Surabaya – Part 1 (Sidoarjo, Batu, Malang)

Assalammualaikum and Hi there!

* I basically don’t know where to start. I’ve been staring at the same line for almost 15 to 20 minutes. Maybe, dah lama sangat tak menulis.

Oh ya, will be writing about my very long-awaited trip, SURABAYA! This is basically a girls trip ONLY and i left FF way back in Malaysia safe and sound. He still carried the unsatisfaction feeling till today. As usual, the official airlines will definitely the red and white color low-cost airlines in Malaysia which read as Air Asia. Purchased the tickets way back last year and I only started drafting the itinerary a week before flying due to work loads and time constraints. But as usual, I started to read and browsing through all the blog and forum just to get the rough idea on the place.

In overall, we only had 3 days in total since we gonna departed from Surabaya to KL on the last day as early as 11.00am. So, there’s nothing much you can do on the last day except having your last breakfast meals in the hotel. Tight schedule huh?

We arrived at Juanda International Airport, Surabaya sharp at 11.30am. This time around, we gonna used Supir services since we’ll be travelling out-of-town which is to Batu, Malang and Probolinggo (Mt. Bromo) in group. The places are definitely far from Surabaya town itself. Talking about the supir services, personal thanks to Azim for sharing the contact and his itinerary with me! Very recommended. If you need the supir (Pak Asyirin and Pak Marji) contact no, feel free to drop me a messages.

After a short discussion with Pak Asyirin on the route, we started the journey by going straight to the ‘Pusat Wisata Lumpur Lapindo’ or Lapindo Mud Flow at Sidoarjo. As soon as I got myself out from the car, I got stucked with this bad smell. Oh my, its sulphur!

The protest by the villagers. I’ve managed to talk to the local and asked them about the compensation. After 6 years struggling of being homeless and lost their love ones, they only managed to get 20% out of the compensation.

These are the basic info of Lapindo Mud Flow,

The Sidoarjo mud flow or Lapindo mud (informally abbreviated as Lusi, a contraction of Lumpur Sidoarjo wherein lumpur is the Indonesian word for mud) is a mud volcano  in the subdistrict of Porong, Sidoarjo in East Java, Indonesia that has been in eruption since May 2006. It is the biggest mud volcano in the world, created by the blowout of a natural gas well-drilled by PT Lapindo Brantas, although company officials contend it was caused by a distant earthquake. In August 2012, Geologists definitely stated that the Sidoarjo mudflow was caused by drilling operation misconduct which only used a quarter of the height of drilling wallpipe and was not caused by an earthquake 275 kilometer away (more than 100 kilometer). This was stated by a Constitutional Court concerned with the National Budget to bear a part of the disaster fund.

Source: Wikipedia. 

Previously, the road level on the left hand side are the same height of the village just next to the slopes or embankment. The installation of gabion wall and construction of slopes is to prevent the flow of mud flow from going further.  At first, I couldn’t imagine the situation, but once I was there, I’m totally speechless.

The compilation of the whole tragedy. This CD was sold at the price of IDR 70,000. 

It’s already reaching 10.6m height. Can u imagined? Mengucap panjang bile tengok penanda aras nie. If there’s no embankment and slopes were made earlier, the mud flow definitely has move to other side of the village.

You can try to hold it, but it’s advisable to clean up immediately if you have a sensitive skin. Irritation may occurred since it contains high volume of sulphur. Bau dia je dah menyengat hidung.

We left the place with doa that Allah S.W.T will always be at their side and the mud flow will stop one day. Insya Allah.

We then continue our journey further up to Batu to visit Kusuma Agro Wisata which is an apple and strawberry plantation. Unfortunately, we reached there somewhere around 4.30pm and there’s only 30 minutes left till gate close. Oh ya, it’s open from 8.00am to 5.00pm daily. We decided not to waste our money for the entrance fees since not much time left. Redha aje. But you can actually see the surrounding of the plantation area from the gate itself and the weather and the environment is slightly same as what we have in Cameron Highlands. Next time i guess.

We jumped into the car and get ourself further up to Malang to visit the Coban Rondo Waterfall. Apa jadi pun, nak jugak gi tempat ni even though it’s getting dark. There’s actually a story behind all this.

Once upon a time there was a couple who just got married, Prince Raden Baron Kusuma and Princess Dewi Anjarwati. On their way to visit the prince’s parents, a man named Joko Lelono held them up. He fell in love with the princess and wanted to take her. The fight couldn’t be avoided so the prince commanded his guards to take the princess to a place where the waterfall was. The princess waited for the prince at the waterfall but unfortunately both men died during the fight so the princess became a widow. In Javanese widow is called rondo and waterfall is coban. It was then that waterfall was named Coban Rondo. It was said that one of the big rocks there was the princess’ sitting place.
Source: http://www.holiday-or-living-in-malang.com/coban-rondo-waterfall.html

The surroundings. Air dia sejuk gile!

The waterfall!

The last shop that is still open. We’re there somewhere at 6pm. Dah gelap gelita dah. Should try ‘jagung bakar’ here. Dah la weather sejuk, pekena ‘jagung bakar’,mmg terbaik lar.

Right after Malang, we turned back to Probolinggo area to stay overnight somewhere near Mt. Bromo.  We travel another 3 – 4 hours from there. Phew! And we finally reach the hotel somewhere around midnight. Settled down with everything and we slept around 1am. And we need to get up as early as 3.30am for the sunrise trip.

We will continue our journey on Part 2 – Sunrise from Mt. Penanjakan and Mt. Bromo.

Simply me,
Zara AB 
The Province of Chroma