The Lava Hunter

I spent a couple of days relaxing in Bali before making my next move. With another couple of weeks to go before my flight to Melbourne, I'd decided to head into Java - I booked a flight to Yogyakarta, and planned to get the bus all the way back to Bali.

Yogyakarta is a medium-sized city in the middle of Java, and, as much as the visit to the city itself interested me, I was mainly there for the sights out on the city's outskirts. I spent a couple of days wondering around Yogya, (which everyone seems to call it), which turned out to be enough for me. It is one of the few cities I've visited where you can still get a real sense of what the place was like before Westernisation. The place is still headed by it's own Sultan, and his palace (the Kraton) is a major attraction in the centre of the city. Unfortunately, due it being Ramadam the opening hours were made very anti-social (certainly anti-Ollie), and it closed by midday. And lying in a comfy bed, a decision had to be made between sleep and culture. With 3 consecutive pre 5am starts on the horizon, sleep won out. I did get a photo of the front though.

Borobudur - (A giant buddhist monument constructed in the 9th Century AD)

The first of these early starts took me to a massive ancient buddhist monument called Borobudur. It was built in the 9th Century, and I can only assume it took a bloody long time. It's huge! It has 1,500 narrartive panels carved into the side, and there are 432 man-sized buddha statues sitting there chilling on it. The ones on the top have what look like big upturned laticed bells covering them. Very strange. The views from the top were amaxing though, and I got a good sighter of the place where I would be spending the wee small hours that night; Mount Merapi.

View from the top of Borobudur

Now, I have to admit that I don't have a clue what made me decide to go 'lava hunting' that night, because let's face it, I'm a born coward. Maybe it was just because the poster for it at the tour operators desk looked cool. Maybe because I thought 'lava-hunting' sounded like a manly thing to do. Maybe because I wanted one final excuse to wear my expolorer hat. Whatever it was, I have to admit that if I'd been fully informed about this volcano, there's no way I would have gone. This is what the Lonely Planet has to say: "Merapi is one of Indonesia's most dangerous volcanoes and it erupts with alarming regularity. In November 1994 an eruption killed 69 people; in January 2001, pyroclastic flows and thousands of earthquakes prompted the Volcanology Survey of Indonesia to raise the warning status on the mountain." I don't know what the hell pyroclastic flows are, but I don't reckon they're a good thing.

Mount Merapi from Borobudur

I was the only tourist on this particular trip. It was just me, the middle-aged guy who I booked the tour from (who proudly told me in one conversation that he married his wife when he was 27 and she was 17 - followed by lots of manly laughter and back-slapping. Come to think of it, he did keep on touching my arm all the way on the climb. Hmm.), and his son, who acted as driver. On the way to our viewpoint, we picked up a load of local kids on mopeds who were intrigued by the white guy in the 4x4, and decided to join us for the show. I felt we were going a little 'off-piste' when we started driving around road barracades. We stopped near our destination for some hot ginger tea, and my new fans got an opportunity to chat to me about England and asked if I'd heard of Beckham.

The only tree that survived the eruption

At about midnight we made our final small journey to the viewpoint. The car pulled over, and as I jumped out a cloud of dusty ash enveloped me. It felt like I'd stepped into the Blair Witch Project. Except without the witch and the trees and that. So just lots of darkness really. It was pitch black above, and pitch black underfoot - my torch was only able to shed a small amount of light in the darkness. The only other light given off was from the stars, as the moon was nowhere to be seen. I felt a hand grab my arm, and my guide began marching me uphill, with the fanclub in tow, attempting to avoid the boulders of varying size that dotted what landscape I could make out. We soon reached a small plateau, but when I turned around, there was no-one behind us anymore. I asked my friend what had happened to them. He considered his reply for a second before rapidly patting his heart with his hand. I'd played this game before. "Ok....their hearts are beating faster?...", I looked around for inspiration. Ok, lifeless landscape, massive volcano, and...is that a rumble?
"They're scared?"
"YES!", came the instant reply. Jackpot! The brief moment of celebration at having breached the language barrier was then replaced by no small amount of concern. This was then added to somewhat when my guide shone the torch over to one side. This illuminated a small ditch with a few planks of wood covering the entrance. A closer look revealed a battered-looking door a few feet behind the planks.
"Yesterday," my guide said, motioning grandly at the surroundings. "Eruption, yesterday."
"What! This erupted yesterday?!" I squealed, and was already thinking about how much trouble I'd be in with my mum and my girlfriend for having died whilst visiting an active volcano.
"Yes," he nodded solemnly, "yesterday."
Jesus, Yogya wasn't that far away, but I hadn't heard a thing. Evidently sensing my increasing panic, my guide sought to clarify himself.
"Yesterday.....Juni."
"June?"
"Yes. Juni. 3/4 Months."
"bloody hell mate. Juni is not yesterday. Yesterday is....yesterday," I said gesturing behind me. That should clear it up for him. Still, June was recent enough, and I later found out that 2 people had died in the bunker that he'd pointed out. It'd got buried beneath hot ash and the temperature inside had reached 900 degrees. The whole area where we were (4 km from the crater) had effectively been fairly heavily shat on by Merapi.

A big gazeebo-type thing that was half buried in the June eruption.

I took my place on a 3 month old boulder to watch the mountain for signs of lava. After about 10 minutes my guide shouted excitedley and pointed towards a red hot clump of boulders working their way down the mountain. It did look pretty amazing. And you could hear it too. An intermittant low crackling sound. It was a really unique experience - unbelievably relaxing being so isolated near the top of a mountain in the middle of the night with the most clear sky imaginable, but slightly terrifying too, what with the big pissed-off volcano spitting out red hot boulders in all directions. After 1/2 hour or so watching this, we made our way down, and began the drive back to Yogya.

Yogyakarta, Indonesia