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dear pamoz,
since your time is limited, you can save one day if you use night train to yogyakarta. you can spend half day monday and a whole day tuesday in jakarta, take a train at night and be in yogyakarta early in the morning, wednesday. yes, you will miss the beautiful scenery along the way, but 8 hours of paddy fields and villages and small forrest is just too much considering your time. you can see similar things on your way to malang from yogya.

you can go around yogyakarta, visit the palace (keraton) and other places, including prambanan if you want, before going off to borobudur. there will be ramayana ballet performance in prambanan temple every fullmoon, please check their schedule. in this case, you will arrive in borobudur late at night, on the same wednesday, tired and sleepy but happy. oopss....... i dunno if public transportation is still available that late at night, please check. bus from yogya to magelang is easy, but from the main road to your hotel in borobudur might not be that easy. a motorcycle taxi called "ojek" is a possibility.

now you have one extra day, you can visit solo/surakarta on your way to malang, you can even spend one night there. the javanese food is better in solo, in my opinion. do not forget to visit the batik village, to see ladies paint the fabric and dye it into beautiful batiks. of course it is a sin not to buy some.... you will regret it all your life.

so on thursday and friday you will be in borobudur temple, on the road to solo, staying overnight in solo, going around solo and on the road to malang. if your destination is bromo, and your time is tight, maybe it is better to rent a car from solo straight to the village next to bromo crater, should be less than US$ 50, or around that much. if you can't, just spent less time in solo (or borobudur) and rush off to malang and bromo around noon, friday.

the Bromo trip starts very early in the morning, usually beause it is a custom to see sunrise from a certain spot that i have never been to. after that, you can rent a horse to go to the crater. because life starts very early in bromo, you can leave the place at about 10 or 11 am to go to probolinggo (not going back to malang) and find transport to bali.

easy isn;t it?

happy travelling.

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Hi there,
I just give some infos bout bromo.
It needs much money if u wanna get bromo from mlg.
No public transport both via tumpang or nongkojajar.
U need 2 get a jeep from tumpang around or tosari, its very far 2 the crater.
It's easier 2 visit bromo via probolinggo.
U can get a bus or a train2 prob (drives at 2 pm from mlg), then get bison public transport near bus station, but we have many problems here, check your lp book.
Then get cemorolawang, u can stay there.
Get sun rise at mount penanjakan bout 5 am.
U can get bison public transport again in cemorolawang bout 9-11 am, get prob.
N u can get an economic bus from bus station 2 denpasar, pay on the bus.
Everything will be very easy if u have much money n wanna spend it.

Good luck.

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Hi pommefruit,

Yes, I heard the journey from Jakarta to Yogya is scenic and wouldn’t like to give up on it. However, if the travel from Yogya – east is not as interesting, I’d rather sacrifice this section and do it by night? Whenever I travel I prefer to do it by day, to see as much as possible.
You’re suggesting to spend 2 days in Borobudur, it’s quite a lot. I was thinking of heading there on Wed late afternoon, so we can visit the site on Thursday early morning by the sunrise to avoids the crowds. My thoughts were to spend there for 5-6 hours, but not sure if this is enough? Then back to Yogya for the rest of the day.

I read this morning that there’s a direct train from Yogya to Probolinggo, so we’d probably opt for this (btw we don’t need to see Malang, so can skip it). From Probolinggo we’d like to try to get to Ngadisari by the evening, to start the hike to the crater early next morning. It’s seems a bit hectic for 1 day, so we also consider a trip to Bromo from Probolinggo. What’s better?

We would then get back to Probolinggo as you’re suggesting, to continue to Bali.
Easy? Will tell you in 4 weeks time!

Olid,

We’ll skip Malang and will directly to Probolinggo. I’m not sure whether we’ll use a local tour operator from there or try to get to Bromo from Ngadisari by ourselves.

Any tips on the independent hike to the crater?

Thanks!

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Hi pamoz,
U can get cemorolawang by yourself, of course if u r lucky.
Bison public transport will drive if full passengers, bout 15 pax.
Normally pay IDR 25K, but will rise up twice in the afternoon.
I suggest u got this way, 4 your safety.
Many scams both train station or bus station.
If u get prob by train, u can visit my office, Probolinggo Government Tourism Information Centre, lies on opposite of prob train station.
U can get direct jogja-prob train from lempuyangan train station in jogja (there r 2 train stations there, tugu train station is another).
I suggest u 2 book it first.
Notice: Ngadisari, Cemorolawang, n Sukapura, r different places. Just say u wanna get cemorolawang.
I guess u wanna stay in cemorolawang, but some people wanna offer yoschi's hotel or sion view hotel, both still 3-4 km 2 cemorolawang.
U can get both pananjakan view point n bromo by walking, riding jeep or ojek.
Cemorolawang-Pananjakan 2, bout 5 km, 1 hour walking.
Cemorolawang-Bromo, bout 4 km, 1 hour walking.
Pananjakan 2-Bromo, bout 9 km, 1.5-2 hours walking.
Pay IDR 350K/ jeep, but u can share.
Pay IDR 100K by ojek.

U can check it also, http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?threadID=2245445

Good luck.