Indonesia… South East Asia’s adventure playground!

Over Chinese New Year we felt the inexplicable need to climb a few volcanoes in Java (what?!) and it was the beginning of what I hope is a long love affair.

Indonesia is a volcanic mecca as it sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire.  75% of the worlds volcanoes help outline this ring, and in the list of the longest erupting volcanoes, Indonesia holds numbers 10, 11 and 12 (Semeru, Merapi, Dukono).  Semeru (the object of our affection) has been continuously erupting since 1967!

Unfortunately, with only days until our departure, Semeru decided to enter an ominously quiet period (still erupting, but not as large) and so she was closed for all hikers in anticipation of the calm before the storm.  So, with a swift change in itinerary, we shifted our sites to Arjuna and Welirang and were off.

Sulfur vent on Welirang

Sander and I are very much “let’s just wing it and see” travelers.  We never join organized tours and typically read a hastily purchased guidebook and sheath of hastily printed internet articles on the plane.  One of our favourite things to do in a new place is to wander, poke our noses around corners and down alleyways (often where they don’t belong) and just see what turns up.  This time, given our short time frame, we decided to try a tour – best decision ever!!

Our guide, Monggang, was with us the entire week and was brilliant.  Everything was organized for us – transport, meals, camping equipment, porters… We barely had to lift a finger apart from carting ourselves up and down a few volcanoes.  We could have taken it to a whole new level, but it goes against the grain sitting by the camp fire while someone else pitches/pulls down your tent when you didn’t even carry it up the volcano in the first place.  Our porters were total mountain goats, completely dominating us in stamina despite wearing flip flops (I kid you not), smoking like chimneys and carrying 20kgs attached to two ends of a bamboo pole.  We weighed our packs at the sulfur miner camp and felt a bit sheepish when our small packs came to about 7kg each… we had a few laughs though.

Our mountain goat porters

We were climbing in the low season (summer, but rainy) and unfortunately we didn’t have any luck with visibility at both of our summits.

Summit of Arjuna

Welirang in particular was especially miserable which just highlighted to me how tough the sulfur miners are.  Similar to its more famous sister, Ijen, Welirang is mined for sulfur by hand.  These hardy miners trek up from their camp (it took us two hours) with a trolley, chip blocks of sulfur from the vents with a metal pole, bag it, stack it and lug the 20kg sacks back down the mountain and then do it all again probably at least twice.

We struck the jackpot with Monggang as our guide.  He’s completely in love with volcanoes, especially Semeru, having climbed her thousands of times (his estimation).  It’s this passion that meant Sander and I had the opportunity to perch on the side of the lava dam at dusk for three hours waiting for Semeru to erupt and then to go back again at 5am and patiently wait again while the sun rises behind you.  We missed anything major, but managed to see a few lava spots during the nights.  These moments were some of the most peaceful I can remember in a long while.

Lava on Semeru

Monggang also knows everyone.  This led us on an interesting side trip up to the geology office of the national park where they measure Seremu’s constant eruptions – turned out we’d missed an eruption the previous night by about an hour.  This was the first time I’d ever seen a seismograph in action – very cool.

The tremors we just missed

After a seriously long and windy climb up through the jungle we hit the lip of the Tengger Caldera.  The original volcano was thought to be over 4,500m high but erupted around 150,000 years ago with the ash fallout causing summer blackout in Europe, and then imploded on itself forming a caldera.  Standing on the lip of the caldera, all we could see was lush green from wall to wall, but after winding down and driving through the greenery we rounded the corner to a sea of black sand.  The contrast was incredibly stark.

Grass sea

Sand sea

We were well accustomed to early mornings by now, but this 4.30am departure time to the viewing platform was one to remember.  Thick mist blanketed the caldera making it impossible for the jeep drivers to find their tracks across the sand sea to the start of the track heading to the viewing platform.  Monggang saved the day for us and two other jeeps as he’d previously tracked the path on his Blackberry’s GPS so he was able to guide our driver through complete white-out conditions to the start of the track – awesome!  Again, no luck with the visibility.  We huddled around a bucket of ashes sipping on coffee and slurping down a breakfast of noodles, waiting for the clouds to clear.  We eventually gave up around 9am and dropped down to the lower platform where it was miraculously clear.  By now my tummy was really grumbling (uh oh!), so the trip to the Bromo crater was a quick steep walk (lots of puffing). 

Bromo crater

After breakfast we headed back to the airport, very sad to be leaving.  Two volcanoes and a caldera later we were madly scheming how soon we could get back to Java to climb Semeru.  Eureka!  This year is a big birthday for me… what if I was to turn 30 on the side of Indonesia’s most active volcano?  Lock it in Eddie, and stay tuned for that adventure.

If anyone has any recommendations for other adventure holidays, I’d love to hear about them, especially if they’re in my South East Asian backyard.  And if you’re inspired to climb your own Indonesian volcano and want Monggang’s contact details, let me know.  It will be a trip that you never forget.

Details: Base Camp Indonesia organised our tour, but you could skip the middle man and go directly to the locals.