Yogjakarta (also commonly referred to as Jogjakarta) is my favourite Indonesian city. Despite a population of over 500,000 people it still feels like a small town. It has a wonderful historical centre, the Kraton, around which are located some great restaurants, cheap relaxing hotels with pools (mandatory for the afternoon heat), and unlike most Indonesian cities, it is easy to walk around....

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Travelling in the wet season in Java (from November to March) is not recommended by most guide books. Roads do get flooded, and travel plans may be have to be altered. However like the children excitedly, albeit somewhat dangerously, playing on the flooded road pictured above, it can be enjoyable and a great time to travel. And with weather patterns changing globally, you...

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The caldera at Mt Bromo in Java is a vulcanologists paradise. Four active volcanoes are located close together in a beautiful and easy to access location. A short journey by public transport from Probolinggo, or via bike from Malang (see this blog), and you are in Cemora Lawang, perched on the very edge of the caldera crater. ...

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I needed to get to the volcanic caldera at Bromo, in the far east of Java. There were plenty of tours, but I had talked to others who had been cheated, abandoned at out of the way hotels far from Bromo, and generally suffered in cramped conditions on arranged mini buses out of both Jakarta and Jogjakarta. The closest city to Bromo, Probolinggo,...

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The Dieng Plateau is about 150 km from Yogajakarta in central Java. Being 2093 metres above sea level it is a unique part of Java, where everyone wears jackets and woolly hats, and chillies become an even more important part of the diet than at sea level. ...

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Back in Yogyakarta there was one volcano I had not visited yet, Mt Merapi, or Fire Mountain in Javanese, the most active volcano in Indonesia. Merapi just keeps on erupting. On my third night in Yogyakarta I was thrown around in my bed at 3 AM as an earthquake caused by the volcano shook the city. Ash and pumice was thrown from the...

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  I need to choose a book cover, which should it be? A or B. As you may or may not know, I have a travel guide being published in the near future on the rather extraordinary country of Turkmenistan. It will be a mixture of a guidebook/ travelogue, which will be entertaining to the armchair traveller, or inspire a new wave of...

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Borobudur is one of the most visited sites in Java. Justifiably so, as the 9th century Buddhist temple is a beautiful and inspiring site to visit. It had been on my bucket list for years, and after having my fill of volcanoes, it was time get my history fix. ...

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The Karimunjawa islands are hard to get to, and very hard to leave. Not just because they are beautiful, sparsely occupied and teeming with sea life, but because the Java sea often puts paid to ferries being able to visit, particularly in the rainy season. I was lucky in getting out to the islands, with a very calm and sunny sailing from the...

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The volcano Mt Kelud had exploded a week earlier. Flights across Indonesia and Northern Australia were disrupted, 76,000 people were evacuated, Yogyakarta and Malang had been blanketed in ash, and the temples in Borobudur were closed (and due to risk of acid rain from the ash remained closed for a further two weeks). One small volcano in Java did all this? I wanted...

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Climbing into the Kawah Ijen volcano, as described in this blog, was an unforgettable chance to get smothered in sulphur gases, see the unusual 'Blue Lava', and be constantly forced off the tiny, rocky and dangerous path by miners carrying huge bamboo baskets of sulphur, that they had just mined while dodging the poisonous gases at the bottom of the volcano. It is...

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