Cemoro Lawang, Java, Indonesia

Cemoro Lawang is a small village on the north-east corner of the tengger caldera - containing dormant mount Batok, active mount Bromo and very active mount Semeru. The bottom of the caldera is a lifeless flatland of black volcanic ash, called the sea of sands. Bromo last erupted in 2011 (people died) and now smoulders white sulphurous smoke menacingly (when volcano smoke turns brown there's an issue!) - Semeru erupts every 20 minutes, throwing a massive puff of smoke high into the sky.

99.9% of people come with organised Jeep tours. They leave Bali at 8pm the previous day, or Surabaya at midnight, or somewhere else early and drive here for sunrise at 5am. I didn't want to do this - I wanted to get here under my own steam, and stay in Cemoro Lawang. I caught a bus to Tunpang and asked about to see if someone can get me into the national park. After not much success and heavy rain now falling I hid under some tarpaulin, where a man was serving noodles - I had some and a kopi. When the rain subsided someone said their friend would take me on a motorbike for 150,000 - which I declined. Eventually I got them down to 100,000 and we set off - my big rucksack between the drivers legs and my camera bag on my back, under my fetching silver rain poncho that I'd just bought.

We climbed up, and up, and up, and up. It got cold and we were swallowed by thick mist. At times the road was so steep that I had to get off and walk, while the driver revved the poor bike up the hill. I say road, but it was more of a path, with volcanic sand and large holes. At this point I remember thinking what on earth am I doing?? Have I completely lost my mind this time?? I had no idea where we are, I can't see in front of my face, I had no helmet and I just gave this guy 100,000 to bounce me up to the top of an active volcanic caldera. My arms and legs were aching so much from gripping the bike seat!

Eventually it flattened out and we burst out above the mist. We were riding along the top of one of the caldera arms that reach out into the land below. All around were villages and their farms, growing everything imaginable in the cool air and fertile volcanic soil - they slope steeply down the side of these caldera arms. After a while we hit a downward section then suddenly it opened out into a beautiful, green savannah with the caldera wall surrounding us. I'd read about this on the internet - you don't see this on the jeep tour! Another 20 minutes and we dropped further onto the caldera floor and the road turned into a black volcanic expanse as we entered the sea of sand. Crossing this sand was sketchy - the bike slithered and dithered but the driver was skilled and held it well.

Cafe

Helpful people!

Savannah

Sea of sand

Arriving at the village it was damp, and you couldn't see much. This is pretty typical in the mountains here, the best time is certainly the morning. I plodded about in the rain looking for a cheap place to stay. A lady let me sit under a shelter with her, which I thought was nice - then I realised she was selling fried banana - which was tasty. Later I found a "homestay". This term baffles me. It suggests that you'll spend time with a family, eating food with them and enjoying a warm fire in the evening (or something). In reality they've built some cheap rooms at the back of their house, and you never quite know who, or if indeed there is a family at all! Whatever the case - I was glad to have a room.
After a walk about the village I realised that there's nothing to do, and nothing to see with the clouds, so went back to the room for an early night - ready for a 3am start tomorrow.

My room

Pondok Wisata homestay

The high street

Kitty on a rug

I was woken by vehicles - tourist Jeeps - lots of them - from here/there and everywhere. I was a little late waking so threw on my clothes and grabbed my bag and torch. The walk up to viewpoint 2 is fine, if steep at the end - the only danger are the Jeeps roaring past every minute, typically oblivious to ped's. I have to jump off the road several times! After an hour you're there and passing those hundred + Jeeps parked up on the roadside. Now there are tourists and horses and hawkers to dodge. The sun is beginning to rise and the view is unworldly, with cool mist trapped in the caldera, waiting for the sun to come and release it. Bromo simmers quietly and Semaru releases its trademark puff of smoke every so often. People jostle for a position to get the best photo. An American man is stressed and tells people to "MOVE please, I need to get this shot". It's all too much for me and I continue following the steep dirt path to viewpoint 1 - the summit - not accessible by Jeep. It takes an hour to get to the top - and the view isn't much better, but it's a lot quieter!

At 8am it's already scorching hot and the clouds are moving up. I have some fried potato and banana at a little shop at start the walk back down.

So hot on the way down. All the tourists have already gone and the place is deserted. Some farmers ask me to eat some rice with them - I politely decline as I'm full of banana and potato. Further down an old man offers me some food - which I also politely decline. The locals are lovely!

I walk back though Cemoro Lawang and down the hill into the caldera. My left knee felt weird, kinda twitchy after the walk down, but I carry on across the sea of sand. It takes about 30 minutes to get across by foot - you can take a horse, motorbike or Jeep also if you want. You walk past the Hindu temple (only the Hindu's would build a temple in such a crazy location!) and up some steep, loose sand - then up the 100 or so steps to the crater rim. Standing up there is awesome, looking down into the huge, steaming hole far below! Occasionally the sulphurous steam blows over you, forcing you to cover your face. I stayed here for a long time - I love things like this. To think there's an enormous lava lake not so far below you, that could potentially erupt at any second, is humbling.

On the way back down my knee was in severe pain. I had to stop every two or three steps and when I got to the bottom I rested at a little stall and had some noodles and coffee, trying to work out what on earth I'd done to my knee. After stopping for some pictures with Indonesian worshippers (Muslim and Hindu) I had to get on a motorbike taxi - I couldn't walk any more. I think I was trekking for 5 hours, my knee was not happy! Back at Cemoro I grab my rucksack and find the local bus out. I have to sit around for 2 hours waiting for the "sexy" bus to fill up, so grab a nasi special (rice, chicken, egg, sausage) and a 100plus energy drink. I poke and prod my knee for a bit.

Poten Hindu temple

Hi Death! How are you?

Pakse, Laos

Not quite getting enough money out before getting onto the island (there's no ATM here) I'd completely run out and Talitha had just enough to buy us both a small breakfast and one tea bag (which we shared). I dashed to the ATM as soon as we hit the mainland and bought an impressive array of drinks, crisps and nuts to munch en-route to Pakse. There's a little confusion as to who's going in which minibus but eventually we get a seat. On the move we begin to demolish the feast but at the end of the road we're ushered out, into another minibus. Very odd. I don't know the reason. Into the older new bus and we're moving again; at least until the minibus gets a puncture thirty minutes later.

Arriving at Pakse at 3pm we head straight for a lonely planet recommendation as it's raining heavily and we just want to ditch the bags and shower. Talitha isn't staying in Pakse; she's catching a bus north to Vang Vieng that evening for some tube pumping Mekong action. The Sabaidy 2 guest house has the hallmarks of a Lonely Planet approval: unhelpful staff and higher prices. They were very off about Talitha putting her bag in my room for a few hours, and also wanted to charge her for using the shower (she managed to ninja one). Pakse is a large town with a friendly feel, nested between the mountains. There's a large Chinese and Vietnamese population here and everyone (it seems) drives expensive 4x4's. For tourists it's mainly a base for motorbike adventures to the Bolaven plateau and the coffee plantations; this was my plan for the next four days. We walk to a temple then to a large bridge over a big tributary of the Mekong, where there's a beautiful (derelict) French colonial mansion (for sale) on the other side; it looks fantastic - I want it!

After that we stroll back and grab some tasty Asian food in a western style coffee shop then sup a warm beer in the guest house garden while a thunderstorm rages overhead; the fish in a giant tank love it! Once the rain dies a little we hail a motorbike and sidecar tuk-tuk to the bus station. We hang about in the station for around an hour (a cat finds me) then, realising the lack of people about, and hearing various stories of the Pakse to Vientiane route, we start to worry about someone trying to take advantage on the sleeping bus. At the last minute someone that was on the bus with us before turns up and all is good! I wave goodbye and decide to walk the 5km back to the hostel, as it's now a beautiful night.

Next day I cheerily exit the unwelcoming guest house and head to Miss Noy's motorbike shop on the high street. I hire a bike for four days at the cost of 50,000 kip per day. Fitted with the usual sweaty undersized helmet (I have a large skull). I scoot off on my semi-automatic Honda Wave, rucksack and all, ready for a great adventure, quickly nipping into a market and buying some pure white shakin' Stevens canvas pumps. The road to the plateau is long and climbs steadily upwards; it takes me a few attempts to find the correct road as the map is vague. Before long I'm straight into the damp clouds and I can only see about 20m in front. It's cold and wet; I pop on the jumper and raincoat and continue, hoping to break out of the clouds, but at this point I'm pretty much on the plateau, and no break happens. For the sake of having a bike for the day I stubbornly press on for about 200km. Occasional breaks in the cloud give me a beautiful view of the coffee plantations and peaks in the distance. People in little towns and muddy villages wave as I cruise past.

Cold and wet I seek sanctuary in a temple

See what?

Stuck clouds

Numb bum, RSI stricken throttle hand, back aching from the rucksack, soaked and cold through I eventually give in and turn back, heading north-west to a guest house I'd previously researched. Within 5km of the guest house I come upon a large gathering of people just outside a village. I get closer to see a collapsed bridge, completely split broken in two and in the river!

Fuck!

Asking about there doesn't seem to be a way around this. I have to go almost back to Pakse to get around then back up to the guest house. I start to think this was never meant to be and, as it's getting dusky, decide I may as well just go back and stray in Pakse. The clouds had lifted a little by this point and I could get some nice speed (as much as you can from a 125) from the bike. As soon as I hit the main road from the plateau I'm out of the cloud layer and it gets immediately warm. Back in Pakse the weather seems beautiful as I limp into town! I take the bike back and the explain what happened to the bike lady; the bridge story being overheard by some tourists who decide that maybe they won't hire a bike after all. The lady gives me three days cash back and I pay an extra 10,000 kip (it's 60,000 for one day). I explain that if the weather's good I'll attempt it again tomorrow.

I stay in a cheap and characterful place with flowers in bombs in reception and photographs of former Laos leaders meeting with Ho Chi Minh - I wish I'd noted the name. Unfortunately I woke up the next day to the same view of clouds on the mountains and decide it's probably going to be the same, so I grab a fantastic Tom Yum (to get me in the mood for Thailand) at a stall then get the overnight bus out that evening at 19:30.

Cloudy mountains - meh

Tom VERY Yum

Hoi An, Vietnam

The journey down the coast up the Hai Van pass is possibly one of the most beautiful coach journeys I've ever been on. Out of the right windown the rolling green fields roll up to peaking hills to the Laos border and on the left the sparkling blue coast winds as far as the eye can see. It leaves you uncertain which way to look! Top Gear described the journey (and road) as one of their all-time favourites.

The train would be equally as nice I'm sure

We checked into the only remaining hotel in Hoi An, the Dai Long ($15 for an a/c double) for the first night, as it was a public holiday and swarms of Vietnamese descended on the town!  It's a picture postcard shopping mecca. You can have anything you want, handmade, in a day. Hundreds and hundreds of shops line the streets offering to put something together for you from your description, a picture, website or from their own catalogues. It's not really my scene, this shopping thing. Ask anyone that knows me! It's not that I dislike shopping, more that I have no idea what to buy so get fed up. There's one person who really helps me, to the point of me giving her my credit card and her choosing £500 worth of goods, which get delivered to my door (no, it's not my mother). I was thinking about buying a suit here but I've lost 10kg since I started travelling, and a fitting now would be inaccurate when I get home and pile that western fat back on. Talitha had some cute leather shoes made almost identical to a picture on a website. They certainly look well made (they're still going strong one month later) so I feel I should give props to the makers;

Shopping aside there's not much else to do. There's eating and drinking of course and Hoi An has many beautiful restaurants set in French colonial buildings but they don't financially benefit the long-term budget traveller, so we eat in the tasty cheap set meal joints (with bia hoi for 4000dong!). At night the town is beautifully lit up with lanterns hanging everywhere, on the bridge, the river, draped amongst the flowers on the colonial buildings and up the high street. It's not so much a backpacking destination, it's more for couples and families, but it's worth a stop even if only for one night.  

We hire four motorbikes. They are key here, giving you the freedom to visit one of the many beaches up the coast. We avoid the town beach and have a quick swim at An Bang. We then decide to find some even quieter beaches further north but all of the land north of the open beaches in Hoi An has been bought by foreign million dollar resorts, although they don't seem to have built anything yet, or started to build something but didn't finish. We find one derelict looking building around 8km north of Hoi An and wheelspin the motorbikes over the sand for a closer look. Steve, a friend of Emily, heads in first when a security guard, with gun, appears from nowhere. Time to leave. Even further north security men sit in little huts on the roadside sadly preventing us getting to these beaches. In the end we give up and head back to Hoi An. Shame that someone, looking for a little quiet beach, can't just turn up and have a swim, or bathe for an hour on this beautiful coastline. 

The next day Talitha stays back to write her blog so me and Kylie share a bike and Steve and Emily share a bike. We scoot off and get lost around some back roads, then head north on the main road to Da Nang. About 10km up the road Steve's bike gets a puncture, right outside a "garage" (some guys house!). He repairs it quick-time and we're off again.

Mr. Fix it

We're approached by a seemingly innocent lady on a moped, telling us that we're near the marble mountains and we can park in her shop if we like. With no beaches about, and having read about the marble mountains, we follow her and park in her shop which sells a million marble carvings from the tiniest Buddha to the biggest horse statue (complete with realistic penis) which are all ship-able to your home country. We get a ticket and head past a stupid plastic penguin bin (wtf?) up the stairs to the top of the tourist mountain where there is a rock temple and some ancient carvings of Buddha in caves with various sharp and slippery rocks to clamber on (and thorn trees to put your hands on) to get to the summit, for some fantastic views.

Back down and collecting the bikes we of course had to "just look" in the ladies shop. Despite the  impressive array of marble goods I don't purchase anything as it adds quite a bit of weight to the long-term travellers backpack, and I already have various Buddha souvenirs.

The ride home in the afternoon sunshine was irresponsible bliss with clear fast stretches of road and whooping overtaking, fast accelerating, cornering and braking (occasionally delivering Kylie's breasts into my upper back) then cruising into the town to return the bikes, have a quick shower then straight on the night bus to Na Trang (shudder!)