Bromo, Probolingo, and Life on The Road.

Becca and I were a little sore over some advice that seemed to be deliberately with held by Luppa or 'Forget It' as you may remember. We'd spent two days trying to get information about buses and trains and a place to stay outside Mt. Bromo in order to catch the sunrise on the mountain top. He was busily trying to rush us onto a tour and we were desperately trying to avoid anything having to do with the word tour...finding in ourselves matching visceral reactions to most other tourists. Thusly we decided just to go to a bus station and hope for a bus straight to Probolingo...a town nearish to Mt. Bromo which we had hoped to slide into by nightfall for an early trip to see sunrise on the moutain... this was not exactly what transpired:

1.) We realized we had no cash between us.
2.) We could not for the life us communicate that we wanted a bus to Probolingo ASAP without someone trying to sell us a ticket elsewhere for some other price.
3.) We were generally still peeved with Luppa for making us so confused.

I took off on Ojek (again - motorcycle cab) to get us some money (I often volunteer for grunt work like this because, being the superior intellect, I depend on Becca for bargaining and navigation... seriously the girl is a maverick). We had to speed some 2 KM away to the nearest ATM winding through back alleys of the Jogja outskirts... it was quite lovely actually ...seeing another part of how a city functions. Slipped back to the station just in enough to time to determine that we should take the leaving bus to Surabaya that someone had been trying to sell us for the past half hour if we wanted at all to make it for sunset the following morning. On the bus, the only bus of its kind that I've taken so far, we both got our own seats... and AC, we tried to sleep and watch Indonesia pass us by as we sped East.

Changed over at Surwabaya and pulled into to Probolingo around 12:30-1 Am, totally exhausted and road weary. We were practically attacked upon stumbling out of the empty bus station by a highly overfunctioning small old man, who drives a Pedicab. He insisted on taking us to a SPECIFIC hotel. Becca, at this point still more cheery than I was, gave in to his pushing and we snuggled into the tiny seat set on the front of his bicycle with both of our giant backpacks arguing the whole way along about wanting JUST to go to the nearest hotel. We finally jumped out at a small roadside spot .. three quarters of a block down from the bus station.. grrreat... We took a room for cheap... and upon entering realized why it was cheap.. damp stains and neon light piercing our already overexerted eyes. We tried to sort a trip up the mountain with the people at the hotel but they wanted some exorbitant amount of money to rent a jeep? I told Becca we would get up early and wing it, falling faces first into our rather questionable beds.

Upon rising to the cell phone alarm... we stumbled about in the harsh lighting blinking at each other.... me wondering should we do this.. but the weary look of 'but we've come all this way' in her eyes told me to shut it and push forward. We walked back to the bus station finding a group of men hanging about in pedi cabs and motorcycles. We arranged, after much haggling of the over invovled, hyper old man of a few hours prior, to take two Ojeks up the mountains, and chase the sunrise as fast as we could.

The weather was cold and one found onself bundled close against a stranger in a Muslim country. For all the pomp and circumstance correlated with covering one's body in this part of the world, Indonesian motorcycle culture does call for quite a lot of snuggling with strangers. As we pushed up the mountain the last sounds of night surrounded us and enfolded the senses. The cool air and the rushing wind pulled me from my stupor and forced me to take in all that that was happening like a good slap to the face. As the morning drew closer, we began to pass through little towns on the mountain just waking up. At first it was just quiet houses with dark windows and the suggestion of arms and legs beginning to stretch out of beds. But as we pushed a little further the call of the Iman began, and as we hopped from village to village, so we chased this amazing echo, pulling higher and higher into the hills. Racing past large speaker systems set up on the sides of the road and coffee pots boiling we followed this now familiar sound further and further up as dawn just began to tease the sky.

It was the true definition of exhilaration.

Finally our two drivers, playing tag with each other up the winding hills, separated. My driver clearly attempting to show off his ninja motorcycle skills zipped up some marked pathway that was clearly denoted with some sort of "DO NOT ENTER" sign.. as we got half way up the almost fully flat incline,.... the motorcycle kicked out, and I was forced off to walk straight up the hill... tired and cussing the whole way. "Stupid Male ego.. stupid motorcycle", the driver standing at the top of the hill taunting my tired climb, telling me to move faster laughing through his grin. I was absolutely livid, till I turned my head and BOOM there was sunrise right behind us, just beginning to look like the most GLORIOUS paint spill nature ever chanced to blunder. I leapt back on to the roaring engine and off we took to finally catch up to Becca and her much more modest driver. We slipped off the cycles, alive and full of the thin mountain air, and skipped our way out to Bromo, a mile long walk from the top of the town which leads to the national park. We skipped and photoed ourselves, no longer caring that we had missed the sunrise... as we discovered... that which we always discover here; The journey is quite often meatier than the destination.

As we reached the stairs to the edge of the giant volcano crater we past horses, racing jeeps, and ojeks.. full of both Indonesian and Western tourists. We began our ascent up the stairs, noticing a high propensity of Westerners being photoed by young Indonesians.. a not uncommon site per se.. as the Indonesians are fascinated by white people, and even more excited to photo document EVERYTHING On cell phone cameras. We got to the top, lithe tall Becca gracefully... me huffing and puffing. All of a sudden we realized.. we had become the main attraction. Especially Becca was stopped by group after group of young people wanting their pictures with her, wanting to practice English. We endulged this, and our egos, for quite some time, especially enjoying the young people who wanted to practice their English, but it began to get eerie.... At one point I overheard a particularly eager young girl saying to Becca "But your skin is so beautiful mine is so dark and ugly.. you are so tall and I am so short." Becca fully overwhelmed by the comment stammered "nn no!".

After making it far to the edge of the mountain we finally managed a few moments alone together to recover from the shock of certain truths laid bare and a glorious landscape folding out in front of us. One stands on the edge of two worlds up there, a barren smoking crater - into which we tossed a bouquet of flowers in - and green thriving valley on the other side.

Dichotomous landscape and weird Indonesian insecurities/ cultural values are a lot for the tired mind to take in annd we soon turned back... ready to fight the masses who wanted more and more pictures with the blond. My tired bones and cranky words dragged poor kind Becca out of a few photo shoots till we were on the back of an Ojek together heading towards breakfast, our impatient drivers and the bus to Bali.

....Next up... 10 days of Motorcycle diaries in Bali: In which Katy and Becca rent their own Motorcycles and have adventures.

Lessons learned: STAY OUT OF PROBOLINGO