Going to The Middle of Nowhere

I really like Ijen right from the beginning to the very end of our stay there. We enjoyed every moment of it.

The bus ride from Bondowoso to Sempol near Ijen was one hell of an adventure. We were sandwiched inside the van together with a dozen others when the van could probably accommodate only half of us.

And they don’t call it HELP for nothing. The van is like the life line to the people which transports food stuff and all from Bondowoso to the isolated farming village of Sempol.

WE had been in East Java for a few days but we never really found the real Javanese experience until we went to Ijen. It is there that we could really interact with the local people – talk to them, try to understand their language, and share with them their thoughts about us Malaysians.

We had to wait for more than an hour for them to load in their goods and stuff. Seriously, I never had to wait in a bus for that long in my entire life but then that was part of the experience.

My travel buddy hasn’t even been in a bus almost his entire life. Either he drives a car or somebody drives it for him so riding on a damn-packed bus was obviously a very new experience to him. Strangely though, he seemed to be enjoying it very very much. Grrr!

Finally departing from the shop (phew!), we rode off towards Sempol across beautiful countryside with expansive paddy and crop fields. Of course every now and then the bus would stop to drop off or pick up a passenger or two so there was no way we could ever tell how long the trip to Sempol from Bondowoso would take.

Most of the people on the further east of East Java are Madurese. They are probably slightly shorter in average compared to most people in the East Java. I really like it when they speak Indonesian. The language (or rather slang) is so soft and polite and beautiful and somehow sounds so romantic to my ears. 😛

I happened to be seated next to a young guy whose parentage is a mix of Madurese and Javanese which gives him the advantage of speaking in both languages. Having a conversation with him was quite an experience. He seemed to be a young guy with so much potential in life.

He was actually on his way home from Jakarta where he represented Indonesia in a basketball tournament involving universities from all ASEAN countries. He spoke among others of his family which consisted of Christians and Muslims and HAD NO problem getting along with each other.

One of the guys in the van was actually talking about some sentiment against Malaysia. He spoke in Madurese but I could understand a little by putting pieces of words together and reading the way he gesticulate.

Areen the young guy whispered to me and said “please don’t mind what he says. Different people, different level of thinking”, to which I quickly replied “No no, it’s OK. We don’t mind at all” and I actually meant it. We complained a lot about our own country too. LOL!

When another guy told him that we were from Malaysia, he immediately fell silent and refused to talk for the rest of the ride. The situation turned a little bit awkward but we just kept talking, asking Areen more and more about Ijen and Indonesia as a whole.

Only a few kilometers towards the end of the ride the guy who probably felt guilty chipped in and even gave us his own suggestions of what to do in Sempol and Ijen.“You should stay at least a few days here”, he said when we told him that we were only staying in Sempol for a night. I actually found it quite cute and funny. LOL.

After what appears to be unending ride, we finally arrived at a guarded gate through which we were welcome by a beautiful spread of farmland surrounded by hills and mountains. I was told that some of them were active volcanoes. I could not contend my excitement.

WE checked into a hotel called Arabica Guest House which was probably the only hotel in the whole of Sempol. The hotel would have been a very grand hotel with so many rooms of different sizes and settings if not for its lack of maintenance.

I have come to learn that it is managed by the plantation itself. Surrounded by coffee and strawberry plantations, it really gave me the feeling of being in the middle of nowhere and far far away from the rest of the world.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the village and every now and then we’d bump into villagers who were so friendly and welcoming. The more I explored the village of Sempol, the more I liked it there.

But of course, there was much more of Sempol than just the beautiful plantation and friendly people as we discovered the next day.