Mount Tangkuban Parahu

Woke up this morning feeling a bit rough - I had a sore throat yesterday & started to convince myself that I had caught maleria from my mosquito bite in Jakarta - feeling full of cold which I probably caught from the many people coughing on the plane. 

Looking out the window it seemed a bright fresh day. See the bread laid out on the balcony below. 

I thought a walk would do me good and I could see on google maps there were hiking routes up to the volcano craters of Mount Tangkuban Parahu. 

It's a 3 hour hike starting with walking along the busy road with bikes and cars wizzing past, then through a village called Lembang, which was slightly more rural 

but still plenty of supermarkets and of course the obligatory Mc Donalds

Its a shame in a way that places like this are becoming more westernised, and the people appear to want that when some westerners, and certainly I've come to realise, the better and perhaps happier & more full-filling way is going back to more natural ways.......

This sign made me laugh

.....is there any other way to go but down!!?

So as I got to the other side of Lembang the noise dropped to quiet and I found the hiking route through the trees. It was a dense pine forest at first. There were cups on the trees collecting sap. It is used to make soap, adhesives and cosmetics & also for producing bio-briquettes for energy

 

It wasn't too tough a walk, and there were arrows in the trees to aid hikers but I did go a little wrong and was quite reliant on my location finder in google maps

I stumbled on a path where lots of young guys from the army were on exercise - streams of them filed past me with camping gear and rucksacks and they were saying, " Hello Maam!...how are you, where you from and smiling and laughing" ....they were probably wondering what I was doing there !

The camping area

I eventually came out through a gate to where the tourist car park was - I could see the coaches lined up and I had a little rest & a snack. Some more Indonesians wanted their pictures taken with me 

I took their picture too

I continued up the path to the Crater - The smell of the sulphur was quite strong and the crater was amazing to see. The last eruption was in 2019. You can see it steaming and hear the mud bubbling - hopefully I caught this in the last of these videos slightly right of centre -

Bubbling mud:

I was approached by a guy who was doing guided trips down to another active crater so I went for it 

That's my guide Parasan. He is 73 and lives in Lembang. We walked through the trees & he pointed out interesting flora & fauna. I suppose, as with most of these tourist things, they have it so they have various people lined up along the way to try to sell you things. I suppose its OK as they have to make a living somehow and I guess they see us tourists, particularly Europeans & Americans (& they have many tourists from other parts of Asia) like big money pots........if only! Though I suppose - to us - things seem really cheap, even on a small budget like mine. But Parasan was very sweet & the walk was very interesting. 

He was telling me about the trees and how the bark becomes blackened from the sulphur and that the trees nearest the crater have died. He also showed me a video on his phone taken during the last eruption in 2019

At the crater, called Domas crater, there was a bubbling pool which was at 100 degrees - Parasan was keen for me to boil an egg but I didn't, and at the pool that was only 30 degrees I got beguiled into having a mud massage by two ladies with buckets of mud.....all part of the set up - but it was kind of fun and I haggled the price down 😁......it had started raining a bit as we were walking through the tress and at the crater the rain came down really hard and after the massage I was left sitting with my feet in the hot water holding an umbrella with the rain pouring...It was a funny site.......the lady said, "I go now" and everyone had fled to the hut. I too moved to the shelter where I got chatting to some lads from Singapore on holiday. They were conscripts from the army - medics as it turned out - and they gave me tips on travelling in Asia!

Domas crater HOT pool

I had told Parasan that I had hiked for three hours to the top and he laughed and said you are "Strong" ... 

 I think he relayed this to the ladies 😂

We left the hut and wondered back through the forest

Parasan pointed out the earthquake/eruption sensors that were buried down into the mountain - concrete blocks housing piezoelectric sensors that are monitored......

The rain didn't seem too bad under the cover of the tress but, at the roadside where the tour ended, it became apparent that it was raining pretty heavily

Parasan said goodbye as he was heading off on his motorbike back to Lembang and left me with his poncho - as mine (which I had bought earlier) had ripped - but I think he felt sorry for me as after he changed into his - more substantial - wet weather gear he offered me a lift back down the mountain.

I was reluctant at first, but he persisted and I'm glad I did.....as there was no way I could have walked back. 

The rain had been a lot worse than I thought, and the ride was OK at first, but later, through the villages, the water was getting deeper and the rain heavier....it was torrential and I gave up trying to keep the hood of the poncho over my head while Parasan weaved through the floods and other traffic. I was a bit scared but I figured that at 73 he was probably quite an experienced driver and he didn't seem to be taking too many risks but I had no helmet of course and was just trying to relax and hoping that I wouldn't fall off!! 

I obviously couldn't take any pics of this but here's one off the internet to describe the scene:

I'm not exagerating when I said to Parasan - "We could do with a boat!!" 

He chuckled and said - you OK miss?....but I think even he found it bad as he said at one point, "This is not good"

The water was knee deep in some places and gushing through the streets. People were trying to wade through and sweep out the water from their huts at the sides of the road whilst Parasan 'juggled' the bike through the deep puddles whilst avoiding other traffic.

I must say I was glad when we stopped in Lembang and I managed to get a gojek taxi for the last bit of the journey back to my hotel......it was still a 40 minute walk and there was no way I was doing that in these weather conditions! Needless to say, I was very grateful to Parasan for my rescue lift and thanked him profusely!

I was slightly shell shocked and drenched through and back at the hotel later, I found the call to prayer quite poignant.......I'm not religious at all but I do find the sound of the call to prayer quite haunting.

I still remember it from my travels in Egypt more than 30 years ago ........

What a day!