Climbing Mt Bromo and meandering Malang’s rainbow villages

We left Banyuwangi bright and early (430am) to make our way to Malang, which would be our launching pad to explore the famous Mt Bromo volcano. We spent just over 5 hours on a train, our first of the trip, and the scenery was simply breathtaking. Picturesque bits of farmland were crammed into every corner of the Banyuwangi Provence. From corn to dragon fruit and, of course, lots of rice. The view from the train window was framed by stunning volcanoes and mountain peaks. I could also see people washing in the many rivers that coursed through the countryside.

Many mosques also dotted the landscape.

We spent 3 nights in Malang, in eastern Java. One of those nights involved another insanely early wake up for yet another sunrise volcano climb. However, before we headed to Mount Bromo, we explored the beautiful surrounds of Malang city. It felt like a buzzing uni and military town. There were vibrant strips of restaurants and little cafes filled with locals (mostly our age) clicking away on their laptops and sipping on iced lattes. This city also showed whispers of the country’s colonial past. Dutch architecture dominated the town centre and European style lamps shone out across the streets. However, the rainbow and blue villages are one of the city’s most recent and “Instagrammable” tourism drawcards. The shanty towns were once going to be demolished before local university students teamed up with some paint shops to decorate every surface in eye-catchy colours. The paint job has allowed families to remain living in the area and they now use the money flowing in from tourists for an extra boost. It only costs $1 to enter the village so I’m not sure how much of a positive difference the initiative has actually made to those living there. Regardless, it was an interesting place to explore.

The rainbow village in Malang is called Jodipan.

Locals going about their daily lives in the village.

For our second midnight adventure we were picked up in a jeep from our hostel in Malang and driven 2.5 hours to Mount Bromo. We could just see the volcano’s outline as we were driven across jet black sand towards the sunrise view point. We arrived at a warung serving hot noodles and coffees around 330am and spent the next hour or so trying to ignore the cold air pinching our bones. Just before 5am we wandered down to watch the sunrise over the volcano, desert and savannah. My parents had travelled to Mount Bromo during their first overseas trip together in the 1990s so it felt pretty special to be able to visit it myself all these years later.

Paddy and I soaking up the sun overlooking Mount Bromo.

Once the sun had risen we made our way back down the mountain, past some monkeys and onto the jet black sand for a couple of hours to explore the desert and climb the smoking volcano crater. Luckily, it wasn’t as hard a workout as Mt Ijen and the view was spectacular. We were also incredibly lucky with the weather given it was the rainy season. Most other travellers we had met in eastern Java said they had only seen clouds and rain when they came to Bromo in the weeks prior.

After clamouring back down the volcano, across the black sand and into the hot jeep we made the long journey back to our hostel. On the way we passed through a valley that looked like a Microsoft screensaver and steep hills covered in lush potato crops. It was beautiful and otherworldly. Our next stop would be Yogyakarta for a few days of ancient temple exploration.

Tips for Mt Bromo, Malang:

• Organising a trip to Mount Bromo: Similar to our experience with Mt Ijen, most hostels can organise a tour to Bromo for you. We had a little tour office underneath our hostel in Malang. The women working there walked through all the options with us. We originally wanted to do a sunset tour to avoid the crowds but it would have cost 3 times as much. So, we opted for the shared sunrise tour at about $55 each. It covers your entrance into the national park, which is about $35 on weekends, the jeep and hostel pick up. It felt like the most cost and time effective way for us to explore the mountain but I have heard of people hiring a motorbike and heading out themselves too.

• Exploring Malang: There are a few places you can start your Bromo journey from but I’m so glad we chose Malang. It was beautiful, vibrant and had a good food scene. It’s further from Mt Bromo than Probolinggo and other towns but it had more of an appeal as a city to explore so I’d come here again.

• Recommended time: We spent 3 nights and that felt like enough with the tour but if you wanted to see some other areas outside of the city it would probably be better to spend at least 4 nights. I wanted to go to the Tumpak Sewu waterfall but it was a tad expensive without a motorbike and we ran out of time. If I come back to Java though I’d want to spend more time in this part of the island.

• Getting around: We were able to reach everything in Malang by foot because we stayed near the central train station but Grabs were easily available if you needed to head further afield.