Java: Yogyakarta, Borobudur, Bromo and Ijen

1. Day 1: Arrive in Jakarta

   Soekarno-Hatta International Airport to central Jakarta, then Kota Tua

   • Drive about 1 h
   • Dinner
   • Stay in Jakarta
   Day 1 details

   Fly into Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK), west of the city, where a driver meets you for the transfer into central Jakarta, usually about an hour and longer in heavy traffic. If you land by about 2 pm, join your See Sight Tours guide and the group in the late afternoon for a first walk in Kota Tua, the old town of Dutch Batavia. Fatahillah Square is best as the heat goes out of the day: the white former city hall on its south side, finished in 1710, now holds the Jakarta History Museum, and towards evening the square fills with families, cyclists and food carts. A short drive away, wooden pinisi schooners still load cargo at the old harbour of Sunda Kelapa. Then we sit down to a welcome dinner and a briefing on the days ahead: the two trains, the two volcano mornings, what to pack for the cold at altitude and how the days are paced.

   Included

   • Pick-up at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK)
   • Kota Tua and Fatahillah Square at golden hour with your guide
   • Sunda Kelapa harbour
   • Welcome dinner and briefing

   Free time: Free until the late-afternoon walk; if you land later, we meet at dinner

2. Day 2: By train to Yogyakarta

   Jakarta to Yogyakarta by executive-class train

   • By train
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Yogyakarta
   Day 2 details

   After breakfast we take an executive-class train from Gambir station in central Jakarta to Yogyakarta, about seven hours. It is the comfortable way to cross Java: reclining seats, air-conditioning and a long view from the window, first the flat rice country of the north coast, then the hills and volcanoes of Central Java. Lunch is a Javanese meal served at your seat. We arrive in the afternoon and check in to a central hotel for three nights, so nobody repacks until day 5. In the evening your guide takes the group out on foot for street food: gudeg, young jackfruit slow-cooked in palm sugar and coconut milk, the dish the city is known for, and a glass of kopi joss at a roadside angkringan stall, black coffee with a lump of glowing charcoal dropped in. The walk ends near Malioboro, the long main street, so you can stay out or head back.

   Included

   • Executive-class train from Jakarta Gambir to Yogyakarta
   • Lunch on the train
   • Evening street food walk with your guide

   Free time: Free after the street food walk

   

3. Day 3: Borobudur at sunrise, batik in the afternoon

   Yogyakarta to Punthuk Setumbu and Borobudur, then back to Yogyakarta

   • Drive about 2.5 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Yogyakarta
   Day 3 details

   We leave Yogyakarta at about 4 am and drive an hour and a quarter to Punthuk Setumbu, a wooded hill west of Borobudur. A short climb on steps and a path brings you to the viewpoint for sunrise, when the temple rises out of the valley mist with Merapi and Merbabu behind it. Breakfast follows, then Borobudur itself as the park opens. Built in the 8th and 9th centuries and listed by UNESCO in 1991, it is nine stacked terraces with about 2,670 carved relief panels and 504 Buddha statues. Numbers on the monument are capped with timed tickets, so we book the earliest slot we can and walk the galleries with a local guide. On the way back we stop at the small temples of Mendut and Pawon, and lunch is a sit-down meal in a village near Borobudur. After a rest at the hotel, a local batik maker shows the group how wax and dye make the patterns, and you wax and dye a small cloth of your own. The evening is free.

   Included

   • Sunrise from Punthuk Setumbu
   • Borobudur with a local guide, with a timed ticket onto the monument where available
   • Mendut and Pawon temples
   • Sit-down lunch near Borobudur
   • Batik workshop in Yogyakarta, with the cloth you make

   Easier option: Skip the climb at Punthuk Setumbu and wait at the foot of the hill, or sit out the batik workshop and rest.

   Free time: Evening free

   Activity: A 4 am start. The climb to the sunrise viewpoint is about 15 minutes on steps; Borobudur's terraces have steep stone stairs.

   

4. Day 4: The Kraton, Prambanan and the Ramayana

   Yogyakarta: the Kraton and Taman Sari, then Prambanan

   • Drive about 1.5 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Yogyakarta
   Day 4 details

   A slower morning in the city. Your guide walks you across the north square, past the Sonobudoyo museum, and into the Kraton, the palace of the Sultan of Yogyakarta, built in the 1750s. Its pavilions, gamelan sets and court regalia explain why the city still has a reigning sultan, and the palace sits on the Cosmological Axis of Yogyakarta, listed by UNESCO in 2023. We walk on to Taman Sari, the 18th-century royal water garden with its bathing pools and underground passages. Lunch together, then a rest through the heat of the day. In the late afternoon we drive about 45 minutes east to Prambanan, the 9th-century Hindu temple compound listed by UNESCO alongside Borobudur. The central shrine to Shiva rises 47 m between the temples of Brahma and Vishnu, and the stone turns gold in the last hour, when most day visitors have gone. Dinner is nearby, then the Ramayana Ballet, danced to gamelan with the floodlit temples behind the open-air stage.

   Included

   • The Kraton with a local guide
   • Taman Sari water garden
   • Prambanan in the late afternoon with a local guide
   • Dinner and the Ramayana Ballet

   Easier option: Spend the free middle of the day in the Sonobudoyo museum's wayang puppet and textile rooms on the north square instead of resting at the hotel.

   Free time: Early afternoon free

   Activity: The Kraton keeps morning hours only and closes for court ceremonies; we schedule this day on an opening day and a Ramayana night.

   

5. Day 5: East by train to Malang

   Yogyakarta to Malang by train

   • By train
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Malang
   Day 5 details

   A slow morning: breakfast without an alarm, then the drive to the station for a late-morning train east, about seven to eight hours to Malang. The line runs past Solo and across the farmland of Central and East Java, with sugar-cane fields, small market towns and, on clear afternoons, the volcanoes of Kelud and Arjuno to the south. Lunch is served on board, and the train is the reason this is a rest day rather than a long road day: you can read, sleep or walk the carriages. Malang sits at about 450 m in the hills of East Java, noticeably cooler than Yogyakarta, and was laid out by the Dutch as a hill town with wide boulevards. We arrive in the late afternoon or early evening and check in to a central hotel near the Tugu square. The evening is free; your guide can point you to the night food stalls if you are hungry.

   Included

   • Train from Yogyakarta to Malang
   • Lunch on the train

   Free time: Morning and evening free

   Activity: Train times are confirmed with your final itinerary; we pick a daytime departure.

6. Day 6: Malang, then up to the Bromo rim

   Malang to Probolinggo, then up to Cemoro Lawang

   • Drive about 3.5 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Bromo (Cemoro Lawang)
   Day 6 details

   In the cool of the morning your guide walks the group along Jalan Ijen, Malang's boulevard of Dutch-era villas under old trees, and to Jodipan, a riverside neighbourhood whose houses were painted in bright colours, crossed by a footbridge over the Brantas. Lunch is a sit-down meal in town. Early in the afternoon we drive east on the toll road to Probolinggo and climb into the Tengger highlands, about 145 km and three to three and a half hours with a stop. The air cools, the rice fields give way to steep plots of potatoes, cabbages and spring onions, and by late afternoon you reach Cemoro Lawang, a village on the rim of the Tengger caldera at about 2,200 m. From the edge of the village you look straight down onto the Sea of Sand, with Bromo smoking in the middle and the cone of Batok beside it. We walk out to the rim for sunset, then dinner at the lodge and an early night.

   Included

   • Morning walk in Malang: Jalan Ijen and Jodipan
   • Sit-down lunch in Malang
   • Sunset walk on the Bromo caldera rim
   • Dinner at the lodge

   Activity: Cemoro Lawang is at about 2,200 m: cold after dark, so keep a warm layer in your day pack.

7. Day 7: Sunrise over Bromo, then east to Ijen

   Cemoro Lawang to a sunrise viewpoint and Bromo's crater, then via Probolinggo and the coast to the Ijen side of Banyuwangi

   • Drive about 6 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Banyuwangi (Ijen)
   Day 7 details

   Jeeps collect us at about 3:30 am and climb to a viewpoint on the outer rim: Penanjakan, at about 2,770 m, or a quieter hill nearby when Penanjakan is crowded. As the sky lightens, Bromo, Batok and the sea of cloud appear, with Semeru, Java's highest volcano, on the horizon on clear mornings. The jeeps drop onto the Sea of Sand, past the Tengger temple of Luhur Poten, to the foot of Bromo; a walk across the ash and about 250 steps take you to the crater rim, if access is open. Breakfast at the lodge, then the trip's one long road day: about 240 km and five and a half to six hours to the Ijen side of Banyuwangi. It runs over the 4-hour limit because there is no shorter way between the two volcanoes, and the morning train leaves Probolinggo before we are back from sunrise. We break it with a long lunch by the sea at Pasir Putih and coffee stops, arrive in the late afternoon, and have an early dinner.

   Included

   • Bromo sunrise viewpoint by jeep with Tengger drivers
   • The Sea of Sand and Bromo's crater rim, when open
   • Sit-down lunch at Pasir Putih
   • Early dinner at the hotel

   Easier option: Stay at the sunrise viewpoint and the foot of Bromo and skip the crater steps; Tengger horsemen offer rides across the sand, paid locally.

   More active option: Walk the crater rim further along its edge, where it is safe and permitted, with your guide.

   Activity: The longest road day: about 5.5 to 6 hours of driving, broken by lunch. Sleep in the vehicle if you can; tomorrow starts early again.

8. Day 8: Ijen at dawn and the ferry to Bali

   Licin to the Paltuding trailhead and the Ijen crater rim, then Ketapang, the ferry to Gilimanuk and Pemuteran

   • Drive about 2.5 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Pemuteran
   Day 8 details

   Ijen is a walk in the dark. We leave the hotel at about 3 am, drive to the Paltuding trailhead and climb with a local guide, about 3 km on a sandy trail with a rise of about 500 m, steep in places, to reach the rim at about 2,380 m for sunrise. Below you lies a turquoise lake of acid water, about a kilometre across, with sulphur miners carrying loads up from the yellow vents on the shore. If you want the blue flames, burning sulphur gas that only shows in darkness, an earlier group leaves at about 12:30 am and goes down into the crater with gas masks, when the path is open. Everyone is back at the hotel by about 9 am for breakfast and a shower. Then a short drive to Ketapang harbour, lunch nearby, and the car ferry across the Bali Strait, about an hour. From Gilimanuk it is 45 minutes along the coast to Pemuteran, a quiet fishing village, for a swim and a farewell dinner.

   Included

   • Ijen crater walk at sunrise with a local guide, entry and gas masks included
   • Lunch near Ketapang harbour
   • Car ferry from Ketapang to Gilimanuk
   • Farewell dinner in Pemuteran

   Easier option: Skip Ijen and sleep in; meet the group for breakfast before the ferry.

   More active option: The blue-flame start at about 12:30 am, down into the crater with a gas mask, when the path to the crater floor is open.

   Free time: Late afternoon free in Pemuteran

   Activity: About 3 to 4 hours on foot on loose, sandy ground, with sulphur fumes near the crater. Not advised for anyone with asthma or heart or lung conditions; tell us when you book.

9. Day 9: Across Bali to the airport

   Pemuteran over the highlands by Lake Beratan to I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport

   • Drive about 4 h
   • Breakfast
   Day 9 details

   A slow last morning. Pemuteran's bay is calm and shallow, with a long-running coral restoration project close to the beach, so start in the water if you like, or walk the shore while the fishing boats come in. After breakfast, at about 10 am, we drive south across Bali to I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport (DPS), about four hours and 150 km. We take the highland road rather than the slower, truck-heavy road along the west coast: up through clove and coffee country, past Lake Beratan and the water temple of Pura Ulun Danu Beratan, where we stop to stretch and for lunch, then down through Bedugul and the rice terraces of Tabanan. We reach the airport in the mid-afternoon. Your guide checks your flight before saying goodbye. Book a flight leaving after about 5 pm, or ask us to drop you in Ubud, Sanur or Seminyak if you are staying on in Bali.

   Included

   • Stop at Lake Beratan and Pura Ulun Danu Beratan
   • Drop-off at I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport (DPS), or in Ubud, Sanur or Seminyak

   Free time: Early morning free for a swim

   Activity: Book a flight leaving after about 5 pm.

Wildlife and weather: May to October is the dry season, with the best odds of clear sunrises at Borobudur, Bromo and Ijen, and the Ramayana Ballet on its open-air stage. Even then, cloud can hide a sunrise. From November to March afternoon storms are common, trails at Ijen get slippery and the ballet moves indoors. Nights on the Bromo rim and at Ijen are cold all year.

• Jakarta1 night
• Yogyakarta3 nights
• Malang1 night
• Bromo (Cemoro Lawang)1 night
• Banyuwangi (Ijen)1 night
• Pemuteran1 night