The journey to Bromo was just about as eventful as walking around the volcano itself, as the Indonesian infrastructure made it about as difficult to achieve. I went with Mark, a German whom I'd met at the Jogja hostel, and together we embarked on fuckaround trains that played music videos of Backstreet Boys and Avril Lavigne. It was as much a journey to East Java as it was back to the early years of this millennium.

It was good that I had Mark for company though, as it made the process of getting scammed and being misled much more hilarious than it should be. In every dire situation, I could expect his dry machine-gun sarcasm, delivered in a doleful monotone that only a German can pull off.

The worst part was catching the public bus from Surabaya to Probolinggo, where we had to pack ourselves in this hot house with roosters squawking in the back of the bus and people smoking inside the already sweltering box. In a way, the bus made up for its shittiness by providing free entertainment, in the form of hawkers who would hop on and off the bus while it slowed for the traffic. At some point, I could swear a whole market was walking through the bus, thrusting their goods on your lab while you kept a wary eye to make sure someone hadn't gone under the seats to rifle through your bags. We were treated to sitar players and pan-whistlers, and when the Indonesian Mumford and Sons had finished their shtick, someone else would hop on with a loudspeaker and wail a droning Arabic player in time to the flapping of the torn bus curtains. As I said, bonus entertainment over three hours for the price of IDR 16000 (AUD $2).

Can't beat Louis Vuitton sheets (that smelt like they hadn't been washed in years). We added to the smell by not showering before jumping into bed.

Bromo delivered on everything I had expected it to be, and more. Since it was the rainy season, I had met many backpackers in Jogja who had poor experiences with the weather when watching the sun rise there. However after setting out at 3am from the village of Cemoro Lawang, Mark and I were buoyed by seeing a clear night sky.

Waking up in single-digit temperatures was a big change from the stewing heat elsewhere in Indonesia, but the climb soon had our blood and sweat flowing. We bashed through a muddy and narrow bush trail, and found a perfect viewpoint well clear of where all the tourist jeeps were parked, and watched a magical light show as the distant volcanoes puffed their greeting to the sun's grand entrance.

The hike to the actual Sea of Sand where the volcano was nestled would have taken another few hours, if it wasn't for a local Indonesian family asking us to join them on their jeep to the valley (this came at the mere price of being in a photo with them). Down below, we were greeted by a lunar landscape of dusty ash and barren hills from previous lava flows. This was one of the closest experiences I've had to being in another planet; it's as if someone had plopped down a desert right in the midst of a high-altitude jungle. The effect was unnerving.




Then there was the hike up to the volcano's crater, where we walked along the rim. Now that was freaky. Being Asia, at some points there was no fence that stopped you either tumbling straight down into the caldera, or going the other way and falling off to the bottom of the hill. The path wasn't paved, and if it had been muddy from rains I definitely would not have wanted to try it. Still, it was cool to be up close to a volcano, and as close as I'll ever get to the "ultimate" hot spring experience.

This man has the biggest balls in Indonesia, walking down the crater to pick up bouquets that people had thrown in so he could resell them again and again.

On the exit trip back to Surabaya to catch my flight home, I had to endure the horde of Indonesian schoolchildren and nightmare buses alone. But I managed to make it to the boring, bustling city of Surabaya, where I had my phone screen, battery, and camera all changed for just AUD $100. By the end though, I had had enough of Asian metropolises, and just went around the shopping malls aimlessly. The night before my flight back to Sydney, I treated myself to a three-course meal in a restaurant and then went and watched Split in the cinema for AUD $5 (stunning performance by James McAvoy). I remember now the words of a Turkish/Russian couple I met on the bus back to Surabaya, that in Asia you do get the worst experiences (see scams, stomach bugs, stolen belongings) but you also get the best (taking yourself out on a cheap date lol).

My taxi back to the airport