Indonesia days 30 to 33 - Raja Ampat to Surabaya

Our walking tour of Surabaya. The road Jalan Tunjungan, about 15 minutes walk from our hotel runs through the old town with many old Dutch colonial buildings. The hotel Majapahit is a definite stopping off point and a beautifully preserved building from 1910. Also, interesting history towards Indonesian independence that Jackie details below

Day 30

We were collected by Angelissa before 13.00. her time keeping is a bit random, but that's fine. We stood in the queue at the airport, despite thinking we had boarding passes. Well we did have boarding passes, but only for the first flight, so she gave us real paper ones for that and the second flight. Different seats, same flight number, Sorong to Makassar and Makassar to Surabaya who knows what that means.

Its fabulous inside and, although is about 2.5 times the price of our hotel (which isn't bad), it's still only about £95 for a double room

The incoming flight was delayed, but don't worry, all the staff kept telling me, it's the same flight, but yes, you do have to get off the plane. We stayed calm, unlike some who I think had connecting flights to Bali and then home to Europe.

You have a definite feeling of stepping back in time 

We finally departed, 2 hours late, still calm, finally asking a stewardess about our onward flight, "they'll put you on one" then I was a little less calm, and still confused, how can it be the same flight number for two flights? They were obviously being asked the same question by many people, so announced that we all had to go to the transfers desk. We do walk faster than most people, particularly those who live in hot countries who seem really slow. We were early arrivals at the transfer desk, where they had rows of boarding passes laid out. We gave them ours and they gave us some for a Batik air flight, boarding NOW. We ran, got in the bus, got on the plane and then had to wait for everyone else to catch up, but we were on a plane going to the right place. Albeit an Airbus A320 but we won't worry about that. We had even managed to WhatsApp the guide in Surabaya to tell him what flight we were on.

 

Lots of interesting, well preserved buildings

Fortunately Batik Air is the posh carrier (much better than Lion who we should have been on) and they gave us a bun, which was disgusting, but we ate it. The two hours we've lost over different flights we'd got back, so not only were we hungry, we were tired. It was past our bedtime.

The shark and crocodile sculpture in the skate park next to the river. The city name Surabaya comes from the words Sura, which means shark and baya, crocodile. The shark represents Mongolian attackers under Ghegis Khan in the 12th century and the crocodile the defenders. The city today is the second most populous in Indonesia and has about 3 million inhabitants, but that can swell to 10 million during the working day as people commute into the city. Starting about 10 years ago the road infrastructure, sewage and general amenities were improved to make it easy to get around and quite clean. We found it a pleasant place to be, albeit a modern city with architectural gems hidden away to find

So pleased we've made all this effort to have only carry on baggage, that would have been a whole different challenge. Straight out and into a car and 40 minutes to the middle of Surabaya to a once glorious but now slightly tired hotel, The Bumi Surabaya City hotel. Room service and bed.

Jackie spotted this plaque outside the RPI broadcast building on Jalan Pemuda and we were intrigued as to who General Mallaby was, killed on 30th October 1945. He doesn't sound Indonesian, Japanese or Dutch so we googled him. He was a British general who was trying to negotiate peace terms between the Japanese (who had surrendered by then, but news hadn't reached them yet), the Dutch who wanted to reassert their power over their old colony and Indonesians who wanted their freedom. The British were inside the building (not this one, it was destroyed during the uprising) and fired warning shots over the heads of the Indonesians to ward them away from General Mallaby who was in a car trying to get to safety. This caused a riot, the general was killed and, although the British triumphed in this short battle of two days it formed the catalyst for Indonesian demands for their freedom and, within a short while, the new republic of Indonesia

Day 31

A day to ourselves, only it's not really, tomorrow starts at midnight, yes, I know that's normal, but we were being collected at midnight to go out, and that's not!

Its about 2:00am now and we've just had a two hour journey in that car to get us here on the slopes of Mount Bromo at about 2300m altutude. We've now got a wait of about an hour in quite cool temperatures for transfer to our jeep for the off-road section across the huge 10km crater and up the crater wall to a vantage point for sunrise. Meanwhile many little jeeps thundered past, we'll not be alone then! Apparently the quantity of jeeps is nothing compared with high season, this is low season!

We went for a walk, though it was stupidly hot, fortunately Brian's ChatGPT itinerary went past a couple of shopping malls, and we did want an ATM, and they do have AC. We saw some splendid colonial buildings, and the Majapahit Hotel, which knocked ours into a cocked hat. On leaving though there was an information board about the Indonesian flag.

Our jeep (taken much later after daybreak)

The Indonesian flag is two horizontal stripes, one red, one white which Imanuele had told us stood for passion and innocence. What we had been told previously, and was a much nicer story was that during a rebellion the bottom third of a Dutch flag, i.e. the blue stripe had been torn off leaving the red and the white, but Imanuele had poo poohed this story. The information board did combine the two though, the flag had been chosen to be red and white striped, but during a fracas a student had torn off the bottom strip of a Dutch flag on the top of the Majapahit Hotel and reflown it before being killed!

Thunduring across the sand and gravel of the flat crater base. Interestingly, it's hollow under this base. Our guide demonstrated it much later by picking up a biggish rock and dropping it. The hollow, echo sound was quite spooky, not the usual thud you expect. How thick the crust is is anyone's guess!

We also went to a little park by the river and somehow ended up walking through the skatepark which was a bit random! Back to the hotel before going out again, to Pizza Hut! I'm so bored of white rice, and I'd got all excited, there used to be a pizza oven by the swimming pool in the hotel, but not anymore.

I've got lots of photos of various stages of the morning, most of which aren't very good. This one shows the near smoke coming from Bromo, the peak behind with a bit of smoke issuing is Semeru, which erupted only a few days ago

We'll try and doze a bit now I guess said Brian who appeared to sleep soundly from 17.00-23.00! Not so for me!

I got this one of a mini explosion on Semeru, sending a cloud of ash into the air

Day 32

Downstairs, with our breakfast boxes at midnight. Two hours in the car, where we waited the best part of an hour for our jeep to turn up. This did give us time to dress though, a fleece, a down jacket and a buff I've been carrying the whole trip, just for this moment. The jeep was not nearly so comfortable, but was necessary. There were hundreds of tiny Toyota Land cruisers with little bench seats in the back, glad there were only 2 of us and the guide in the front though.

Gradually it got light and we started to get an impression of where we were

Another hour and we got out and walked up a little hill, in the pitch dark. Only an hour till the sun begins to rise! It's cold too which is very pleasant.

We can just see the outline of Mount Bromo, billowing smoke, with the high peak of Mount Semeru behind it. Also puffing smoke at regular intervals. Bearing in mind, Semeru erupted about a week ago, trapping people on its slopes, we are glad we aren't any closer.

Until finally all was revealed. This is a panorama to take in the crater of Bromo, it's really quite big. We had arrived down on the left to transfer to the jeep. We then drove down into the crater and right across to the right then up the steep side to here. You can see Bromo with it's smoke, the lump just to the right is Mount Batik, another old volcano and then Semeru about 20km away, but all part of the same park and volcanic system

Sunrise was a disappointment, and as ever, we are asking if it's really necessary, it wasn't even behind Bromo or anything. Away before most people, back in the jeep and off. Stopped to get a picture of Mount Batok, then on to the carpark for Mt Bromo view point. We were almost first there and declined the horses to ride across. We probably would have been first to the top, except we had to keep waiting for our guide, who eventually gave up at the 246 (according to Brian) steps. This allowed us to look down into the smoke billowing from the crater, slightly sulphurous, and slightly blue tinged, due to the ignition of sulphur gases. Under the right circumstances it is sometimes possible to see blue flames, we definitely didn't get that, but there was a blue tinge.

Thought we'd get a shot of us in our warm clothes. We've carried these with us all the time just for this one occasion - and we really needed them, it was cold. After the sun rose though they were off as it got up to mid 20's C

Back to the jeep and then the car and back to Surabaya by 10.00 having stopped for breakfast en route. What to do with the rest of our day? Sleep, pool, who knows.

I zoomed in to the crowds on a lower viewpoint. Some of them are just visible in the above photo to the right of he tree if you zoom in

Down in the crater, that's Mount Batok, not erupting now

Bit of both actually, by the time we'd dozed, there was some cloud cover so we went down to the pool which is in a lovely area on level 3. We even went into the spa though I couldn't face the sauna, the hot pool was ridiculously hot and the plunge pool ridiculously cold. I only went into it up to my ankles, but that was more than Brian.

Just to the left of it is the smoking crater of Bromo. We're going for a walk up there to peer down into the crater. Our guide told us that it is believed thousands of years ago Bromo exploded blowing the top off an approximately 4000m high volcano, reducing its height to 2700m and creating the 10km diameter crater we are in now. It is still an active volcano, last proper eruption in 2010. People live on the slopes but they consider themselves fairly safe as any eruptions and lava are confined to within the crater (hopefully!)

Brian then came over a bit unnecessary, so room service for me while he lay in bed.

Day 33

We've just checked in for our penultimate flight, this takes us off Java to Komodo, hopefully we make it back to Jakarta on Sunday!

Walking towards Bromo crater with it 246 steps to the top

Peering down into the crater

Occasionally the steam/smoke cleared it bit to reveal the boiling centre

Looking back down the steps to the crater and the crater wall beyond, from which was our sunrise view

Mount Batok from the crater

It might be an 85% Muslim country, but we've seen no shortage of Christian references. Here's a snow scene in our hotel reception, I don't think they've ever seen snow. It's accompanied by Christmas music being played, mostly Nat King Cole