From Borobudur to Dieng
Borobudur was a really nice little town, growing in popularity amongst tourists. I liked it a lot more than Yogyakarta though there was significantly less to do after 8 pm – particularly because it was Ramadan.
From Borobudur, my new found Swiss friends and I were heading to Dieng Plateau. Ideally we wanted to climb Mount Merapi – as the most active volcano in Indonesia it would be the most likely place where we could see an active volcano with lava. But after 3 days of repeatedly calling to see if we would see lava on the hike, the answer was a consistent ‘No’. So, the Dieng Plateau it was. The Dieng Plateau was by no means a sorry a second, it is home to two beautiful lakes lined up beneath a Volcano around 1km away.
It was fairly straight forward to get there with 2-3 public buses that cost around 20-25k Rupia each. public buses. Once there, though, there was one obvious thing, that was impossible not to notice. It was cold. Really, bloody cold.
Dieng Plateau
When we arrived, somebody who spoke a small bit of English came to greet us and showed us around different hotels – really just out of kindness and to practice English. We ended up staying in the Arjuna Homestay. All of the homestays seemed to be exceptionally cold with no heating, but most came with hot water.
We walked around in search of food. Despite it being Ramadan, a lot of the street food stall were open and serving up fried goodies throughout the afternoon. Some of the snacks were tasteless, others, awesome.
The town itself was quite small but really quaint. Surrounded by hills of rice paddies and potato farms it was certainly a scenic little place. We were 3 of 4 tourists in the town which doesn’t see that many tourists stay overnight, so we were the attention of everyone’s polite hellos and smiles.
We went for a little walk around the town.
Yes…look again at the antenna…
The next day we decided to hike around the crater. We had met the 4th tourist staying in Dieng – Andy – who kindly drew us a map which I have adapted below.
The hike would take us through countless small mountain villages, to two lakes in the Dieng Crater, the actual crater and the highest village in Java – Sempungan. We would then head back down to the main town in Dieng passing through by the old Hindu temples.
The walk was long and rewarding – particularly on a sunny day both because it’s really cold when you’re 2-2.5km above sea level and because the sun and clear skies make for fabulous pictures….
