Dieng Plateau

We make the journey to the Dieng Plateau via public bus. Yogyakarta to Magelang and change to Wonosobo. It gets rather wet along the way. And in fact, it stays wet for the rest of the journey.

Wonosobo Terminal

Wonosobo Terminal

It is a recurring theme on buses all over Java, that buskers hop on with a guitar or other instrument and play a few tunes in order to try and earn a few coins. Wonosobo terminal a few km outside of town but we find a small bus that will take us to Dieng Plateau – allegedly. They drop us in the middle of Wonosobo somewhere and we’re left by the road side with bemo drivers offering to take us to Dieng for 100KRp, which is too expensive. They don’t even want to bargain an inch.

yogyakarta bus

We walk down the road in the direction of Dieng (we saw someone pointing as we were talking) to find a place to sit and have a drink and snack and then ask someone advice. We find a nice coffee shop where we have good coffee and food. The guy working there speaks good English. He appears shocked at the prices the bemo drivers are trying to charge us and agrees it should be way less – about 10KRp or so each on the public bus. We ask if he can point out the public bus we need to get on and he agrees.

What turns out is that the makes a phone call in the background and the bus he waves down for us is his friend’s, completely empty, and the the driver wants 100KRp for the trip. Needless to say we’re somewhat pissed off. We make a stink about it and the guy from the coffee shop apologizes and says it’s his fault and he’ll pay half of the journey if we pay the other. Frustrated and needing to get moving, but will only pay our half when we arrive to the correct destination. En route we realize we may have been scammed again, that the 50000Rp the coffee shop guy paid his buddy might just be returned to him and still we’ll have paid at least 20000Rp more than the good price. Anyway, it’s a nervous ride. It’s gone dark outside, the driver looks from behind like he might be falling asleep. He makes a short pit stop at some tiny village and picks up a couple with a kid – clearly piggy-backing a ride on our fee. But we’re happy that at least someone will be talking to the driver so that he doesn’t fall asleep.

We get to Dieng an hour later. The last half hour of the ride is really nerve-wracking as bus snakes up the mountain road through fog as thick as whipped cream. We recognize a couple of signs for home-stays and when we get off the bus at one of them we verify we are where we want to be before we pay the driver. It’s raining cats and dogs, and the bus driver actually offers to drive us down the road to find a guest house we wish to stay in – reluctantly we accept. We finally find a place (Dieng Pass guesthouse) around the corner and the bus driver goes into some discussion with the lady there. We get really nervous about what he might be saying and we explain we think we’ve been scammed by him and the coffee shop man. Some younger Indonesians there speak English and they translate. They’re surprised; apparently the bus driver just wants to make sure we’ve found a place to stay – weird!

dieng plateau

dieng plateau chicken satay

After settling into our room and popping across the road to get some grilled chicken skewers in peanut sauce from a road-side stand (the sole establishment that is open here at this time), we end up chatting to the group of young Indonesians sitting around a small fire-pot in the ground floor of our guest house. They’re all about our age. They turn out to be a really nice bunch of people and we join them for some conversation around the pot. They’re from Jakarta and taking a short holiday, and they’ve organized a bus to take them to various sites the next day. Ebru asks if they have space for two more and kindly they agree to take us along and split the costs. They’re all working in different fields. We tell them how much we liked Jakarta, especially peoples’ friendly attitude. They seem a bit surprised that we like it though and are themselves happy to get out of the city. “It’s a big shopping mall”, Kiki says; apparently there are hundreds – or was it thousands? – of shopping malls in Jakarta.

dieng plateau

The next day is awesome! We’re up around 4AM and head to a lookout point where we see the sun rise behind a majestic volcano on the horizon.

dieng plateau

dieng plateau

dieng plateau

dieng plateau

Next, we get dropped in a small mountain village and (with a couple of guides) trek for several hours through dense jungle and papaya plantations, to eventually reach a view of a high waterfall on the opposite side of a gorge.

dieng plateau

dieng plateau

dieng plateau

dieng plateau

The terrain is so steep here it really makes for some challenging trekking.

dieng plateau

dieng plateau

dieng plateau

Back at the village we soak our feet in their hot springs and stop for some lunch.

dieng plateau

dieng plateau

dieng plateau

The next destination is an old volcano crater. It’s about 100m across and the rocky plunge vertically down for about 100m, ending in a murky crater lake. Scary, just standing next to it. The story is that if you make a wish and throw a stone across, and you manage to hit the other side, your wish will be fulfilled.

dieng plateau

We visit an ancient Hindu temple site in the vicinity. I think it’s the oldest Hindu site in Indonesia. There’s not so much of it left but it’s still beautiful. There’s an information centre there where several of the sculptures are preserved and you can view an informative video about the place.

Hindu Temple Dieng Plateau

Best of all, just nearby we taste our first Indonesian food which we really enjoy! It’s called Tempe, which is some sort of dough or batter with a fill of vegetables and deep fried. It sure makes a difference when you have someone local guiding you to the decent food.

Indonesian Tempe

Dieng Plateau

The next site is really interesting: it’s a huge hot spring in the middle of a volcanic venting site of some sort. The main spring itself is a bubbling lake of ashen grey, cooking and spluttering and casting off a thick cloud of sulphuric steam which stinks like rotten eggs.But all over the area there are small water or gas springs bubbling out of the ground, which is caked in yellow sulphur resin. Fascinating!

Dieng Plateau

After getting dropped back at the home-stay we all make a short visit to the local mosque and thereafter Ebru and I go on to view a beautiful crater lake before the rain comes down.

Dieng Plateau

Sadly, our friends have to move on to their next destination straight away and so we part ways. It’s been great spending time with them and it’s been great meeting some modern Indonesians of our age group to talk with. They’re well educated, open minded, confident and have a great sense of humour.

Dieng Plateau

Indonesia has a few centuries’ history of being violated by outsiders (particularly Dutch and Japanese, then). But around the mid-20th century, after Britain and the US instigated a coup here to replace the democratically elected leader with a ruthless pro-American dictator, hundreds of thousands were killed. With the help of the new leadership, the country was sold out to IMF/World Bank and shackled with so much debt, it would ensure Indonesia would be a cheap sweat shop for western corporations for the foreseeable future. (There are some interesting books and films out by John Perkins and John Pilger on this subject.)

Dieng Plateau

We feel really privileged to have been so warmly welcomed and to have enjoyed time with these lovely Indonesian people. Thank you again to our new friends, and we hope to have you visiting us wherever we end up!

Dieng Plateau

Dieng Plateau

6 Comments

  • melanie

    it’s really nice to meet you two in my trip, hope someday we can arrange to have a trip together again

  • Kiki Fitria Rahadian

    Hi Ebru and Ken!

    We glad that you enjoyed Indonesia and had a great time with us as well. actually there’s a lot of beautiful place you must visited in here. maybe next time.

    by the way, the food called Tempe not tempi 🙂

    take care guys! have fun with your next trip!

    cheers,
    Kiki

    • ebru

      Hi Kiki,
      Yes Indonesia is huge and sooooooooo beautiful, we would like to see many more places and someday meet up with you guys.

      Thank you for the correction Ken will take care of that:)
      Take care for now

    • ken

      Hi Kiki! So happy you checked out our post. We would love to be able to see more of Indonesia. Thanks so much for letting us tag along with you. We had a great time! Regards to all friends! (Thanks for the correction, will change that)

  • Jutta Dehlinger

    Hallo Ihr 2, so viele tolle Fotos. Hoffe, es geht Euch gut und seid gesund. Wir sind schon gespannt, ob man sich heuer mal wieder sieht, oder ob Ihr Eure Reise verlängert. Bussi an Euch 2 und bis bald mal wieder, Jutta

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