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Right, left Borneo about a week ago, and have been travellig around java, which is far cooler than I ever expected! Was extremely sad to leave the jungle and all the wonderful Indonesian people that we met there but soon managed to distract myself from this woe!!!....
We first travelled to Probollingo, a small town in East Java, from where we visited the Bromo Volcanoe and the Ijen Plateau. We got to Bromo for sunrise only to realise, as most sensible people already would have, that it really was very cold at about 3000m! So had to hire some incredibly attractive knee length coats as well as buy hats, gloves and scarves!! Never expected to be needing them. The view was undoubtedly woth it though as the sun came up and gradually revealed the volcanoes shrouded in wreathes of mist- beautiful.
The Ijen Plateau was also stunning, we had to stay in a small village up in the mountains for the night; the village was really sweet and based around lots of coffee plantations. The plateau itself was something else with a giant aqua blue lake at the top and billowing opaque clouds of smoke coming from where the sulphur surfaces. Fortunately the wind was blowing it in the other direction.
The walk up to the top, however, wasn't so much fun- It was about 3km and practically vertical. Foofing hell. Didn't feel quite so sorry for myself afterwards though when I saw the poor men who mine the sulphur; they have to walk up and down the mountain twice a day and carry about 60kg of sulphur at a time! I honestly don't know how they did it, because the walk was so so hard on its own. All of the men had broken collar bones from the sheer weight of the sulphur.
After this we travelled to Yogyakarta, we arrived at about 3am to be taken down lots of magical little winding alleyways to our hotel. Where we are is absolutely enchanting with lots of little batiks and arty things. So sweet. Whilst here we have been white water rafting, was excellent- especially when our guide flipped the raft over deliberatly without telling any of us!
This morning we have been to Bora Budor the Buddhist temple; was beautiful, and this evening we are going to Prembanan, the Hindu temple. Then we're going to stick around for the open air ballet- its traditional dancing and because its the fullmoon they are putting on a special show!
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