For people with interest in Volcanoes, Mount Bromo and Kawah Ijen are the places to go. Mount Bromo is an active volcano and part of the Tengger massif, in East Java, Indonesia. At 2,329 meters (7,641 ft) it is not the highest peak of the massif, but is the most well known. Kawah Ijen has the largest blue flame area in the world and local people refer to it as 'Blue Fire'. It was a totally mesmerising experience for the 2.5 days I spent. The views are still reverberating in my mind as I write this. I had booked this tour on Klook (https://www.klook.com/activity/29713-3d2n-mount-bromo-tumpak-sewu-waterfall-ijen-crater-tour-malang/) for me and a friend so all the bookings and logistics were taken care of by them except for the flights.
We started from Jakarta around 2:30 pm to catch the flight at 4:50 pm to Surabaya City. (You can also travel to Malang if you find suitable flight options.) The tour had an option of pickup from Surabhaya at an extra cost. We had no option but to take it as the flights to Malang were not feasible to us. We reached around 6:30 pm and were picked up by the tour guide from the airport. We started towards Probalingo, the city nearest to Mount Bromo. We reached at around 9:30 pm and checked in at OYO which was a part of tour.
At around 12:30 am at night, 4*4 WD Jeep picked us up for Mount Bromo. It is around an hour journey to reach the place. We reached at around 2 am and decided to sip in a cup of coffee/tea at a shop as it was very cold at that time with high winds. 3 in 1 Jacket from Decathlon along with a hoodie felt less for that weather, but got used to it eventually. Around 4 am in the morning, we started towards the Bromo sunrise view point where a lot of people had already taken spots with their cameras and tripod stands to capture the amazing sunrise. At 5:30 am after the sun had taken full control of the sky, our guide took us to a place referred as the `SECRET GARDEN` :D. It is ideal for taking all the pictures you would usually find on the internet for that place. After spending sometime there, capturing pictures and views, we proceeded towards the crater.
We stopped in between to view the Dinosaur valley and the temperature was a little hotter by now. After we reached the parking spot for Crater, we had 2 options to cross the sea sand - 1) By foot 2) By horses(price depends on your negotiation skills, usually up-to 100k IDR for one way.). It was a 35-40 minutes walk after which we reached the stairs to climb to finally reach the view point of the crater. After climbing about 150 steps, we reached the top to see the active volcano It is fenced up-to a certain point. People usually go beyond that point too, but we found it too risky and hence returned back to the parking. Be ready to have a sand bath here. After reaching back to hotel and freshening up, we started our journey to Banyuwangi where we would start for Kawah Ijen the next night. The view en route was spectacular.
We started from Banyuwangi in our car at 12 in the midnight and reached Kawah Ijen by 12:30 am. The trek towards the blue fire starts at 1 am so we had to wait a little before starting. The trek is around 2 hours with 75 minutes of walking uphill followed by 45 minutes of trekking down the rocks to the blue fire. This hike was hell of an experience as it was dark and chilling in the night. Gas mask is must when you go down there as there is a lot of Sulphur which will make it difficult to breathe and also view anything.
After the sunrise, we spent some time clicking pictures at the crater lake(world's largest volcanic acidic lake). After that we started our way back to base point and the views that followed mesmerised a lot. We started to Surabaya airport to catch our flights.
The trip was an amazing experience and I would surely recommend it to everyone. These 2 days were well spent :-)
Fun Part of the Trip: We had actually booked a 3 day tour from Friday - Sunday which also included Tumpak Sewu waterfall. After booking, we went for leave approval to our manager(without telling him that we have already booked the tour :D) which was not approved so we had to miss the first day and reach Surabaya Friday evening instead of Thursday evening.
