Saturday, November 2, 2013
We said goodbye to Ubud around 10:30 am and headed for Denpasar airport to catch our flight to Malang, Java. Booking the plane ticket and getting our hotel to confirm an airport transfer proved somewhat cumbersome, but all went well and without a hitch.
We checked into the Best Western OJ Hotel (website doesn’t seem to work though) around 2:30pm. Our first choice, Tugu Hotel, was fully booked. Having said that: no complaints about the BWOJ. Ok, it doesn’t have the character but it is centrally located, service is good, and we got upgraded to a very spacious room.
Later that afternoon and after the heavy rainfall had stopped, we went out for an initial walk around town. Malang is not a beautiful town, but once you get off the main streets, there is quite a bit going on. First job was to book a Mt Bromo sunrise tour, and that was extremely easy. Then we dropped off 5 kgs of laundry to a hole-in-the-wall vendor. 5 kgs of laundry was cleaned, dried and folded for US$2.50, not bad.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
We spent the day exploring the city center. From our hotel we started off towards Malang’s millionaires row: a boulevard lined with mansions from the Dutch era, some in better state than others. We walked the sunday markets, found a busking drum band, explored some of the smaller streets and ended up in ‘Java Dancer’, a lovely cafe. And it didn’t rain all day.
That evening we had a rest for about 4 hours before getting up at 12:30am.
Monday, November 4, 2013
1am in the morning is hard. We were picked up in a classic looking bright red 1982 4WD Land Cruiser. We bumped along the streets and the rough roads up the mountain for the next 3 hours before getting to the sunrise viewing spot. There were probably more than 1,000 people up there with us. Who would have thought. And it was cold up there, but folks where on hand to rent big overcoats. It was nice to see the sunrise and start to get some of the day’s warmth.
Next stop was Mt Bromo proper. Hiked up the hill (the smoky one in the photo above) in horrible conditions, in a bit of a sandstorm. Views were not worth it because they were just about totally obstructed by the sand; but glad to have done it. It took 2 days to get all of the sand out. After coming back down off the mountain we spent some time driving around on the sand plane between the mountains.
Finished the day with a walk around town in the fading light.
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Up early (6am) for our transfer to Yogyakarta. Bit of a disaster, as it never arrived. It took three hours, but the agent who booked the shuttle for us finally turned up with a private car. During the long wait the hotel staff were very helpful, making calls for us and urging our agent to sort this out. Even the manager called him. In the end it cost US$100 for the car and two drivers and took 9.5 hours to make the journey. Driving in Indonesia is different and requires some serious nerve. But we made it one piece.
