We get up at three o’clock to cram into jeeps taking up the rocky road to see sunrise over Mt Bromo valley. On arrival, we find the side of the roads crammed with other tourist transporting jeeps, and the short hike up to the viewing point is crowded. It is worth it though as the rising sun reveals a valley of ethereal beauty. There is a large plane in the middle of the valley out which the volcano rises, and we can see donkeys on the plane being lined up to carry the less physically tenacious up to the top of the volcano.
Although we are nearly on the equator, we are also high up, the viewing point being higher than the peak of the volcano, and I am glad that I haven’t sent all my cold weather gear home.
After sunrise we walk through the valley. There are steep steps that enable us to walk up to the volcano peak and we can see messages in rock left by people who have had the nerve to go right down into pit of the steaming crevice. I can’t imagine how they weren’t overpowered by the sulphur, nevermind the fact that this is still an active volcano (which erupted again in late 2010 and early 2011).
After the volcano visit, some of us are enticed to go into the nearby seaside town of Probolinggo to go on a shark viewing boat trip. We are not quite sure which sharks they will be, but it turns out to be the harmless but huge whale sharks.
When we arrive at the jetty, which is behind a small but closed amusement park, we are greeted by the local tourist board and some journalists from ‘Compass’ a Javanese newspaper. This is an attraction which the local people have only just started to exploit and two of our ladies, Rhiannon and Mary, are ceremonial garlanded with a ring of flowers for the benefit of the newspaper’s photographers. The head of the tourist board is also here and joins us on the boats.
On the trip into the bay, which features a dozen or so traditional fishing platforms, we float about for more than an hour before turning back to shore. We have taken out two boats and the skipper of the other one has let Jen take the helm to at least make the trip memorable. It was almost more memorable than we wanted because Jen starts cruising toward our boat, which has seen better days, not realising that boat steering is not quite as responsive as a car. The bow of their boat bounces into the starboard side of ours which triggers a burst of colourful language from Pete, while Jen can’t stop laughing.
With all the tourist board here, it is disappointing to them and us that we face the prospect of coming away without spotting any whale sharks. However, about half way back to shore, one of the skippers spots a dark spot in the near distance, and we motor toward it to find a fin and then a huge spotty blob floating slowly by our boat. After this, we spot another couple and get up very close, although I can’t help feeling that is they are to turn this into a tourist attraction they might be better advised to approach these great creatures with less directness as they could scare them away from the bay. At one point one of them bumps into our boat, though I think this might have been a defensive warning by the shark.
I am tempted to jump in with them. While they are filter feeding animals, the fact that these fish are eight to ten metres long does induce fear, although I am convinced not to dive in finally by the presence of some long snake like creatures that we spot breaking the surface while pointing straight up and then descending in the same direction.
I probably spend too much time trying to get a good photo, which never emerges because of the digital delay in my cheap camera.
On returning to the bank, the tourist board officials have laid out a table with opened coconuts for us to drink out of. I am one of a few of us interviewed by the journalist on our feelings about the prospects for tourism in this area. I respond that this area has a lot more potential and would be very attractive to western tourists, but the fact that there aren’t more is due to transport issues. For us, having travelled overland all the way from London, it is no big deal, but there is no easy or quick way to get here. With the local air transport links having the worst safety record in the world and with bus drivers being kamikaze like, there is some distance to go before this becomes as mass tourist destination. That’s not an entirely bad thing from my point of view.
Tired from an early start to the day, I retire to bed early. However, I am disturbed by a group of Indonesians who have gathered for a small party on the balcony on our floor, and with our wicker walls, they might as well be standing next to us. I go outside to see what is going on, but they are very friendly and I sit down to chat and they share a couple of their beers with me.
Only one of them, Enrique, speaks passable English, although some of the others know some rude words in my language. It turns out that these guys are a band and played in the hotel restaurant at dinner time, which I missed. I have a long conversation with Enrique in the universal languages of music and football. He is a Liverpool fan, although he says his favourite player is Wayne Rooney (Manchester United having the most notable fan base of any club in Asia). It is refreshing that here there is no contradiction in that, although he does share the universal disgust of just how greedy footballers can be too. I also satisfy some of his curiosities about England, explaining that, while English people do not tend to be as friendly as Indonesians, the fact that he is not white would not make him stand out as being unusual in most parts of my home country. We part in the early hours of the morning as friends, him inviting me to stay with his family in East Timor the next time I am in Indonesia, and me promising to take him to see Manchester or Liverpool if he can make it to England.
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