24/7/10 Heading to the Bromo Volcano

Snacks in Indonesia are interesting. Each time we go to the store, it's an adventure cause you never know quite what you are getting. These "fishly" crackers looked like goldfish but tasted like onion infused graham crackers. The Happytos looked promising but were pretty much like corn flakes cereal with salt on them. Interesting.... Today was a travel day. We hired two rickshaws this time and got to the bus station with much less huffing and puffing on the part of the rickshaw driver. We took the "local" bus which was very hot and involved a LOT of staring. Every stop, dudes would get on the bus and if they could speak English, they'd come ask us questions, and if they couldn't, they'd just stare. At one stop, a man stood along side my seat and just stared at me for what felt like hours. A little uncomfortable but we came out none the worse for wear.
This fella came on the bus and did some religious chanting (complete with eyes rolling back into his head), demanded a donation from us (seemed fair as I was hoping he was praying for the bus driver to stop driving like a maniac and us to all survive the journey), and then plopped down and promptly fell asleep on Jeff's shoulder.

After the bus, we transferred to a minibus to take us up to the town of Cemoro Lawang, which is a stone's throw from the active Bromo Volcano and a number of other volcanoes. The minibus had four rows of seats in the back and one bench seat in the front. The driver fit 24 of us on this bus. I'm serious. It was like joining the clown car act in the circus except with 35 degree heat and 80% humidity (oh and some Europeans without deodorant).


The view from the town made it all worth while though.