Indoland! (3)

Continuing my holiday in Indonesia...

Once me and my friend have arrived in Surabaya, we got on a rented car to take us to Malang. One of my auntie lives in Malang so we wanted to stay there for a few days. The journey took longer than it supposed to, as usual, because of traffic. Once we got to my auntie's house, we had lunch and then had some rest. We weren't actually that tired, although we did start the day from Lombok early in the morning. But we had to rest because my auntie planned a trip to Mount Bromo that night, and we had to leave the house before midnight.

We prepared food for our trip, and around 10 o'clock we left the house to go to the jeep renting place. We needed a jeep because a car would not be able to go through the terrain. We set off with the jeep at midnight, aiming to get to the sunrise view point quite early so that we get a good parking spot. The terrain was crazy, it was so bumpy and a lot of the road was really dark. But most of us were really tired so we actually managed to fall asleep, I think that was the weirdest moment to fall asleep, I don't understand how I managed to sleep with all that bump going on. After around 2 hours (which felt shorter because I fell asleep) we arrived at the viewing point, but since it was still 2 am, we had to wait another 3 hours until sunrise. We had a good parking spot at least, and we carried on sleeping to wait until it was a good time to get to the proper viewing spot. At around 3:30, we braved the cold and went out the car to get a spot in the viewing area. I definitely didn't think it was going to be as cold as it was, maybe because it has been so hot in the city, the mountain feels colder than it actually is. It was weird thinking that the day before, we were at the beach soaking the warmth from the sun.

Seeing the sunrise with mountains in view was beautiful. Was it worth the midnight drive, early morning and cold temperature? Yes it was. Afterwards, we went down and had breakfast, went up to see one of the crater and saw some pretty hills which were called 'teletubbies' hills. When we were at this teletubbies hills, the wheel of the jeep broke. We could not carry on with that jeep, so the driver called his friend to pick us up. We waited quite long but at least the view was really nice. The replacement jeep came, and then we went back down to Malang, picked up our car (there were also problem here, the car lock could be opened but was resolved soon enough), had a coconut drink and then went home.

Crowded but still pretty view of the sunrise

I think Mount Bromo is the one in the distance?

Another sunrise snap

View from near the crater

Our broken jeep

For the remaining time we were in Malang, we joined the local celebration of Indonesia's independence day, went to the city centre and to Museum Angkut (Transport Museum) in Batu, an area near Malang. When we went to the city centre, I went to the bank to put some cash in the bank account. Because the queue was quite long, I decided to use the machine instead. But then, before I could put my money in, the machine 'swallowed' my debit card. I panicked, because it was actually my dad's card and I couldn't get a new one unless my dad was there. Thankfully, a guy who deals with the machine came and managed to take my card out. It would have been a nightmare if I couldn't get it back.

Museum Angkut was really good. I initially thought it was gonna be small, but it turned out to be REALLY big and it actually took us 3-4 hours to go around and take pictures. It is a really good place if you like posing and taking pictures. Me and my friend also went on this unique 'car' thing, I'm not sure what to call it, but it's like the one used in Jurassic World. There was also a cafe with aviation theme, which I obviously love.

Cool sink

Runway and aeroplane seats

Vintage

An old garage

Supposedly Italian

Off to Solo

After Malang, we went to Solo by train. My friend has never been on a train in Indonesia before and the last time I was on a train in Indonesia was in primary school, so we thought it would be fun going by train. I will carry on in the next post, as I think it's bed time for me now :)