Indonesian Archipelago Series-6: Mt. Bromo

This mountain is a top destination for office outings, organizational outings, best-friend-forever trips, just saying. I went here twice, first with my exchange program organization and with my office. If you search in the internet, you will find a lot of tour package that includes accomodation and jeep to hike the mountain before sunrise. However, if you are brave and adventurous enough, motorbikes are also a daring choice to take and I still saw hundreds of motorbikes hiking to catch the sunrises. Bromo is one of East Java gem that you have to visit at least once in your life with a very reasonable price. 

Anyway, if you go to my first post of Indonesian Archipelago Series, it will be about Malang city. Normally, if people want to travel to Mt. Bromo, they also have 2-3 nights stay in Malang before or after just to enjoy the city and not being so tired. From Malang, it would be only around 1 hour by car. In my case, we went directly from Surabaya to Bromo which might take 3-3.5 hours by car. We rent a car with a driver. Normally it will be around 350-500k IDR (around 25-30 eur) per car excluding the fuel and driver fee. It will also depend on which type of car and its capacity. At that time, we traveled with the whole office which was an research institution. We were having guests from Pakistan so they also joined our trip. 

We arrived at Bromo complex at around 4 PM and checked in into a hotel called Yoschi Hotel. The rate is now 16 eur per night. I could not say it was my favorite. Well, the concept is vintage but it does not mean super old either, right? I was expecting something more modern and bright anyway. We walked around the place to find a place to have coffee and wait for our dinner. First place we found was a modest local coffee shop or locally called Warkop (Warung kopi) to have instant coffees and ginger tea. Next to us were a group of jeep drivers who were apparently drunk by local alcohol. In their table were also a mountain of peanuts. Well, at that time we were kind of afraid that they would be one of our drivers tonight. They kind of pushed us to use  their ride tonight. However, I have contacted someone so we just kept saying no. Poor drivers, I hope they will stop living like that. 

We had our dinner in a restaurant inside a hotel near Yoschi. Before, we just ordered other tea and snacks while playing cards. I really love this office of mine. We were all young researchers, I could say. We had our dinner in the same place and as far as I remembered it was pretty good Indonesian food. I ordered ayam kremes which is marinated fried chicken with crispy flour on top of it with special spicy sambal. Sambal is a mix of chopped chillies, salt, pepper, shrimp paste being mashed together then cooked. We walked back to the hotel super full and slept earlier because at 3 AM we had to wake up and jump into our jeep. 

Some of us loved hiking so much that they did not want to take the jeep. For me, no thanks, I still loved the jeep. For hikers, you can find many tracks of hike. People say Bromo is super safe to hike. When I was here couple years before, it was only several jeeps going up the hill. But at that time, it was like huge traffic jam climbing up to the mountain. One of the craziest view I have ever had and at the same time made me sad and feeling guilty to create such a long point-source air and noise pollution in our mountain. Not all the way had traffic jam though, we had a part where it was so beautiful that you go across the sand hill with your jeep in the dark with the sky and the stars. At around 4 AM we arrived at Kingkong hill and then Cinta hill. Actually, we would prefer Penanjakan which has the best view of all. However, it will also strongly depend on the weather at that day. If you are lucky, the sky will be so clear that you can see everything. At Cinta Hill, we were reunited with our colleagues and had hot drinks while waiting for the sunrise. We were not lucky that day that we saw almost nothing of the mountain because it was too foggy. However, I will put here the photo from Penanjakan view instead. 

Bromo is an active volcano mountain with the height of around 2300 meters which is not high compared to other Indonesian mountains. It is inside a park called Bromo Tengger National Park. We also call the people living in Bromo as Tengger people. Bromo came from the name of one of Hindu Tri-Murti God: Brahma. Some time ago Bromo was considered in warning state where people normally said that it is "coughing". Funny yet also scary term for people who actually live there. The last eruption was in 2015. Hindu Tengger people also have this special day called Yadnya Kasada where they bring offerings to the caldera of the mountain. Yadnya in Hindu comes from the word yaj that means offerings with your most sincere heart. Hindu believes that we have Tri Rna, which is three debts that we have to pay to God, parents and ancestors then to the people around you. In this case we pay this debt by the Yadnya. I know this because I once also was a Hindu. 

The next stop is to go to the Kawah Bromo or the crater. You will first take photo with the meadow and the mountain as the background. The tatches and the jeeps really made the morning was indeed superb. Then we will go to the parking area where you can start walking and climb the stairs to see the crater. You will be welcomed with the majestic Hindu Tengger temple in the entrance. Hindu is one of 6 official religions in Indonesia with the majority of Hindu comes from Bali. Hindu Tengger has some differences in the prayer and rituals compared to Balinese one. I prayed for awhile there. Then, a lot of horse riders will ask you to come with them to hike to the stairs. I was in big dilemma because at one point you will help the owner to feed the horse (no water available there, they just being fed before and after the work) or you will also feeling cruel on riding them. I asked the owner and trusted him that this is the best way to make the horse survive so I rode a white horse to the stairs. I forgot how much I paid, I think it was around 5 euro return. I feel really bad now when typing this. Anyway, he dropped me there and so I climbed the stairs alone. It was not an easy set of stairs either, which were 250 stairs. There were couple with baby and I really did not get it why they brought their baby there because here you will strongly smell the bauxite. 

I went down and met my colleagues and failed to find my horse amidst hundreds of horses. However the man found me so we went back to the temple area. Along the way he shared a lot about some wisdom about Hindu that he believed. I do not remember that we had toilets here, so you had to go at one of the hills before where they also have lots of food stalls around selling boiled or seasoned grilled corn, hot instant noodles and many more. After that it was the Teletubbies hills. It was named after Teletubbies, a famous kid movie in the early 2000s about four Teletubbies living in a hill. This hill resembles a lot to theirs. We did not went down to take photos there. 

We then went to Pasir Berbisik which means Whispering Sand. Actually, it is named after a movie starred by our iconic actress, Dian Sastrowardoyo in 2000s taking place in Mt. Bromo. Here, people believe that the sound of the wind sweeping the sand will sound like people whispering to your ear. It will even be stronger when you kneel and really listen to the ground. I tried and did not really find the differences by the way. Along the way you will see amazing view of the mountain and the savana. Sometimes they have one single tree from afar, a very lonely tree in special points. 

We went back to Surabaya and had the chance to taste Durian, the king of our fruits. In my post of Indonesian Archipelago series about Medan, you can actually see the shape of this fruit. Our Pakistani guests loved it a lot! Some people will consider to continue their journey to Makaradipura waterfall. I have never visited this waterfall but everyone that I know said it is so worth to see, maybe in my next visit to Bromo. Bromo is the kind of spot that you would not mind to visit for multiple times. Every experience with different people will give you different feeling about the place. I will recommend you to come here with all the possible people that you love, especially to witness the sunrise and enjoy the morning in the savana. 

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