6th day already and we start the most westerly route where we will go to Java heading towards Dieng Plateau, especially known for the remains of its temple in the middle of the valley as well as these lakes and craters scattered all over the surrounding area.
This is a volcanic complex often included in tour operators. According to the owner of the GH the bus to Dieng passes just 5 minutes walk from there. So we walk just 2 blocks further and wait while asking people (or rather people asking us where we are going) if there is a bus. Bus that will indeed pass there (but it is not a stop strictly speaking).
The journey is not very long despite a mountainous road full of curves, count 2 hours from Wonosobo. Arrived in Dieng, we are dropped off at the first crossroads of the city which is in fact more of a kind of large village that runs along the road.
Once we had put our luggage down, we asked if we could rent a scooter and it was a nightmare... Basically, only one rental company was available...
He first offered us a price that was too high before telling us that there were none available anyway, we managed to get a more reasonable price (which the hotel owner told us) but there were still no scooters available... well yes, another tourist was supposed to return his by 13pm (it was 11:30am at that time) as we weren't staying in Dieng for very long, we preferred to wait to have a means of transport and see as much as possible.
Unfortunately, the tourist in question never showed up... We decided to walk a little in the meantime to "soak up the place" and stop hanging around uselessly.
Smoking is the second "scourge" in Indonesia. Indonesians smoke a lot, at all ages and especially in all places. Including public places and transport, when you are used to France or even Thailand which have these smoking bans in public places, finding yourself right behind a guy smoking on the bus is not very pleasant, hotel owners will even show us around the rooms with a cigarette in their mouths, eating when your neighbor is smoking you is not great either...
The only exception is the "executive" class that we take on the train where no one smokes, because it is forbidden, small consolation... Yes, during the journey to Bromo our driver will be polite enough to only smoke during pee stops, photo stops or other stops, not during the journey.
Coming back to our scooter, we were finally informed that tomorrow morning if we wanted it would be possible, a little disgusted because it was already 14 p.m., we accepted, because we didn't really have a choice...
Trusting the scale of the map, we finally set off on foot to follow a tour suggested in the guide and local map that we were given.
Further on, as the rain begins to fall gently (the trees are enough to protect us for now) we see this ghost village appear, abandoned after a previous eruption in the region, probably that of 1981 of the Sikidang crater, the closest to where we are. The previous big eruption took place at the Sinila crater which caused the death of 149 people mainly because of toxic fumes, nice region we tell you!
The plateau itself is a caldera 14km long and 6km wide, caldera: that is to say that it results from a previous eruption creating a depression by emptying the magma chamber to summarize… The volcano in question is still active and significant emissions of sulphide gas forming fumaroles, mud pools or acid lakes are the prerogative of Dieng. The caldera thus contains no less than twenty volcanic cones, five craters, four lava domes and ten fields of fumaroles and mud pools.
With all that, I just saw that the activity increased just a month after we passed and that today the authorities fear a new eruption in the region... that's Indonesia too, you have to know that.
