Mt Bromo & Mt Ijen

Volcanoes! That's the tl;dr summary for this post, in case you're too busy to read on.

We took a long coach ride from Denpasar to the port of Gilimanuk on the western edge of Bali, from which we could see our next island just across the water: Java. This should have been a short ferry journey (25 mins), but unfortunately the ferry decided to wait outside of the Javanese port for another 30 minutes rather than docking 😡

The arrival city was Banyuwangi, which is decidedly NOT a tourist town. Most places in Indonesia, people offer you taxi rides while you are already inside a taxi. But in Banyuwangi, we had to walk ten minutes in the midday heat and humidity before anyone would pick us up. In some ways it was nice to be in a town where the local people are just going about their lives, rather than harassing you to offer tourist services. But equally, there's basically nothing to do here. It's a stop en route to more exciting stuff – the Swindon of East Java.

Dan did manage to buy a nice pair of hippie pants, which has been a challenge so far because no clothes in Indonesia are designed for men over 5'9". Or doorways, which have been a problem for Dan's forehead.

Our stay in the stunning Banyuwangi metropolis concluded at 1am, when our guide picked us up for a tour of Mount Ijen. This was the purpose of our visit: a sunrise hike on an active volcano crater, spewing sulphur and blue fire. It is one of only two places in the world where these blue sulphurous flames are visible. Despite starting the hike at 2am and requiring a gas mask, it was surprisingly busy. We spent much of our time dodging around underprepared teenagers in Converse and puffer jackets to keep up our pace. This meant we left our guide behind many times (though he fully showed us up by walking casually through the noxious gas clouds in the crater without a mask, smoking a cigarette, while our eyes streamed from the fumes). The views (and the toxic odours) were unforgettable.

Our driver destroyed the transmission on our first vehicle doing 90km/h on tiny, steeply inclined, and heavily potholed roads, so we showered off the volcanic ash and packed into a replacement car for a long drive (8hrs on *more concerning* roads) to our next volcano: Mount Bromo. To catch a consecutive sunrise here, we had to get started at 2am. As you can imagine, our eyes are being held open by matchsticks as we write this post. Bromo doesn't require a hike to reach the summit, just a simple Jeep drive, so thankfully we could just turn up in our warm gear and wait for the sun to arrive... or so you might think. We had chosen the cheapest tour we could find online, which clearly meant we also got the worst quality vehicle(s). On the 25⁰ uphill drive (in pitch black darkness), our 4x4 broke down just around a blind corner on a switchback. Hundreds of other Jeeps barreled up behind us with their accelerators floored to maintain momentum. Fun. We're extremely grateful we did this in the low season: apparently there are over 1,000 Jeeps trying to park on the narrow mountain road every night in July.

We made it to the peak eventually in a backup vehicle, picked our spot, and hunkered down for the sunrise, sipping tea we’d brewed up in a water bottle. We'll let the pictures and videos speak for themselves. On our way back we had a quick photoshoot with the rescue Jeep on the 'sea of sands', and poked our noses into the active Bromo crater to complete the tour. Another olfactory delight.

Next stop: bed!Read more