Welcome welcome to my 1st ever blog...
My first oversea trip is to Indonesia. At first, I’m not quite happy because I wanted to visit HK, and not Indonesia, but since it is cheap, then why not just go for it.
My sis bought air-ticket from Airasia, for only RM89.00 (return ticket) one year back in 2010. I’ve waited for one year before I can enjoy this trip at Jan 7, 2011.
The day before the flight, I don’t have any key-locker for my luggage. It drives me crazy as my sis didn’t even mention it before to me. At last, my father and I drive to search for each 7-eleven shops nearby my house. At last, we ended up at Tesco Bkt. Tinggi. Luckily it opens till 1am. So we both happily walking around and shop for my locks and battery.
At last, I reached home at 12.30am, haven’t finish to pack my luggage and haven’t take bath after whole day work in office. I slept at 2am, wake up at 4.30am and here we go heading to LCCT. We ate breakfast at McD, and I saw a guy keep on peeping on us. We found out he is a Malaysian actor, together with another two Malaysian singers. He thought I’m peeping on him, that’s why he scared I will come over to take signature from him. I just acted I don’t know him. In fact, I actually know him because I stayed in the same building with him for the last 3years in Cheras, Sg. Long.
As I went into the airplane, an Indonesian lady asked me, “Awak nak balik mana?” I am stunned. Oh my god, she thinks I’m Indonesian as she asking me where am I going back to? I told her I’m Malaysian; I’m going for vacation in Indonesia. She got shocked when I show her my family members as they look more Chinese to me. I’m sad as Indonesian think I’m Indonesian.
Flight to Indonesia takes about 4hours. We reached there at 7am. Two tour-guides already had been waiting for us at the airport. From there onwards, our journey start to suffer as they said it takes 8hours to reach Ijen. 8 HOURS…oh my…Luckily they drive Toyota Avanza to pick us.
Throughout the whole journey, we sleep, wakeup & sleep back again as it was too boring. We only stopped TWICE to eat lunch in a nobody-else resort& hotel, and to a mini mart (looks like 7eleven to them).Our only entertainment is to watch how the driver drives. He honked on every motorcyclist. Those motorcyclists drove in the middle of the road and they didn’t even bother us. The driver also cut every vehicle which blocks our ways. And he keeps changing gears here and there for 8hours. He is superb. If there is Initial D’s driver “Tok Hai from Japan”, then Indonesia got my Driver, the legend driver of Mount Bromo & Ijen.
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| Skillful driver_The second son of the Cemara Hotel |
When we reach the road up to Ijen, it already 6pm in the evening, and now, the real journey to Ijen only begins. The road up to the hill is bumpy. VERY BUMPY. The road which previously is a tar-road now left only rocks. We’ve been shaking whole way up. It’s like sitting in the rocky boat. As it shakes, we feel like sitting on a massage chair. 2 hours up to the bumpy road.
At last, we reached the resort. The resort looks like a Malay-kampung style home. We are the only tourists there. The tour-guide explains that since the Mount Bromo erupted last week, so many tourists cancelled their trips. After we bathed, we had our dinner at 8pm. It cost us Rp2million for the food (RM66 for 4pax). The menu includes: white rice, mee goreng (fried instant mee), soup with vege (tasted instant mee’s flavour powder), fried smashed potato, omelette & fried chicken. The taste is so-so only.
We slept at 10am as we need to start our journey at 4.30am to the Ijen Kawah (Ijen caldera for sulphur-mining). It was 18metres way up to the Kawah, but I almost die at the 9meters point. The road is very steep and we keep burping out gases from our stomach due to gravity effect. Once we reach the peak, we almost cried as suddenly, the sky is clear, and we can see the turquoise-colored acid Crater Lake. It makes us feel so worthy to suffer so much to reach to the peak. We thought our journey will stop there but the tour-guide suddenly asked us whether we want to go all the way down to the lake. Oh my god…
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| Journey up to the Ijen Kawah |
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| Our tour-guide looking on the lake |
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| If u feel like want to poop, this how the toilet looks like, beware or u will drop down the hill |
My sis suddenly feels very excited and accepted the offer. The way down the lake is very dangerous and the scene looks similar like the “The Road of the Rings” where Fordo climb up the hills nearby the spider-cave. During the way-down the lake, we keep on coughing due to the sulphur gas. Each time when the wind blow towards us, we need to squat down and close our nose and eyes. After we reach the lake, we only able to stay there for 10minutes as it is almost noon, whereby when there is no more sunshine, the volcanic gases will spurt more. We climb back very quickly up, but due to our stamina, we couldn’t climb up very fast. My sis & I almost suffocated there and there is only left few drops of water left in the bottle. We wet our scarfs and in-hale through it. We feel like dying soon and the tour-guide keep saying, “Don’t stop, we must climb up fast”. Oh my….
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| All the way down to the lake |
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| Finally reach the bottom_Crater Lake |
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| That's how they collect the sulphuric blocks |
Finally we are up again to the hill and the driver drove us back to the resort. After take bath, they drove us to next destination, Mount Bromo, and expected time to reach there is 6 HOURS!!!
In the middle, we have lunch nearby the beach-side. The journey up to the Mount Bromo hill starts at 8pm and it is already very dark. We are very afraid as we are riding on Avanza, which is not suitable for riding on hills. Along the journey up, we saw many houses lining up all the way up to the hill. I wondering how they can survive there and how they can climb up and down to the nearest town. We reached our second resort, “Cemara Indah”. This resort is the most famous among the tourist as the resort has the best view-point on the Mount Bromo. The restaurant’s food is quite nice as it serves Western and Eastern food. We ordered Sandwich club & spaghettis.
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| Best view on Mount Bromo |
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| Deluxe room of Cemara Indah |
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| Cemara Indah_Famous Hotel |
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| Sandwich club, taste good~ |
We had to wear one jacket & two T-shirts in it as the wind is very very strong and cold. When sleep time, I even wore a winter jacket and the room feel shaking as the wind blows. Again, we wake up at 4.30am to prepare our journey to see the sunrise. Some workers knocked on our window to offer jacket-renting services to us. So beware to close your windows before you sleep as there is experiences they open your window and sells local products to you. J
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| This is what we do before sleep |
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| Mount Bromo |
Since the clouds are quite thick on that day, so we couldn’t see the sunrise. However, we can see a Hindu temple and a sand-lake down the hill. The tour-guide offer to bring us down to the hill, using motorcycle as roads already was blocked by the eruption last week. Each person needs to pay RM10 for the ride. The scenery down the hill is totally like an after-disaster incident. The roads are block by 1-feet high volcanic ashes and as we talked, we can feel ashes in our mouth.
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| View from the hills |
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| After Eruption |
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| Hindu Temple |
We left the resort at 12pm and head to Surabaya. Once we reach the hotel, I feel very happy as like we been to home again as there is television and all those familiar furniture. Haha. Next, we went to the shopping mall and we saw KFC…Here again we find foods that is familiar to us. We happily went in there and ordered. However, the original flavour of the chicken is totally different from Malaysia. The chicken only has salty taste and no aromatic smells as usual. The meal comes with Coca-cola and rice. RICE??? It supposed to be mashed potato and salad but they replaced it with rice. And when we asked whether we can choose two piece of chicken breast, the waitress said, “No, we must follow exactly the same as illustrated in the photo”. Oh my…
Feeling disappointed, we wandering around the shopping complex and we saw a Chinese restaurant. We happily ordered our favourite foods and when it is served, the portions is very big and we working very hard to eat all. That cost us another Rp4millions. Food quite tasty.
On our final day before our flight, we went to another shopping complex and we found Carrefour. It looks like heaven to me as i saw many foods that I never seen before. Since I haven’t bought any souvenir yet, I decide to buy coffees and instant noodle. The 3in1 instant coffee only cost me RM1.15 (with 5packs in it). I straight away bought 5box. I feel disappointed as when back in Malaysia, I’ve tried the coffee and it taste very very sweet and only 0.1% coffee taste. Luckily I’d given out all to my colleagues. Feel sorry to them and I don’t dare to ask them how the taste is. Haha.
That’s the end of my wonderful extreme journey in Indonesia. The total journey that I spent on this trip is RM1000. Very worthy.
Below are the transports and the resort details for your reference:
1) Airasia ticket – RM89 (both way)
2) Tour package to Mount Bromo & Ijen (incl.resorts) –RM600 for 4pax
3) Hotel Ibis - RM100+ per nite
4) Taxi – Blue Bird Group
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