easy to follow the other tourists and the sulphur miners who make daily trips into the crater for little money. Towards the top, it's necessary to don a gas mask thanks to the rotton smell and the heavy sulphur fumes in the air. Then begins the climb down, along a relatively well carved set of stairs to the bottom. This trip takes a while, if only because of the number of people moving each direction, in the dark, on a volcano. It's a bizarre feeling, being in a crater before sunrise with roughly 200 other people most of whom are wearing some form of gas mask. If I stumbled across that without any context, I'd probably get over excited and start hunting out Scully and Mulder. The blue flame is impressive, although honestly I missed the lake despite standing right next to it. I did get a piece of sulphur as a souvenir, but the smell didn't go away so I gifted it to Bali.
From Java, I travelled to Bali and the Gili islands, for a few days post volcano rest. You climb two volcanoes overnight and tell me you don't deserve a beach day. The Gili islands are like Bali's older sister; sure, she likes to drink a bit some of the time, but there's no need to be that loud. Or, that's possibly just my older sister. They're three idyllic islands set just off Lombok, where no motorised transport is allowed and apparently it's totally fine to openly advertise mushrooms everywhere (Mum: I have not taken mushrooms, or any other hallucinogens, in Indonesia). It's also perfect for snorkelling, which leads us back to the beginning of the post: I burnt my bum snorkelling and it really hurts. Like, seriously guys. It hurts. I also didn't see the turtle that everyone else did, which I think makes the sunburn even more bitter.
If I get through the next week without sitting in an ice bucket, I'll do my best to update you on the next round of adventures, which should involve dragons.