Indonesia - August 2001

To describe Indonesia in a few words is as difficult as to visit it in a few weeks : so many islands, so many landscapes, so many people, so many religions ... I had to do a choice, and I choosed to hike on some volcanoes of Bali, LOmbok and Java islands. Here are a few impressions for each of them :

• Gunung Rinjani : at Lombok, an inactive volcano that has to be earned (the last ridge seems to be easy, but it's an illusion), but the view from on the crater and the lake rewards for the efforts you did. This is the second highest summit of Indonesia and the highest of Lombok (12224ft).
• Gunung Batur : at Bali, the volcano itself is not much active and not very interesting but the huge crater in which it stands and the lake in it are worth the trip.
• Kawah Ijen : at Java, inside the crater of this volcano you can find an acid lake and a place where liquid sulphur flows from the earth ! This sulphur is collected when solid and carried to the bottom. You can go inside the crater to see this.
• Gunung Bromo : at Java, in the huge Tengger crater, the Bromo (active) and a few other volcanoes (inactive) made an interesting landscape. Many tourists, most of them Indonesians.
• Gunung Semeru : highest summit of Java (12060ft). Active with irregular eruptions every few hours, but without danger from the summit which is far from the crater. The ground is not easy (especially when the weather is windy) and the view when at the summit is a little bit disappointing.
• Gunung Merapi : dominating all the area, the Merapi is very active and you can climb it only by the north side because of lava flows on the south one (situation in august 2001). The ascent is an easy one and both the activity and landscape are nice to see. Ask if the volcano is dangerous before going there.

Photo gallery

You can see the photo gallery of the trek on distant trails (also works on iPhone and iPad).

You will need Adobe Flash Player to see this gallery (unless you use an iPhone or iPad). The lower right button of the gallery navigation bar will allow you to see the images full screen.

Map

Thanks to Google Maps, you will see below the trek map.

Click on "View on a larger map" to see a full screen map and to be able to load it in Google Earth plug-in and see a 3D view. The trek trace you see is not coming from a GPS, so do not try to use the coordinates to perform some actual navigation.