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  • Day 16

    Day 16: The Awful Road to Bromo

    July 1, 2016 in Indonesia ⋅ 🌫 18 °C

    Ugh, what a horrible day. Easily the worst we've had since leaving Sydney. To get to our destination of Cemoro Lawang on the rim of Bromo crater, we'd booked tickets for a 4-hour train ride to a city on the north coast called Probolinggo, where we'd have to catch a local bus to the bus station and then a "bemo" public bus the rest of the way. Bemos are like African public transport, in that they're just a minivan with 15 seats and won't leave the depot without a full load (or someone coughs up fares for the missing passengers).

    So we hit the road nice and early after a hotel breakfast, with a taxi to the train station around 7:45. Our train wasn't until 9 but people online suggest arriving an hour early to print your tickets etc. On arrival at the station, a nice young Indonesian girl helpfully informed us that the train was cancelled due to flooding. Shit.

    She suggested either catching the 10am train to Jember (a city about halfway), and then taking buses from there. We opted instead to take a coach from the nearby bus station which would go directly to Probolinggo.

    So we commandeered an Akso van nearby which is just a van with bench seats around the edge and headed to the bus terminal, which ended up being 100m from our hotel! Not the best use of 40 minutes but alas. At the bus station a few people shunted us around before we found the Probolinggo coach and hopped on.

    A guy sold us tickets as we climbed on, only for us to realise once the bus departed that he had scammed us! We'd both read about this earlier, but apparently it's a very common scam where someone will sell you a completely legit ticket, but at a grossly inflated price and pocket the difference. Since we were feeling a little lost and under pressure as the bus was leaving, we didn't realise it was happening until afterwards. He claimed the ticket was normally 80k each ($8 AUD), but today's price was 120k because it was the end of Ramadan and everything was busy. I don't know what the actual proper fare would be, but I'd guess around 60k rupiah, so we weren't out a huge amount of money, but still not a nice feeling! I should point out as well that the guy did this in front of the driver, the actual conductor and several passengers and nobody lifts a finger, they all just watch it happen and don't care. Apparently Indonesian bus trips are notorious for scams like this.

    The bus was only 1/3rd full but as we crawled along back roads for an hour people hopped on at various points. We then stopped randomly in some city for about 40 minutes with no obvious explanation! Another 20 minutes of crawling and then another random 20 minute break. At this point we'd barely even left Banyuwangi and I was wondering if we'd make Probolinggo by nightfall! The one thing guidebooks stress is that to get a bemo up to Mt Bromo, you need to arrive at Probolinggo before 4pm as after that you would struggle to find enough passengers to fill the bus.

    The bus crawled along further and got more and more crowded. Since it was sparse when we got one, Shandos was sitting about 2 rows behind me - we'd each taken a row of 3 seats; though why there were 3-seaters in the first place I'm not sure!

    I should mention at this point that the bus was clearly designed for Indonesians - my seat was far too narrow for me, and sitting in a normal upright position meant jamming my knees into the seat in front of me. Eventually I combined my bags onto the middle seat for a lady to sit down, then pulled down my hat low and pretended to sleep to avoid the inevitable. But finally a big group of young guys got on and it was standing room only - the conductor tapped me on the arm and physically dumped both my bags onto my lap. At this point I discovered the recliner on my seat was broken and stuck in the "full recline" position - I hadn't noticed earlier because I was sitting sideways to generate some legroom.

    Imagine a flight where you had to have all your luggage on your lap. Now reduce your seat width, bring the seat in front closer, shine a tropical sun through the window, and lock your seat on full recline for good measure. It was absolute torture, as i was almost completely stuck. Also it's a closed air conditioned bus and the driver alternates between smoking and talking on the phone. And every second time the bus stops, "musicians" jump on and start busking loudly in Indonesian.

    This was about 11am, and given the distance we'd travelled in 2.5 hours, the estimate of 6-7 hours to Probolinggo we'd been given seemed hilariously optimistic. But there I sat, hungry and thirsty by now, sweating like a Melbourne Cup winner and unable to move. I didn't even have Shandos for comfort as she was 3 rows behind me, so I had no idea if she was in a better or worse situation than me. This lasted about horrible 2 hours until Jember when most people got off the bus. We relaxed a little while the bus stopped at the terminal until there was a whole bunch of yelling and activity - turned out we needed to switch buses as well!

    Although this next bus was much older and lacked air con, it had open windows so air actually circulated, making it far more comfortable. No extra leg room though unfortunately! This bus was much less full thankfully, but we didn't make the same rookie mistake and this time sat at either end of a 3-seater and piled our bags in the middle.

    The new driver was a maniac, even by Indonesian standards, but it seemed much fewer people wanted to go between Jember and Probolinggo so we made pretty good time. Some of the scenery around here was quite nice too, with volcanoes shrouded in mist and fields of rice and other crops around. Also went through a torrential rainstorm which lasted an hour or so - if this is Java's dry season I'd hate to see the wet!

    Finally around 4:15pm we arrived in Probolinggo. We managed to find the bemo area pretty easily, but as expected there weren't any other people going to Bromo. We waited about half an hour before conceding defeat and hiring the whole van - $50 instead of $3.50 per head!!!!!

    This drive was quite exciting, as once we left town the road immediately began climbing sharply, and we drove straight back into the torrential rain we'd just left! Water was cascading down the road in a serious torrent, and at one point we got trapped behind a small car who'd gotten bogged in the flood waters. Our driver helped him out by driving his car out of the floodwaters, and got soaked for his trouble!

    Soon after this it got dark - here we're right on the eastern edge of the time zone which means it gets dark very early - and with the van's heavily tinted windows we couldn't really see anything, although we were aware of constant climbing and poorly maintained roads.

    Finally at 6:30pm in complete darkness and torrential rain we arrived at our hotel. Poorer, wiser, and very tired. Since this is just a tiny outpost of civilization on the edge of an active volcano, our room was very basic though the dining and common areas were nice - very rustic.

    As we hadn't eaten lunch we went straight for dinner in the hotel. Food was okay, though we were amused by people selling hats and trinkets knocking on the windows and waving! After dinner we realised it had stopped raining, so we had a brief look over the crater rim (our hotel is literally on the precipice!). Couldn't make out much on the darkness but the outlines of mountains were clearly visible.

    Retreated to our room since it's pretty cold at this altitude (2200m or so), and packed a few things for our hike tomorrow starting at 3am to watch the sunrise! Realised that to top off a really shitty day, I'd left my beloved Man United hat in the bemo. No chance of ever getting it back, as there's hundreds of bemos just like it. Decided to just give up on the whole day by going to bed at 8:30.
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