Allie's Got Seoul: Java

What started out as entertaining quickly became annoying by the time the 10^th stranger asked us to take pictures. At every major tourist site and many places in between, Indonesians asked us to pose with them, for them, or just stealthily taking our pictures without evening asking at all. It got old quite fast and maintaining a polite demeanor took patience. We just wanted to go about our normal day. (Is there ever really a normal day in Asia?)

Highlights of Java included our trip low for accommodation standards. When the book said “clean” it seemed to be code for “basic,” and more often than not, “unclean.” Hello little cockroach! We’d come too far to be overly bothered by this…

A redeye train took us to Yogyakarta to my favorite of all guesthouses, run by warm Indonesian women serving a mighty fine breakfast on the patio. That combined with laundry service was another rebirth for us. Prambanan Hindu temples and Borobudur Buddhist temples filled our days while good eats occupied our evenings…literally. More often than not our we’d feast on progressive dinners over the course of several restaurants…more compatibility points for Robin and Allie.

From there we were off to the eastern laying volcanoes of Bromo and Ijen. Upon leaving Seoul I anticipated a month of constant heat and humidity. My little raincoat did not leave me prepared for the near freezing temperatures of the volcanic highlands. Was this Indonesia, the country that straddles the equator?? Our daily activities/hikes essentially began in the dead of night (or rather the beginning of night, as was the case with Ijen.) So I’ll write about what I think happened on this trip. The hour made it all too surreal…it was probably all a dream.

Barely awake we embarked on a massive jeep convo and across the dusty volcanic plain, along with every other traveler in Indonesia. We were en route to watch the sun rise over Mt. Bromo. Perhaps had we reached the rim by horseback I would have a cheerier memory, but the volcanic dust storm blinded and left us looking like coalminers. By breakfast we’d basically finished the day’s activities. It was onward toward Ijen where I called it a night at 5pm. Literally. Praise the eye mask and melatonin.

Before deeming me insane, there was good reason to wake up at, wait for it, 12:30am. We had a volcano to ascend and a crater to descend to witness the sulfuric blue fire before day break. I had never seen nor heard of anything like it and it only added to the skyrocketing level of surrealism. It ended up being a highlight of the trip and I feel bad for the suckers who slept in to hike Ijen by daylight…but by that point they had no idea what they had missed. One more Javanese sunrise…but we could almost taste Bali!