For travelers to Java, two of the most popular places to visit are Mt. Bromo and Kawah Ijen. While it’s possible to join a tour from Yogyakarta, this is costly and somewhat of a whirlwind. We’ve heard that you spend all day in a van, sleep for a few hours, hike up Bromo for sunrise, get back in the van for another full day of driving, catch a few more z’s, and then once again embark on a difficult hike in the middle of the night. Thankfully, we had a few extra days at our disposal and after a week of studying in Jogja I could speak survival Indonesian. As such, we decided to tackle this epic journey entirely on our own. It wasn’t easy, but it was incredibly rewarding and without a doubt one of the highlights of our trip. For those of you wishing to travel independently to Bromo and Kawah Ijen, here’s how we did it in a three-part series. First up is the epic journey to reach Bromo.

From Jogja, we took an overnight train bound for Malang. Although it’s possible to access Mt. Bromo from Surabaya – which most travelers do in fact do – we opted for Malang so as to take the back route to reach Bromo. This way passes through a stunning savannah and across the “sea of sand” and then you head out the other way towards Probolinggo after your visit. Arriving in Malang at around 4 AM and having barely slept sitting up on a train all night, we were pretty beat. Alas, the journey had to continue. We piled into an angkot (local mini-bus) and headed up to the bus terminal in town. Rubbing the sleep out of our eyes, we noticed that the locals all seemed quite surprised to see a couple of bule (foreigner) backpackers. From there, we had to wait around for a while to take yet another angkot. Thankfully there was some mie goreng and coffee in a little stall to tide us over and wake us up a bit. There was yet another angkot ride, making it three in total, but we still had quite a ways to go to get to our intended destination.

 

There was a guy with a pretty sweet 4×4, but obviously his asking price was a bit high. We decided to sit around, wait it out, and mull it over a bit. Eventually, we agreed on a price and set our bags in the car. Just when we were ready to leave, some other guys offered to take us on their motorbikes for much cheaper. It wasn’t going to be comfortable, but we needed to save the money. We piled our bags on two motorbikes and took off up the hill.

Finally, we arrived in Ngadas – the highest village in Java. There isn’t much to speak of in terms of tourism infrastructure here, but there are a few houses that offer rooms for rent. A super nice and excited family welcomed us into their home, where we finally got to drop our bags and relax a bit. Exhausted, we hit the bed and took a much needed nap.

Rested and showered, we headed to the roof to take in the stunning views. With bellies rumbling, we hit the streets in search of some food. Having seen another travel blog about visiting Ngadas, we knew there was a place that had great views and tasty mie bakso. As it’s a tiny village, it didn’t take long to find. The meatball soup and coffee were delicious, but unfortunately for us the clouds rolled in right before we sat down.

That evening, we hung out with the family so I could practice my mediocre Indonesian and their daughter could try her hand at speaking English. Staying with a local family in a small village and speaking Indonesian was one of the best cultural experiences of our trip, and we were already happy to have skipped out on the organized tour. Once again, we took to the roof for a beautiful sunset to end our long day.

The next day, our host asked us how we were getting to the mountain. To be honest, we weren’t quite sure. He and his friend offered to take us on their bikes, and we obliged to make things easy. Once again, we piled our large backpacks onto small motorbikes and took off towards Bromo.

Along the way, we had to stop to pay the entrance fee for Bromo. Having read that the ticket was around 70,000 Rupiah, we were shocked to see that it was actually 217,000. We were lucky to be there on a weekday, as it is now 317,000 on the weekends. That’s right, just before our visit the ticket price more than tripled! We didn’t have much choice but to suck it up and buy the ticket, however prospective travelers should take note. Many people are now cutting Mt. Bromo off their Java itinerary entirely to boycott the greedy officials who enacted such a drastic price increase. For us, at least, the show had to go on.

Despite being a bit sour about the newfound hole in our wallets, the panoramic views of the lush savannah below almost made up for it. Our drivers cruised us along a busted up road down into the huge field, where we stopped for a while so my lady could ride a horse.

Next up was the perhaps the most exciting and terrifying ride of our lives. After the savannah comes the “sea of sand,” where our drivers had to floor it to avoid wiping out. On numerous occasions, the bike I was on swerved back and forth, nearly toppling over at least twice. Realizing that I could very well be meeting my maker any moment, I decided to hold up my GoPro to snap some pictures. If I was going to die out here, I at least wanted people to be able to retrieve a few awesome shots of my final moments.

As luck would have it, we made it to the village of Cemoro Lawang in one piece. We found a room for the night, had some lunch, and headed out to see the smoldering caldera that is Mt. Bromo, which I’ll cover in the next post.