Surabaya yaya (Day 2)

Day 2 here started off really early. We woke up 2 in the morning by the guide. It was raining a little bit and freezing as well. We brought along cameras, masks, torchlight, water for drink and other essential stuff. It was really dark and a lot of people are hiking earlier than us already. The entrance for the hiking will costs Rp75.000. It's a local rate, since we are Malaysian and we does look like Indonesia and able to converse in their language so the guide bought local rate ticket. For the guide it will cost you Rp200.000. If I'm not mistaken the rate for non-local is Rp100.000 to Rp150.000, between that range. You can purchase the ticket at the entrance before hiking up.

The trail is quite challenging for me, especially we've never hike in cold weather before. So it's good for you to train yourself before come here. Wear good and comfortable shoes if possible because it took almost three hours for us to reach at Ijen crater. We reached there around five o'clock. We were able to witness the famous blue fire crater. Along the track we also can see the workers are already moving sulfurs up and down of the mountain. How dedicated are they.

As soon as the sun goes up, we could see there is a huge blue-ish lake formed by the dam which was built by Dutch long time ago. Huge smokes coming out from the ground also can be seen there. Those were sulfur in gas form. So it's better to be careful not to inhale the gas. You can buy the gas mask around the crater and at the market before hiking up.

We went down the mountain after awhile. When the sun is up you can see the surrounding, how beautiful god had made this earth. There's also a crafting shop on the mountain selling merchandise made out of sulfur. Oh! Surprisingly there were cats on the mountain as well!

As we made it down, we immediately went for breakfast at nearby stall. Nasi soto here is different then Malaysian nasi soto. We had rest and cold shower there. We left Paltuding at 0900 hours to move to our next destination, Bromo. Along the journey there was Kamar Mandi or bathroom somewhere nearby port. It's not pretty but good enough for the guys who didn't bath for two days because of cold up in the mountain. Had lunch there as well.

We reached Bromo around 5.30pm, it was almost dark. Luckily there was a place to stay for a night. Pak Ako brought us to his brother's friend for accommodation together with tour package. The place is called Wisma Celinna (Coordinate 7°55'22.8"S 113°00'01.9"E) The accommodation costs Rp1.000.000. It has 4 rooms en suite bathroom. For the tour we paid Rp600.000 which covers jeep with driver, sunrise over mount Bromo, mount Bromo itself, teletubbies hill and whispering hill.

We had a dinner at nearby restaurant then sleep until two in the morning...

To be continued...