My experiences of taking an East Java volcano tour

Mt Bromo and Ijen are two volcanoes in East Java, Indonesia. Both are super popular with visitors to Indonesia.

When visiting Indonesia, my sister, Lou, was very keen to visit both Bromo and Ijen, so we knew we had to include them both in our itinerary. However, as they are both relatively remote and it’s awkward to get between them, we decided to take a tour.

During the tour I took a log of what we were up to and when. I therefore thought I’d share it here in this article. That way, if you’re thinking of heading to East Java on a similar tour, you can get a better idea of what happens and when.

About Mt Bromo and Ijen

Mt Bromo and Mt Ijen are two active volcanoes on the far east of Java, the most populous island in Indonesia.

You’ll find Mt Bromo four hours’ drive from Surabaya. It takes the form of a classic cone-shaped volcano, which is located in a larger crater alongside a couple of other volcanoes.

Meanwhile, Mt Ijen is close to the port to Bali. It’s notable because of its crater lake (known as Kawah Ijen) which is considered to be the most acidic lake in the world.

Mt Ijen is also well known because of its blue flame: literally blue fire, which is created when sulfur gases emitted from vents around the crater lake come into contact with oxygen.

Why is the tour so early?

Most tours to Mt Bromo and Ijen are sunrise trips. That means that you aim to be in position – whether it’s inside the Ijen crater, or at a viewpoint over Bromo – before sunrise.

Why bother going so early? In the case of Mt Ijen, you can only see the blue flame when it’s dark. As for Mt Bromo, I don’t think there’s a reason beyond the fact that the sunrise over the crater is stunning; it ranks as one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen.

Heading out for sunrise does mean that there’s an early beginning for each trip. In our case, visiting in September, we left our hostel for Mt Bromo at 4 am, and for Mt Ijen at 1 am.

Visiting both volcanoes is a gruelling task!

Our tour: a day-by-day breakdown

When visiting Mt Bromo and Mt Ijen, we took a two-night, three-day tour with Indo Travel Team.

As it was right at the start of our trip through Indonesia, we flew into Surabaya Airport to begin the trip at the closest point to Bromo. We then finished our trip in Bali, heading directly to Seminyak.

I’ve written the day-by-day breakdown of the tour below. This is quite a detailed account, so feel free to skip anything that’s not relevant to you – there might be quite a bit of this. Still, I hope it’s useful.

Day 1: Pick up and transfer to Bromo

1:30 pm: we were picked up from Surabaya Airport in a 7-seater car, and headed onto the motorway. There were four of us going onto the tour, alongside the driver, who we understood wasn’t a guide and had just been sent to fetch us.

2:15 pm: from the car, we could see Mt Bromo in the distance; it was very tall and impressive. However, as we got closer to the mountain, it disappeared into the clouds.

3:15 pm: the car began to ascend the mountains, towards Mt Bromo.

4:00 pm: we arrived at Good Karma Guesthouse, where we were staying for the night. We were shown to our room, which had a single bed and double bed. As it was cold, we chose to share the double bed and use the single bed duvet as another source of warmth.

The room felt slightly booby trapped; the door handle fell off on the inside a couple of times and there was no door handle on the inside of the bathroom either. It wasn’t majorly clean, but the bed was comfy and we slept well.

4:30 pm: the driver who drove us from Surabaya asked for payment for the trip. It felt weird as we hadn’t yet seen any guide and he didn’t know anything about the trip or the arrangements. However, it seemed to be legit in the end…

6:15 pm: dinnertime. The guesthouse gave us chicken noodle soup as well as salad, tempeh, a chicken wing, sambal and rice. It was a filling meal.

At dinner, we met our guide and the other people on our tour, who had travelled from other places (Bali and Yogyakarta). Overall, there were five French people, one Singaporean, one Norwegian, one German and us. The guide was also French.

6:45 pm: we had a five minute briefing regarding the plans for the next day, where we we’d visit Mt Bromo for sunrise.

7:15 pm: we headed back to our room to get some rest.

8:30 pm: sleep!

Day 2

Morning: tour to Mt Bromo

1 am: we were woken up by a loud, slightly terrifying noise. It turned out it was the pipe for the sink! We had heard it screeching the day before as well, but not for as long as this.

3:30 am: we woke up and got ready to climb Bromo.

3:55 am: we went into the entrance hall of the homestay to grab warm clothes and a torch, which the guide had left on the table for hikers from our tour to get.

4:05 am: we got into two jeeps and headed to Mt Bromo. The total drive to the base of the crater took 20 minutes.

4:30 am: we ascended Mt Bromo. This began gently across a sandy / ashy plain, then got steeper. At the end, we ascended 250 steps to reach the top of the crater rim. As it was still dark, we couldn’t see very far ahead, which helped as we didn’t know how far we had to go!

5:00 am: we reached the crater rim of Mt Bromo and walked around it to get the best view of the sun rising. The crater was covered by gas clouds so you couldn’t see anything, but we could hear it rumble. We then had a great view of the wider Tengger caldera and neighbouring volcanoes, with the area between us – the Sea of Sand – filled by low clouds.

We watched the sunrise from the crater rim. The sun burned off the clouds within the crater to reveal the ashy flanks of Mt Bromo, covered by eroded river channels.

Our group was the only tour group present throughout. Apparently most tour groups head to a viewpoint of the Tengger caldera for sunrise and explore Mt Bromo afterwards. It was a treat to do it the other way around, missing the crowds at either spot.

6:15 am: we headed back down the sides of Mt Bromo. Instead of taking the steps, we descended the side of of the crater rim. The side of the rim was very ashy; it reminded me of going down a sand dune. It was a lot more fun than taking the steps, although it would’ve been painful if we’d climbed up this way!

We walked back to the jeep, which was parked in a makeshift car park in the Sea of Sand. The walk to the car park was much further than the way to Mt Bromo, as we’d been dropped off at a closer point. The route was very busy, with lots of people walking to the volcano. There were also a few people cheating and going to the steps on horseback.

6:45 am: we got back into the jeeps and headed to a viewpoint to see the crater from afar.

7:00 am: we stopped at a viewpoint overlooking Mt Bromo and the Tengger caldera. Apparently there are a bunch of different viewpoints which tour groups use for sunrise – this was just one of them!

We were given hot drinks and banana fritters from one of the many food stalls. At the viewpoint there was a short wooden tower which we could climb to get a better view of the caldera. The caldera is immense and its scale was impressive to see.

7:30 am: we headed up the road to visit a second viewpoint, up a short but sharp incline. The view was even better from this spot.

8:00 am: we headed back to the jeeps.

Transfer to Ijen

8:15 am: we arrived back at Good Karma Guesthouse and had breakfast (toast, scrambled egg and melon).

9:00 am: we went back to our room to pack, in preparation to leave.

9:40 am: we got into a minibus to head to our base for visiting Mt Ijen.

11:10 am: we stopped for lunch, which consisted of chicken, sambal, veggies in sauce, salad and rice, with melon for pudding. Everyone also got a juice (pineapple for me, of course).

12:00 pm: we continued onwards in the minibus.

2:30 pm: we stopped for a toilet break at a convenience store.

5:50 pm: after a lot of traffic close to Ketapang Port, we finally made it to a restaurant, Food Karma, for dinner. This consisted of a buffet with satay tempeh, noodles, rice and cooked veggies, and melon after.

6:45 pm: we had a briefing with a new guide about the Ijen tour. To be entirely honest, I found this briefing to be quite scary, as we were told about the possible dangers at Mt Ijen and how to deal with them. I had never considered the possibility of stepping into acid or being engulfed in sulfur gases, but those thoughts plagued me for the rest of the night!

7:00 pm: we headed to our hotel.

7:15 pm: we arrived at the hotel (OKU Guesthouse). It was pretty nice and it felt like a shame to be spending so little time there, considering what time we had to be up the next day.

7:40 pm: I went to sleep.

Day 3

Early morning: tour to Kawah Ijen

12:30 am: we got up and dressed. As wouldn’t be coming back to the guesthouse after the tour, we packed our backpacks at the same time.

1:00 am: we boarded the minibus to go to Mt Ijen.

1:45 am: we arrived at the ‘base camp’ for trips to Kawah Ijen. This wasn’t really a camp, but more of a stretch of basic cafes, which tour groups used before heading up the volcano. We were given a hot drink and fried banana. The guides also gave out gloves, warm clothes, a torch and a gas mask.

For me, this hour before we began the hike was truly awful. I was so tired and anxious about the trek ahead that I couldn’t eat anything or enjoy myself!

2:30 am: we begin the hike to the crater rim. The hike took around 1.5 hours, with 500 m elevation gain, and was quite intense.

4:00 am: we headed into the crater. It was around a 20 min descent to the lake at the base (known as Kawah Ijen), which involved a lot of scrambling and was quite steep.

4:30 am: some of our group headed into the sulfur gas cloud to see the blue fire. I didn’t go (I attempted to but lost the group when my eyes burned), but Lou said the fire was around the size of a hob and was underwhelming. The size of the fire is a lottery, and sometimes it isn’t present, so this seemed fair enough.

Afterwards, we took a closer look at the acid lake and took many photos beside it.

7:00 am: we left the crater, with photo opportunities along the way. As it was daylight, we could see the whole lake: quite an impressive sight!

7:30 am: we reached the top of the crater and began the walk back to the base camp. As the route had a gravelly surface and lots of scree, it was quite slippery.

8:45 am: I arrived back at base camp (I was the last person to get there in our group!).

Transfer to Bali

9:00 am: we headed for breakfast back at Food Karma in the minibus.

9:15 am: breakfast. This consisted of a buffet with rice, salad with peanut sauce (yummy!), sweetcorn fritters and omelettes. They also brought out pancakes and a couple of cakes and donuts. The portions were slightly off – for example, we got five pancakes and two donuts for six people! But the food was tasty.

10:00 am: we headed in the minibus to go to the port at Ketapang, to go to Bali.

10:45 am: we got on the ferry to go to Bali.

12:30 pm: we got off the ferry at Gilimanuk, in the far north-west corner of Bali. As we crossed into Central Indonesia, the clocks went forward by 1 hour.

4:30 pm: we were dropped off in the centre of Seminyak, and took a taxi to our hotel.

My thoughts on the tour

I enjoyed visiting Mt Bromo and Ijen. Visiting Mt Bromo was one of my highlights of my trip through Indonesia.

Personally, I wasn’t so keen on the organised tour with Indo Travel Team. In terms of logistics, taking a tour is sensible. But at Rp 4,800,000 ($310 / £245), the tour was pretty expensive.

For this volcano tour in particular, there didn’t seem to be a strong “tour” spirit. Rather than a three day trip, it felt more like two volcano tours with transfers. There was minimal group cohesion and the two volcano trips were treated completely separately, without much communication in the daytime or when travelling to and from the volcanos.

The bottom line is whether you value convenience over price. For Lou and I, given that we were on a somewhat tight schedule and it was our first trip to Java, it made complete sense to take a tour to the volcanos. However, for others, organising the individual components of the trip would be more sensible.

Conclusion

Visiting Mt Bromo and Mt Ijen, two volcanoes on East Java, was a major highlight of my trip to Indonesia. However, visiting both of them for sunrise is exhausting, especially when you consider the hiking involved with reaching both volcanoes as well. It’s a trip that took a few days to recover from!

I’d definitely visit Mt Bromo again, and I’d also consider going to Mt Ijen. But for future trips I would consider travelling independently and just doing the sunrise tour at the volcanos, rather than doing a two night group tour to visit them both.

Do you have any questions about visiting Mt Bromo and Ijen? Let me know in the comments!

If you’re also visiting Bali, check out my visitor guides to Ubud, Amed and Gili Trawangan