Dieng Plateau by scooter: a ride through the volcanic landscapes
I had made an appointment the day before to have the scooter at 8am, which will be done, having just come back from my sunrise things are going well, Jitima is ready, we leave after breakfast. But the rain does not leave us. Luckily, we are also given the "hood", a kind of thick plastic poncho, effectively waterproof against the rain. For this little trip here is the very basic map that I had:
We can clearly see the loop from the day before starting from "We are here", heading north towards "pengilon and warna lake" passing towards Bima temple then the other temple before the central one of Arjuna. Today, we are heading towards "candradimuka crater" and its dringo lake which I mention later that we will not go that far, before that the first passage will go through the Jalatunda well. Knowing that having only names, we do not know at all what all this looks like...
I don't know what the factories around here are running on, but they are smoking a lot (given how white they are, I dare to hope that it's just water vapor...)
The valley on the other side of Dieng plateau (meaning not the side we arrived from).
At work.
I was afraid of slipping on the wet road with this super steep slope.
He didn't seem quite awake.
After the descent, the ascent.
Following the signs indicating the “interesting” points, I stop on a stretch of path that looks like it could be used as a parking lot.
Cabbage fields (repeat very quickly in your head)
A small series of stairs opens up before us.
The plantations line the ravine…
This is what there is to see, a big gaping hole (old crater), let's be honest not unmissable although impressive.
We continue our route which is supposed to lead to one of the craters of the complex, in this case that of Candra Dimuka if I am not mistaken. The road no longer being there I hesitate to engage there until a local signals me to go there on foot, that is, let's go, another small climb in perspective.
While we have not yet really been seen, only a curious person faces us.
A few seconds later, there's a bit more of a rush at the gate.
Eyes try to follow the cameras that start rolling, there, Jitima attracts almost all of them.
They could really use some tissues.
After school we pass the local mosque.
Some locals too.
And after that, almost only greenery (plantations to be more precise since the hill is covered with them).
Since our first stop the rain had stopped, hoping that it would continue.
The last house we will come across.
Where the smoke comes from is our goal.
A projectile from the local volcano landed there.
The rain of the last few days has filled the streams to capacity.
On a cigarette break, and still smiling.
At times it's steep and the road is relatively bumpy. For my part it's fine, plus I had bought walking shoes specially for the occasion which are actually effective. Jitima for her part, in addition to being less enduring (although more than an "average" Thai anyway) she thought we were just going to hang around on a scooter and so only had these flip flops...
Given the state of the road, I felt sorry for the shock absorbers of the motorbikes that ventured into the area.
As I was walking faster, it gave me time to take my photos quietly while waiting…
Although Jitima slowed down the pace, it took us about half an hour to reach our goal, which between us was rather disappointing. When I saw the effort required, I felt sorry for Jitima who looked exhausted and clearly had a grumpy face...
On the positive side, there was no rain... There is normally a lake a little higher up as we continue, but disappointed by this crater and especially feeling sorry for Jitima, I decided to forget about the lake and go back down.
The smallest plots of land are exploited.
This small piece of tarmac shows that there was a road at one time...
Another one who wanted to be “immortalized”.
The weather is getting cloudy, I'm starting to not regret having pushed the walk higher. Here we actually went back down to a little lower than Dieng, opposite from where we just did our little wander (where we arrived from Wonosobo).
It's time to come back and return the scooter and pack up.
As soon as we come back down (on the way to Yogyakarta) we will be treated to some clearings.
But which didn't really last...
Here we are near Yogyakarta again. The return journey, unlike the outward journey, was therefore done in one go. We had to change buses 5 times to finally return to our guesthouse, the same as on the outward journey, because we had promised the owner that we would come back, despite the fact that we received room offers at interesting prices, 80.000 IDR with air conditioning instead of the 120.000 IDR of our GH without air, but our word is priceless…
