After Sulawesi, Java was a relief. Suddenly we got a choice of food after the endless fish and rice breakfasts, lunches and dinners at Togean. The fast food, who would have thought we would crave for a burger, and more importantly, the "coffee bean & tea leaf" to drink our first good coffee after Tana Toraja more than 2 weeks back. So we used the collected points to get some reward nights at Marriott Surabaya and we went to have real italian food at La Rucola. The breakfast at this 5 star hotel was a feast and we spend 2 hours eating.....everything. In surabaya we didn't do a lot. A dissapointing shopping experience, a visit to the Arab quarter was not nearly as exotic as it was dirty, great was the visit to House of Sampoerna where laborers manually make cigarettes, upto 7000 per person per shift as human machines, even their movements are mechanically. Surabaya was refuel and rest.
Next stop was Bromo and after reading the story's about the horrible busride from Surabaya to Probolingo and further to Cemoro Lawang which is infested with touts trying to screw you, we decided to take a hired car and managed to get this 3 hours ride for less than 30 euros, a private car with WIFI and it was not even a dream. Unbelievable! Anyway we arrive at Cemoro Lawang to see Bromo and it was.....cold, a new concept for us after 2 months at minimum 30 degrees C. We re- scheduled our 3 nights to just one, and decided to see the sunrise the next morning. We stayed at Cafe Lava. Don't go there if you like nice food. We met Liz and Janneke and decided to go together in a 4WD to the viewpoint. At 3.30 AM we left in silence, only to arrive in a 4WD and motorbike frenzy near the viewpoint. Like cockroaches on yesterdays dinner all the tourist came together at the mountain view point. Anyway we were lucky as most of the clouds had dissapeared and we saw Bromo and Meru. After that we climbed Bromo, peeked into the crater, made our pictures and left for Surabaya again.

Janneke and Liz took the ride with us till Probolingo and we headed back to stay at the most beautiful hotel I know, the Majapahit. The Majapahit was formerly known as the Oranje hotel and this was the place were the Indonesian threw out the Dutch colonials after the war. A beautiful place with teakwood floors and a beautiful garden. After another Italian meal ( big spenders) we left for Yogyakarta by train. A 5 hour ride, quite comfortable if you bring your arctic outfit as again the airconditioning was blowing like a Canadian Blizzard. Even the cockroaches on board had hair to protect themselves. When our deep frozen bodies rolled out of the train we got to Happy Buddha our hostel for the next 3 days. Beautiful place, simple, but clean and with a hammock ( or hangmat in Sipsian language). In the next 2 days we visited Borobodur and Prambanan, the must see temples of Yogya. Magnificent! Also for food there is plenty of choice as this place is swarming with tourists.
Big white Germans with socks in sandals, English redheads, herds of Chines in groups of minimum 20 persons, Americans(only Democrats), a lot of people from Belanda ( Netherlands). After the boiling heat and craziness of Yogya we have now arrived in Singapore, cultivated, organised, expensive for the budget traveller.