...continued from Bali - Ubud.

So we arrived in Probolingo in Java after 9 hours on the bus. 9 hours of bliss though as we had the seats by the toilet at the back, which reclined into beds practically, and we slept like babies! Now there's a first! Awaiting us to no surprise were people to take us to a nearby travel agent and sell us stuff. We arrived in time to go straight up the mountain but we needed to get to the hotel that we had booked first to drop off our bags. We rang the hotel and they sent someone to pick us up, and when he got there had no transport and sat down and started chatting with the tour guy! then he put us in a bicycle rickshaw to our hotel and met us back there as he travelled by motorbike. Also there with him was the tour guy and after bargaining with him for ages and it taking so long just to get to the hotel we decided to sleep and sort it out in the morning. But not before the tour guy had knocked on our hotel door twice to give us a receipt for a trip we didnt want etc. The hotel seemed to be in on the plan as when we asked what other travel agencies and tour guides there were in probolingo at the front desk they fobbed us off till after breakfast and then surprise surprise guess who turned up!? The town was barren and we coudn't find another office on foot and with no advice we had to go with this guys offer. Actually earlier in the day after getting lost we went to the police station and ended up being police escorted around the town to the places we wanted to go to but totally forgot about trying to find another agency, especially as we were nearly in a road accident when a car bashed into the bicycle rickshaw we were in! but hey thats a story for when we get home.

So we ended up arranging to get picked up at 2.30am the following morning by this guy who would take us to the top mountain for the view of the entire landscape for sunrise and then down to climb Bromo (It takes an hour) before bringing us back to the hotel for breakfast and then he would take us to a bus that would take us directly to Surabaya airport all included in the price. Seems fair for the price we paid......but alas we waited till 3.15 for someone to pick us up after calling three times...he didnt come, we had to pay an extra 50 000 RP to get into the national park that he said was included in the price, and the driver suddenly went deaf to the problem and lost the ability to understand English....then we swapped to the 4wd jeep that kept breaking down on the mountain so we missed half of sunrise! was still very beautiful. then we went down to Bromo which was beneath the cloud that you'll see on the photos so you couldnt seeyour hand in front of your face, was freezing cold and the driver dropped us off pointed vaguely in a direction and said walk that way! we couldnt see a thing and didnt want to get lost so we didnt climb it, thinking we could get back to the hotel early and find this guy to get some of our money back and make sure that we would actually get to Surabaya airport! However the driver decided to turn into a public minivan on the way down the hill and pick and drop off as many people as possible along the way. They even tried to get us to pay for the return journey!!!! We asked to get dropped off at the office but they insisted on going to the hotel and this guy would be there at 9am to meet us. After trying to ring him we are told he is out of the city on another job, and then someone else said if we get a bemo to the bus station he would meet us there.... grrrr. we ended up getting to the bus station and his 'friend' sorted us out tickets but no refund for the extra money we spent. after an hour of shouting and swearing we just got on the bus and got the hell out of there. We never want to go back to that place again it is rip off city and everything people say is a lie! We managed to get a bus in surabaya to the airport for 10 000 rupiah so we didnt really lose any money and flew out to jakarta that night, and stayed in a posh hotel as we thought we deserved some sleep and pampering. After a blissful hot shower (havent had hot water for a month!) and 5 hours sleep we dragged ouselves away from the heaven and got on another flight to Padang in sumatera.

few....so that was Java...one hellraising adventure, very expensive and annoying and Pedang wasnt that much better! especially as its ramadan and this is not a tourist place, we starved, were still extremely tired and had a hotel that was next to the market, very noisy and grotty and no breakfast because of ramadan. We moved the next day straight to Bukkintingi (another town north in west sumatera which is way better!)

see next blog....