The Land Before Time and the Journey of Long Time

Today was never going to be much fun as a full twelve hours worth of bus was scheduled taking us to the small village of Ngadisari where we'd get a few hours sleep before rising at 3am in order to climb Mount Bromo and see sunrise, pretty hardcore! Being sat on a bus listening to hours worth of music on our iPods and sleeping isn't exactly strenuous, but when you get a bus like we did today, it can be totally unbearable. The worst thing about our crammed 8 seater minibus was the can of petrol behind our seats pouring fumes into the non-existent air thanks to our driver, who didn't want any windows open as it would affect the air-con, which didn't work in the first place! Next up was the driver himself who spent 60% of the journey on the wrong side of the road, overtaking anything in his way no matter how dangerous the timing was, it seemd we were back in China again! Did I mention the seats? Very reminiscent of the kid's slide from the night bus from hell, how hard is it to design a seat you can actually sit in wiothout battling gravity? We were joined in the back by a very grumpy looking giant who took up too much room, spoke one sentance in twelve hours and when he fell asleep had a loveable need to rest his big head on my shoulder.

By the time we stopped for lunch Laura said she could quite happily burst into tears, and when her egg and noodles was presented with a helping of chicken I think that was the end! We pushed on into the night and reached the bus companies office where we were given different options for seeing Bromo. The best place to view the sunrise was to climb Gunung Penanjakan (2770m) which would take three hours to ascend by foot or just under an hour by jeep. After such a disastrous struggle of a journey here we chose the jeep, generously allowing us a lie in until 3am as opposed to 1.30am, hopefully bringing a smile back to our faces.

We left the office on yet another bus to our hotel, with yet another incredibly bad driver who felt the need to stop at every given opportunity. Arriving at our mountain stay we both had gasoline headaches and the need to sleep for a week, but first had to sort out Laura's distinct lack of food today. We ordered up the only veggie option on the menu, noodles and veg, though you might be able to guess what it also included by now? Yep, meat and noodles and veg! With a cup of coffee that was more like sand and hot water this was turning into one of the hardest days yet. After half an hour's worth of trying to swat a super-fast collection of flies in our room and failing we gave up and went to sleep.

At 3am the sound of the now most annoying melody in the entire world rang from the mobile phone. Bleary eyed we wrapped ourselves up in layers of clothing, it was a lot colder than we had anticipated. Our first few sentances to each other were in the form of snappy arguments over how crushed boots were when we unpacked them, a conversation not worth writing about but let's say we were both incredibly tired and incredibly grumpy!


We dragged our feet to our jeep alongside some rather cheerful and upbeat ladies from the Netherlands and drove in the dark morning sky up hairpin rocky paths to the summit of our viewpoint. The moment we got our first proper glance of the surrounding landscape it became instantly apparent that the evenmts leading up to this were completely worth it. This place was something else, something you would see in a dinosaur movie with a billion dollar effects budget- it really was like the Land Before Time in real life! We had a picture perfect outlook to smoking Bromo, the Tengger crate and Java's largest mountain, the steaming spectacular Gunung Semeru pumping into the beautifully lit sky. At the base of the huge 10km across caldera was a fairytale layer of mist covering a bed of ashen sand. Truly magical.


We stayed there for an hour taking endless photos as the sun crept over the mountain before grabbing a hot coffee to warm our very cold hands. Next up we got back into the jeep and drove to Bromo, passing monkeys and some staggering scenery at the base of the mountain, leading to yet more stops as we begged the driver to pull over in the flat sandy desert surrounded by volvcanic peaks.

We arrived at Bromo shortly afterward and were greeted by hordes of men on horses offering a ride up, but it was time to do a little exercise so we declined and pushed up the rocky trail before climbing the 253 steps to see the belly of the beast. As truly amazing as it was, it absolutely stank of sulphur and was the only time in my life that I have needed to use my inhaler because of a smell. The big cloudy fumes were guzzling out of this very active volcano into the now bright blue and blazing sky.

Another hundred photos later and we descended back down to return to our hotel completly buzzing. Within an hour the reality that we were facing another entire day of bus journey hit us, and all we wanted to do was sleep. If it was going to be anything like the day before that was not going to happen until gone 10pm.

Fast forward 11 hours and one gruelling trip and we finally reacvhed Denpasar, Bali, where with both our eyes barely opn we decided to take one last taxi ride to Ubud in order to secure a lie in the following day. A further hour later we arrived at our planned accommodation but as Bali is a further hour ahead than Java lights were off and everyon appeared tucked in bed. We went on one final (and desperate!) search wandsering this rather lushlooking street before stumbling across a honeymoon lovepad at a place called Uma sari. Sleep soon followed!