MOUNT IJEN-BROMO-MALANG TRIP, 22-26 March 2023 (part1)

MOUNT IJEN-BROMO-MALANG TRIP, 22-26 March 2023 (part 1)

This was my second time to visit Mount Ijen, four years ago I had a solo trip with Mr Bastian, my guide. This time i came one day before fasting, if you to travel around this time, less people, although a little hard to find food for lunch, but there are minimarkets along the way. 

One thing that didn’t change, 4 years ago I had a cold, and this time, I also had a cold haha… quite pathetic, eh?

Let’s the journey began :

DAY 1 : BANGSRING AND BALURAN

I arrived at 8 am at Blimbing Sari Airport, Banyuwangi and our driver (Mr Nanang) picked us up at the airport and went straight to Bangsring.

1. Bangsring

The entrance ticket is 5,000 IDR, and the ticket for the boat is 5,000 IDR. 4 years ago, the water was murky and I had to swim among rubbish, but this time the water was clear, no rubbish, due to the fasting month, less people came here, a very good moment to swim, but I had a cold, and can only stare at the ocean… haehh…. 😑

There is nothing on the surface, you have to go into the water.

2. Baluran National Park

Nothing changed in this National Park, the buffalo’s skulls are still there, the monkeys still roaming around asking for food. In the late afternoon, if you are lucky, you might see peacock, buffalos and deer come closer to the main road  (and we were the lucky ones hehe).

           

Are they only for decorations? (left pic) The view is Mount Baluran. (right pic)

                

The logs are the limit of space than you can step on it, going to Savana is prohibited. You can go to the beach and mangrove forest. The beach was better, less rubbish compared to 4 years ago. The mangrove trees are easy to climb (I had tried it and my skill is still good 😁).

For Bangsring and Baluran, you can check my previous article https://marl-x-journey.blogspot.com/2019/10/mount-ijen.html

DAY 2 : MOUNT IJEN ( 2769 masl)

Usually we start to hike at 1 am, but due to the toxic gas that emitted from the crater, the blue fire was closed, and the Ijen was opened for public at 4 am.          I suggest, stay in the hotel at the Banyuwangi city, you can get a better hotel in the city, from  Banyuwangi city to Mount Ijen takes 1 hour.

We started hiking around 4 am and went straight to the summit, we reached it by 5.40 am. The crate was covered by raising mist, after waiting for a while, the smoke reduced, and we can see the crater, very beautiful and magnificent view.

The water in the crater is boiling, it reduces the crater’s temperature. 

(thanks to our guide, Mr Irul to cut the queue).

There are many dead trees in Mount Ijen, caused by a man set fire to cultivate the field, years ago apparently the fire spread to Mount Ijen and some parts were burnt, although he got caught by authorities but the trees remain dry and dead after years.

    The sulfur’s souvenirs seller (left pic). One of the sulfur souvenir (right pic).

Along the road, a few people are selling souvenirs made from sulfur, it looks nice, but please consider to buy it if you have to take a flight, it is prohibited to carry things that contain sulfur in the plane, it will be confiscated. If you stay in Indonesia, you can send it by post.

Less than 200 m before the summit, I bumped into this 30 years old Ukraine guy who said “I feel like 80 when I saw you running around”, well, young man needs to do more exercise or maybe he is really 80, who knows… 

If you are too tired, or think that you are too old (just like that 80 years old Ukraine guy-sorry Vasyl 😁), you can hire this “taxi” or trolley to carry you.

         

Those baskets were used to carry the sulfur from the crater, but the crater was closed, the sulfur miners lost their job temporarily, those baskets became idle.

We started to descent about 7 am and arrived back at the starting point around 8.15 am. Had Soto Rice for our breakfast and back to Hotel to clean up. And continued to Mount Bromo.

For Mount Ijen trip, thank you for our guide Mr Irul (+6281235005625) if you need the guide in Ijen, you can contact him, he can speak a little bit English and is also a good photographer and thank you for the pics. See you again, I hope I have a chance to come here again. 

DAY 3 : MOUNT BROMO (2329 masl) AND MADAKARIPURA WATERFALL 

1. Sunrise Hill

It takes almost 7 hours to reach our hotel in Bromo, “Lereng Bromo” hotel, a very nice hotel, 45 minutes from the first spot to see the sunrise. Apparently, there are 3 spots to see the sunrise in Mount Bromo : Sunrise Hill, King Kong Hill and Love Hill, we went to the Sunrise Hill, the highest among all.

Our guide also a driver, Mr Pendi, picked us up at 3 am at the hotel with his Jeep. Mr Pendi's main occupation is a farmer, he is from the Tengger people, the Tengger people are Hindu, so is the Mount Bromo.

In Sunrise Hill, you can rent a jacket for 20,000 IDR, there are stalls along the road where you can pee and have refreshment while waiting for the sunrise.

     

We waited and tadaa… a perfect sunrise, what a lucky day! 😁

Me, with my sleepy face.

Around 7 am we left the Sunrise Hill to the Bromo’s Crater, along the road we passed Love Hill, another place to see sunrise.

2. Love Hill

Sorry, no pics, we only passed it. There was a folktale for Love Hill. It was a place where Goddess Loro Anteng and God Joko Tengger met, they fell in love and married. Loro Anteng requested Joko Tengger to have 25 kids, and eventually they had 25 children, the last child was sacrificed to the Mount Bromo Crater to safe people, the 25^th child was Kusuma, he was chosen because he was single. (I feel bad for him, I am also the youngest and single 😿) every year Tengger people offers their crops (potato, cabbage, carrot, broccoli etc, no fruits) on Tengger Festival to the crater for the safety of the people.

3. Bromo Crater

Our next destination is Bromo Crater, we had to hike for 2.5 km to the crater, the guide will not follow us. It was very foggy and created a mysterious ambience. 

It seemed like we were in the meadow… or cemetery?

           

We were still in Mount Bromo, not in cemetery, and that cross actually is a signage 😊 there are only 3 places in here, crater, Temple and toilet. And I had visited them all. 😁

       

We passed this place, it is called Patmasari, for placing the offering for Tengger people, there are signs on both sides. 

        

After hiking for 2.5 k, we climbed the 249 stairs and reached the top, the view is very amazing. The clouds were below us.

          

Bromo Crater (left). On the lower left you can see the stairs (right).

After taking pictures, we went back to the starting point.

        

If you are too tired, you can ride a horse back to the parking lot, one trip for 100,000 IDR.

It was too foggy when we started to hike, but when we hiked back to the parking lot, we could see the temple but it appeared to be closed to the public.

        

The horse dung were scattered along the path to the crater. Beware of this bio-degradable  landmines. Fortunately, they are not smelly and can be seen clearly on the black sand, easy to avoid.

4. Whispering Sand

After we reached the parking lot, we continued with the jeep to this area. Actually, there was no name for this vast sandy area in east Bromo crater until in 2001 there was a movie called “Whispering Sand” and this area was part of the shooting place. And people started to call it Whispering Sand. This area is covered by black sand and no grass. 

          

We can see Mount Bromo on the left, and also Mount Batok on the right (right pic). You can do trail or hike to Mount Batok (2440 masl),  for 5-6 hours, Mr Pendi can be your guide. At that moment, we only had one day in Bromo, maybe next time we can try it.

Far behind Mount Bromo, there is Mount Widodaren, it is a sacred mountain for Hindu, other people can’t go there. Every year Tengger people will go there to take holy water, the water comes out from the stone at the summit, and this ritual to take the holy water is called Melasti. 

Thanks for the Jeep ride and the stories. If you need a guide and a Jeep in Mount Bromo, you can contact Mr Pendi (+62 822 3251 9598). The price for one Jeep is 750,000 IDR, max 5 people, this price is for local and foreigner, no difference.

That’s the end of Bromo trip, we headed back to the hotel, clean up and continued the journey with the car again.

5. Madakaripura Waterfall

Unfortunately, we had a bad experience in here, from Lereng Bromo Hotel to Madakaripura Waterfall takes around 2 hours, we arrived at 1.30 pm at the carpark, and it was raining heavily. Our driver helped us to arrange the motor ride and a guide to the waterfall, because we were only allowed to stop at the parking lot (although the waterfall entrance can be reached by car), but everyone has to ride a local motorbike as decreed by local village head. One trip is 15,000 IDR, round trip is 30,000 IDR, the distance is 2 km. When we reached the entrance, we were soaking wet but the waterfall park was closed due to the heavy rain and flood, the guy at the entrance told us to come tomorrow, and he also said that usually if there is a heavy rain, the waterfall is closed, they will inform the others but they also said usually the guide will force to go in, fortunately we haven’t paid the guide and the entrance fee. So we went back again to the parking lot and wasted the motorbike fee. (A good lesson for us, not sure i want to go back again).

Entrance fee for local is 22,000 IDR, foreigner 45,000 IDR.

This whole trip was arranged by Mr Bastian (+62 853 3605 7250), he lives in Banyuwangi. If you want to explore Banyuwangi and Mount Ijen, you can contact him. See you in part 2.