Last weekend Jenna, Hannah and I paid a visit to East Java. Failing miserably to learn from our mistakes, we booked ourselves onto an overnight train. The conditions of our 'business' class carriage lead me to ponder the horrors of economy class. The promised 'air conditioning' turned out to be a single fan attached to the ceiling and the seats didn't recline, forcing us to sleep in improbable positions; heads lolling, limbs stuffed into awkward spaces. The aisle was full of passengers sleeping on rolled out bits of newspaper, most of them chainsmoking or talking noisily. At each station the carriage was flooded with food sellers clambering over the inert bodies, shouting out their wares (“nasi nasi nasi nasi, kopi kopi kopi kopi”). Suffice to say the conditions were not conducive to sleep and we were exhausted by the time we arrived in Surabaya at 6.30am.
We were met from the station by our companion, Sisworo, who had offered to show us around the area when he met Hannah at a recent conference. Our first stop was nearby Sidoarjo, where a massive mud eruption has displaced hundreds of homes. The jury is still out as to who or what caused the eruption. Most people blame the oil company - except the oil company themselves, naturally, who blame an earthquake - but the destruction is plain for everyone to see. The mud has engulfed the surrounding area, forming a giant lake from which you can actually see the mud bubbling out. This is not a small-scale problem: approximately 2,500 square meters of mud is expelled per day (equivalent to the contents of a dozen Olympic-size swimming pools, according to Wikipedia). Most worrying of all, opposite the lake, amidst the surrounding buildings (which are, incredibly, still inhabited), exists the beginning of a second eruption; a great tower of steam and gas spurting into the atmosphere. The worst part is that the dispute over blame has precluded corrective action from being taken, including compensation for the displaced families. It probably seems a bit morbid to pay a visit to a site of destruction like that but it's such an incredible, improbable phenomenon that we wanted to see it for ourselves. Naturally, the lake has already been transformed into a tourist site, with enterprising locals charging you to climb up to the viewing plateau and trying to persuade you to buy DVDs entitled Sidoarjo: the Tragedy of the Mud.
From Sidoarjo we traveled on to Mount Bromo, a volcano reputed to offer the best sunrise in Indonesia. It was wonderful being up in the mountains. It felt like we had entered a different country, not least because there was a definite chill in the air! The scenery was very pretty; lots of sloping fields, vegetables plots and cute little houses painted bright colours. Jenna and I went on a horse trek around the village and down into the valley where there was a Hindu temple. Unfortunately, whilst we were down there the heavens decided to open ('dry' season is a relative concept). Fortunately, there was a little warung (cafe) next to the temple, so we took shelter under a tarpaulin and drank instant coffee as the rain battered down outside.
When we returned to the hotel we discovered that the facilities did not fare well on the S.H.I.T scale. A squat toilet and a bucket of water is pretty standard in Indonesia, but I have to admit I was a little peeved to discover that this also constituted the shower facilities. The experience prompted me to consider another addition to the S.H.I.T criteria; namely the presence/absence of creepy crawlies. I was mid-way through my 'shower' (i.e. poised with a bucket of tepid water over my head) when I realised I was not alone. I was, in fact, sharing the experience with two leaches, a spider and cockroach. Lovely!
The contrast between Mt Bromo and Mr Merapi cannot be exaggerated; one entails a gruelling twelve hour trek, the other a brief, if bumpy, jeep ride. Compared to Merapi, Bromo was gloriously undemanding – it truly is the Lazy Volcano. We did, however, have to leave the hotel at 3.30am, and were astonished to find that a hundred or so other people had done the same. The top of the mountain was covered in little stalls selling coffee and woolly hats (oh how refreshing to be in need of a woolly hat!). At first I was a little put out to be sharing the experience with so many people, all jostling for the prime viewing spots, but in the end the atmosphere added to the experience. There was a collective woop of excitement as the sun finally emerged over the horizon. After the sunrise we were driven to the bottom of Mt Bromo and climbed the hundred or so steps to the top in order to view the smoke-filled crater.
The journey home was, unfortunately, even more traumatic than the train there. For starters, I was traveling by myself (Hannah was staying on for another couple of days and Jenna had very sensibly booked herself on a plane home), plus I was stupid with tiredness having just endured two consecutive nights of little sleep. I spent the journey paranoid I would get on the wrong train/ miss my stop/ loose my belongings, so I ended up traveling with my bag clutched on my lap, waking up in a confused panic every couple of hours. It ended up being a twenty-three hour journey - longer than my journey back to the UK. When I finally got home I was so tired that my springy old mattress actually felt comfortable!
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