Indonesia - Java - Mount Bromo

Sunrise over Java

The next day we caught a plane across to eastern Java to the city of Surabaya, arriving late we decided to stay near the bus station and move on the next day. We then got up early and caught the bus to Probolinggo where we could get a connecting minibus to the active volcano called Mount Bromo. Luckily for us we found a group of tourists who in true Indonesian style had already been waiting 3 hours for their minibus to fill up...and with our arrival it was deemed full enough to leave! It was a slightly bumpy ride but 2 hours later we arrived in the village at the base of Mount Bromo. The highlight of going to the volcano is watching the sun rise and in order to do so you have to get up at 3am and take a jeep up to a view point. The view certainly didn’t disappoint and despite admiring it with a few hundred other people it was definitely worth the mission across Java and the early start to see it. We shared a jeep with a really nice French couple and their son. The father insisted on us being the last to leave the viewpoint, which although making us slightly cold (!) did mean that we got to enjoy the view by ourselves for a bit! We then drove down to the volcano itself (after everyone else) and climbed the steps up the side to see the bubbling interior of the crater below! The volcano is still active and every 20 minutes or so reminds you by letting out a puff of smoke. Tourists visiting Bromo tend to arrive in the afternoon, get up early to see the sunrise and then move on first thing when they return from the volcano. 

Sunrise over Mount Bromo - with a puff of smoke from the crater

Puff of smoke from the volcano behind Bromo

Bromo in the morning was freezing!

We followed suit and made the various connections back to Surabaya which in complete contrast to Jakarta was actually really nice! We even managed to narrowly avoid being scammed on the notoriously bad bus back from Probolinggo. Thanks to Mike’s prior research we were ready when the over helpful man showed us right onto the bus and then asked us to pay him for the ticket. Mike stalled him until the bus was moving and sure enough he hopped straight off and the actual ticket collector came round for our money. A very satisfying Tourist 1 – Scammer 0.