Popular as peanut butter and jam (with me at least), Mount Bromo towers imperiously over Southern Java like an ancient protector. Word on the vine was that this was up there with the very best things to do in Asia, universally agreed as the best view in Indonesia at least, so there was just no way we could pass by and be content with seeing it out of some smelly bus window. We had to do the climb.

And so did Tom, Gemma, Viktor and Malu. We all negotiated with the same jeep guy and agreed to knock each other up in the morning. So, earlier than I care to admit (about 4am) we all wolfed down a tasteless brekkie and, bleary eyed with sleep deprivation, sped off, not towards Bromo, that would come later. We were off to a nearby high viewpoint for the view of the sun as it rose behind Bromo. This was what all the fuss was about, hopefully a good enough reason to get out of bed.

The best view in Java

Happily the mist fell heavily as the sky began to brighten so I couldn’t see the long drops and precipitous corners we were narrowly avoiding on the way uphill. When we did arrive (alive) it was just in time to muscle in between some of the other snap-happy tourists and finally get a glimpse of the view to die for (or if not die then certainly risk enormous yawning sessions shared by everyone in the vicinity). And like most things worth setting your alarm for three in the morning for, Gunung Bromo did not let us down, the view was spectacular. Set in the vast, wide caldera of a volcano so old and enormous as to defy the imagination was a much smaller cone (Gunung Batok), next to which squatted Bromo like an ugly sibling, and behind that the still active (chuffing smoke regularly) peak of Mount Semeru, the highest mountain in Java. Clouds filled the larger caldera like huge witches cauldron spilling over the sides and down to the foothills and behind it all rose the red angry sun, its light filtering orange and bright through the clouds.

The Crazy Crater Crew

We managed to clamp our jaws shut long enough to take a few photographs and, once most of the other viewers had had an eyeful and gone off we finally turned our back on Bromo and got into the jeep to drive to the base of the climb.

It wasn’t a hard climb by anyone’s standards, those weak and feeble enough not to be able to manage the couple of hundred steps carved in concrete into the side of the cone were able to hire one of a few dozen waiting horses and donkeys to give them a lift. By the time we had arrived most of the days fellow tourists had already ascended, had a look and come back down, we were among the very last.

Horses for the terminally lazy

The sulfur assaulted us before we'd even finished the (half hour) climb, cutting straight to the lungs and making our eyes water in pain. At the top it was much, much worse the billowing smoke belching from the crater below was blowing directly towards the 'viewing platform (the only part with a fence). We decided to take a walk away from the crowds and see if we could clamber our way around the top of the whole crater. Apparently this was quite a dangerous undertaking, previous tourists had had the unstable edge of the volcano crumble under their feet, throwing them headlong into the hot centre. We didn't know this at the time and besides, it looked easy enough. We set off.

Not a nice place to breathe

And everyone managed to come back in one piece thank God. We got front row seats of the volcano from every angle, as well as a little side trip down into the dormant caldera just behind Bromo (that you can't see from the front). Tom and I even managed to write our names in big rocks should any aliens be watching. The edge of the cone was at its thinnest only about a foot wide, but we all succeeded in not losing our balance for the hour or so it took to do the walk. By the time we got back to the viewpoint we were the only ones left. I could see our jeep waiting patient and lonely below. It seemed everyone else had gone back home already. Amanda lingered a further few minutes to throw an offering over the edge into the caldera as thanks for our safe passage, a wreath of flowers sold by enterprising locals. Then we all quickly descended to the jeep and the end of our tour.

Spot the little alien

Normally at this point Amanda and I would have said goodbye to our group of fellow travelers and carried on alone, but this was near Christmas and New Year, we were all going to the same place and we'd all booked ahead anyway. Together we boarded the bus to Bali that would take till the following morning to arrive in Lovina, where we all intended to spend this years festive season.

Some time after midnight I woke to find Amanda looking out of the window. The bus was rocking gently and surrounded by moonlit water, as surreal a Chitty Chitty Bang Bang moment as I can remember. It took a few seconds for me to remember that the ferries out here are just floating platforms with an engine at one end. Nearby was another group of floating buses motoring to Bali. Maybe when I woke up it will all have been just a dream. Maybe it will be three in the morning again and I will still have that view of Bromo ahead of me.

One last look

All its friends call it Jogja. Yogyakarta is, in all ways the complete opposite to Jakarta, its hard working industrious cousin in the West. This is a city renowned more for its painters and batik artists than its stocks and shares. Here you are much more likely to find yourself surrounded by age old monuments to long dead civilisations than the high rise madness of the capital. Bicycle trishaws still rule the roads in Jogja, thank god we'd left the traffic madness and pollution far behind. We intended to hole up here for a couple of days, check out the old town (what was the Hindu empires capital city) and maybe look for a nice painting for the toilet, then hop on a day tour to two what are billed as two of the best ruins in Asia. The Lonely Planet Travelers Bible compares the Buddhist temple of Borobudur to Angkor Watt, so clearly efforts had to be made not to miss it.

Most of the people that live in Indonesia live on the island of Java. From the vantage point of my train seat gliding serenely through mile upon endless green mile of paddy fields stretching as far as the distant horizon I found this very hard to believe. The largest settlement I saw had a population bolstered exclusively by bored looking cows, the chickens outnumbered the people by a good three to one. For seven chilled out hours we sat in our air conditioned bubble, being served hot dinner (and hot towels!) by a dressed up steward and staring out of the window at the occasional volcano rising gracefully from the otherwise flat landscape, until finally we arrived at Jogjakarta. Finding accommodation wasn't hard, for once the first place we looked at was so clearly the best thing available we didn't have to bother with anywhere else. The owner was also an artist (so it seems is just about everyone in Jogja, if you cant draw you sculpt, if you can't sculpt you do Batik, if you can't do any of these you drive a trishaw, but with artistic flair) and all the rooms were decorated with stunning dali-esque paint jobs featuring melting naked ladies and big hands, apples and gecko’s, all very tasteful.

As with any good hostel, especially those with a common TV and DVD area (which this one did have) we met loads of other traveler types to go on tours and spend the evenings playing cards and watching films with. Anthony from Ireland, Tom and Gemma from England and Viktor and Malu from Sweden. To be honest we've been trying to shake them ever since but I am writing this on New years eve and preparing to meet up with Tom, Gemma, Viktor and Malu for a few drinks later on so we haven't been very successful.

Ready for a night on the town?

The town certainly lived up to its arty reputation with batik 'exhibitions' housed in every spare room, paintings lining the pavement with their hopeful looking artists standing by to chat up anyone who shows an interest (Amanda bought several originals, my favourite is the one of a brown butterfly). On our second day of a planned two (we decided to stay a bit longer because we quite liked the place) our new group trekked to the centre of the old town, a lavish palace and court yarded area called the Kraten where in an open pagoda there was a weekly dance recital.

Dancing Queens

Made up to within an inch of her life

I sat next to a lovely old Japanese lady who filled me in on the finer points of traditional dancing throughout the performance, much to the annoyance of the Americans sitting in front. She was so interesting I didn't even notice their subtle huffs and puffs till Amanda told me later. We also took in a ruined palace nearby which to be honest was less than inspiring, better was local bird market where everyone seems to walk about with two or three chickens hanging by their feet.

You should see the eggs they sell!

To catch the tour bus that goes to Borobudur and Prambanan we had to be out of bed and ready by five in the morning, not something I expected to be getting used to when I bought my first pair of traveling shoes. The clouds overhead (when it finally got light enough to see them were an ominous shade of black and there were wispy, half hearted showers hitting the windscreen as we arrived at the Borobudor car park. The dramatic weather served as the perfect backdrop against which to appreciate the ruin however, I just wish it didn't have to be so wet.

Borobudor Buddha

Borobudur is the worlds largest Buddhist temple, though it's not ENORMOUS it is fairly impressive when you factor in the fact that Buddhists are pretty placid laid back dudes who sit about all day eating a low fat vegetarian diet contemplating their navels (as opposed to age defying building projects). It is unique in the world in that the monument is a microcosm of the whole Buddhist ideology and a facilitation of the human journey to enlightenment. It consists nine platforms representing the levels of enlightenment, each decorated with carved stone relief’s depicting scenes from the life of Buddha and lessons of the faith. You start at the bottom with scenes of greed, hate and evil and continue, learning as you go, possible from one life to the next, till you stand on the top platform, having achieved nirvana. Along the way are 504 Buddha statues (presumably to keep you company) getting more impressive and even protected by their own stupas as you climb further.

Pausing for a photo before Enlightenment

Unfortunately my personal spiritual journey was interrupted before I could attain perfect knowledge by the deluge of rain we'd all been expecting. I had to give up all zen aspirations for this life and leg it for the entrance where breakfast was being laid on in a little pavement tarp-covered cafe. Sometimes being a posh tour participant pays off after all.

The second part of the morning was spent in another historic site called Prambanan, this time the largest Hindu temple complex in Indonesia. It was built about 1200 years ago by a long dead king of a long forgotten empire, I know you don't really care so I won't go into the details here. After skirting past the touts and snow globe sellers we had a very brief time without rain to wander about the temples and found they were actually really good. Sporting the pointy roof design (technical term) that Hindu town planners seem to prefer the first temple was in amazing condition. This probably had a lot to do with the fact that most of it was roped off from the riff raff and so hadn't been destroyed by hoards of tramping boots like the ones I was wearing.

The towers we weren't allowed anywhere near

Around the main temple are more little ones, each a bit more dilapidated than the last. According to Amanda the more ruined a ruin is the better (so presumably a disordered pile of bricks is the apex of ancient building sightseeing) so we went to the very far side of the complex to get a look at some seriously knackered mounds of debris only vaguely resembling a building, which actually turned out well because it gave us a chance to catch a glimpse of the herd of deer that lives in the area.

This was when the heavens opened and what felt like a cosmic bucket load of water fell from the sky. Real rain like they only know how to do in Asia. We ran like headless chickens to the shelter of a little pagoda, which we shared with two nice ladies and their flock of 30 or so sheep. Luckily for us the parks tourist 'train' rolled by after ten minutes and offered to give us a lift back to the entrance. Amanda paid an entrepreneurial spirit a couple of pence to hire his umbrella for the dash from the entrance to the van and we sat with the rest of our group, damp and forced to listen to Bon Jovi on the radio till it was time to go home.

And so after all the fun was over and done with there wasn't a great deal to keep us in Jogja, like a team of intrepid explorers Tom, Gemma, Malu, Viktor, Amanda and I left together the following day heading to Mount Bromo, a big, smoky volcano and supposedly the best view Indonesia has to offer. After waiting in a town halfway there till 9:30pm for a bus that was supposed to turn up at 4pm we finally rolled to a stop and booked into the Lava hotel. Apparently it had a great view of the cone, its stunning scenery and astounding vistas. We'd have to take the books word for that, it was way too dark to see anything. Having organised a jeep to take us about the next day (it's good having a group to share costs of things like jeeps, on our own we would have had to walk the three hours to the viewpoint, then back, then up the volcano itself, it would have killed us) we all rolled into bed, excited at the prospect of a sulfurous day ahead

According to most people and their mates this place is the armpit of Asia. The Lonely Planet Travel Bible has almost nothing nice to say about it either. In fact virtually every one I spoke to advised us not to go, fly over, go straight to Jogja or Bali. It turned out that most of them hadn’t actually been themselves, they were just recycling advice given to them by other travelers who themselves probably had never been there. If we ever needed a reason this was enough to make us want to go and see for ourselves. If everyone’s talking about a place even the negative it has to have something about it.

So it was that before the hottest part of the day (or at least the most sweltering part, the most likely to die from dehydration part) we stepped out of Jakarta airport to a surprisingly clean and organised concourse, found our cheap, hassle free air conditioned bus quickly and easily helped by some cheerful (though not Cockney) locals and sped in cocooned safety to the heart of the City, all within ten stress free minutes.

Into the big smoke

It seems from everything I saw of Indonesia’s much talked about (but seldom visited) capital, that you just can't believe the hype. We were let off near Gambir Train station, possibly the cleanest and least crime ridden inner city train station in Asia and walked the quarter hour it took to get to the main backpacker hangouts nearby. Again I was struck by the lack of dead animals in the gutters, no used needles sticking out from discarded half eaten big Macs, no rats skittering along from one drainage hole to another out of the corner of your eye. This was hardly an Asian Capital at all. It made Bangkok look like a rubbish tip and Kuala Lumpur like the Blitz; Phnom Penh didn't stand a chance.

Quite pleasant really

Our room was nothing special I'll admit, a little space in a side street home stay, but it was clean, safe and quiet which is what you want when all else fails. The restaurants outside proved themselves worthy of Farang central by offering banana pancakes and sate chicken all on the same menu, the internet worked, there were even a couple of English book swaps nearby. I seriously don't see what all the fuss was about.

Of course the traffic in Jakarta is complete bedlam. We tried to get to the National museum before it closed, this being our only day in the City. Thinking it would be quicker to take a tuk tuk we agreed a price and sped towards the main road, only to remain stationary thereafter for the next ten minutes. After our driver managed to crash into the van in from in a jam that hadn't moved for ages we thanked him and got off to walk through the park instead. By the time we got there it was closed, but we could still get into the National Monument as the afternoon died.

Impressive erections

The Jakarta National Monument, locally known as the "Monas", commonly known as Sukarno's last erection is a massive spire with a lift shooting up the middle to a viewing platform where, on a smog free day it is possible to see across the whole city. Our views were blocked before the horizon however by a haze of grey-brown fog that made me feel like I was looking into a dream. I didn't mind, it gave the City a little bit more flavour, that bit more character to see it as it usually is, We did get great views across the parks, museums and tower buildings though at this enormous Mega city, well worth the 20p to get in I think.

A coughingly nice view

That night I spent an hour arguing with a book swap shop owner that 'swap' didn't mean 'also pay for' in Indonesian, while Amanda spent a similar hour trying to explain to a waitress that making a good cup of tea involved not using the water from the dishwasher. We bought our tickets to Jogjakarta knowing that there was probably a lot more good stuff in Jakarta to see (and yes ok, probably a lot more bad stuff too) but that we just didn’t have the time on our visas to see them. I was very excited about the journey, we don't get to take trains very often, buses being much more prevalent in South East Asia, let alone first class trains with air con and your own little table that folds back into the armrest. We paid the bakery a visit for those all important en route snacks (it was a seven hour train journey after all) and went to bed.

The morning saw us hot and sweaty in Gambir station, easily finding the right platform and catching an on time, clean and cool train. Jakarta had certainly turned out to be a bit of a myth buster. Of course it wasn't some utopian city, yes there was pollution, but nothing to rival Cairo or Buenos Aires, the smog in other cities prevents you seeing your hand in front of your face, in Thailand I have been chased down the road by red eyed rats intent on tearing me apart, hotels in Salvador provide an escort for tourists to not get mugged on their way home from the cash point machine. This place has nothing on them, not that we were reaching for the real estate brochures, it wasn't that great. Suffice to say we both actually quietly didn't mind Jakarta at all