In October, we received the final set of visitors from Canada. Bjoern, Britta, Tabea and Andrew were keen to meet our orange cousins in Borneo, so off we, plus our Bogor friends Karen and Michael, went for a 4 day 3 night boat trip to Tanjung Puting National Park in Central Kalimantan.
We can’t recommend Timur and Rote enough as a holiday destination. Off the well worn tourist trail, but easy and full of great people. Our trip included Kupang (with its night market), climbing Fatu Timau and Mutis, and relaxing on Rote Island – world class surfing at the southernmost point of Indonesia.
We joined another great Java Lava trip to East Java’s Gunung Raung, probably Java’s most seldom climbed mountain over 3,000 m. Raung is the larger neighbor to the more famous Gunung Ijen, which is where you see the iconic photos of sulphur miners emerging from the crater.
Semeru is a fantastic hike – up there with Tambora and Rinjani as a truly world class hike. A great thing about Semeru is that there are two really easy hiking days (and great campsites) before you climb the challenging ash slope to the summit.
The “alpine” landscape of the Semeru-Tenggara is wonderfully varied, with pine forests, hills, grassy meadows, and the beautiful lake at Ranukumbolo. The drive from Malang to Ranupane village is a stunning introduction to what is coming for the hike. The road climbs up a long, narrow ridge giving striking views of “extreme farming” on steep slopes, Gunung Semeru, and the “Sea of Sand”, which contains the famous Gunung Bromo.
Follow me!