Day 75: Journey to Bromo
Another travel day! We finally said a reluctant farewell to the Bangsring Breeze (we tried to calculate what it would cost us to spend the rest of the trip there – while still cheaper than living in Manhattan, it just didn’t make sense), and got in the hotel car for the train station.
Despite our ticket-buying issues, we found the rest of the train experience to be incredibly simple: we exchanged our receipt from the Indomart kiosk at the train station ticket counter for our actual tickets without a problem, and boarded our “Eksekutif” class car headed for Probolinggo – a 3 hour ride away.
Our first train ride in Java!
Very impressed with the Executive Class – two chargers at every seat, plus a TV with cartoons for kids. Can’t say American trains are any better. (Granted, we were in third most expensive car – not sure what “Ekonomi” would have been like…
Enjoying the view, as we wiz through the county side
The real challenge came when we arrived in Probolinggo: we had to get ourselves from the train station, across town to the public bus station to get on a bus to Cemoro Lawang (the town at the entrance to Mt. Bromo). Igor had done his research, and was aware of the many scammers that target tourists trying to get to Bromo: they will do just about anything to prevent you from boarding and paying for only the public bus.
While there were several dozen Western tourists who got off the train at Probolinggo with us, by the time we stopped to buy our ticket to Surabuya for the next day, they had all dispersed, leaving us by ourselves outside the train station. For once, there was not a single taxi driver in sight. As we started to wander off into the street, a rickshaw driver tried to get us as a fare – we told him, “No thank you – we are going to the bus station,” so he lead us over to a nearby bemo. We asked MULTIPLE TIMES to verify, “You are taking us to the public bus?” Igor even pulled the bus station up on his phone and pointed to it – “Bus Station?” “Yes, yes, public bus,” we were told. As we sat down, a local stuck his head in the window and told Igor, “Hey brother, they’re going to rip you off.”
Sure enough, the bemo des NOT take us to the public bus terminal, but to a tour agency instead. At first, Igor refused to get out of the bemo, insisting that the driver take us to where we wanted to go, pointing at his phone to prove we were not in the correct spot. First, the travel agent tried to convince us that the public bus would make a second stop here – yeah right. When he told Igor that he would only charge 50K IDR to go to Bromo (the public bus cost USD$1.50 less), we figured arguing with them would not be worth the trouble. We let the travel agent sell us a package that included return transfer to Cemoro Lawang, a pre-dawn pick-up in a Jeep to visit the sunrise viewing platform and black sand crater at Bromo, plus park admission for 400K IDR pp (around USD$65 total). Since the park entrance fee is a fixed 250K IDR pp fee, we calculated that the package was not a bad deal…if this guy actually follows through on his promise!
Igor is very suspicious of this bemo driver…and with good reason! This is NOT the bus station – but sometimes you just have to relax and accept that you are going to get a little ripped off in Indonesia. Is it worth your time and energy to get upset over USD$10-20? No.
This travel agent is giving us a decent package…if we trust that the chicken scratch on this piece of paper means anything…
As we were finishing up our transaction, another bemo dropped off a German couple – the next victims! Heike and Johannes fell victim to the same scam – misery loves company! We became travel companions for the rest of the trip to Bromo, and honestly – a couple new friends makes the whole experience of getting ripped off much easier to bare.
The four of us got into our private transfer and headed up toward Bromo. It was an estimated 2hr drive up the mountain. About halfway up, the sky opened up and POURED. This was the worst downpour we have seen during our trip: the streets were suddenly turned into rivers – not exactly what you want to happened when you are careening up the mountain in a minivan without seatbelts. Since the minivan was not air-conditioned, the windshield soon started to fog up – the driver constantly had one hand on the wheel, while the other was trying to wipe away a small view space. That, plus the leaky roof and windows dripping water on us and our bags, made us start to regret we spent our buffer day for weather at the resort in Banyuwangi.
Can you see out this windshield? ‘Cause we couldn’t! Don’t know how the driver made it up there in one piece.
The German couple had already booked a room at the Café Lava Hostel through the travel agent, so the minivan dropped us all off there. We had intended to shop around the various hotels when we arrived in Cemoro Lawang, but due to the downpour we decided the hostel was good enough for one night.
We hid in our room for the rest of the afternoon, trying to dry off and stay warm until the rain stopped. We finally had a bit of a break after sunset, so we met up with our German friends at the Café Lava Restaurant for dinner and more than a few beers.