3 weeks itinerary Sumatra and Java

Why Indonesia?

Indo­ne­sia, the lar­gest island sta­te in the world, has a lot to offer. Tro­pi­cal jungles, end­an­ge­red ani­mal spe­ci­es, acti­ve vol­ca­noes, beau­tiful bea­ches, metro­po­li­ses of mil­li­ons, open and fri­end­ly peo­p­le and the most beau­tiful sce­n­ery for sun­ri­ses. With so many opti­ons, it’s almost impos­si­ble to deci­de whe­re to go first. The best way to see ever­y­thing is to plan 50 years for over 17,000 islands. Howe­ver, sin­ce my employ­er has incom­pre­hen­si­bly refu­sed 50 years of lea­ve with full pay­ment, it must be three and a half weeks. We final­ly choo­se Suma­tra and Java. Both islands are rela­tively easy to visit and the­re is some­thing of ever­y­thing. Orang Utans, vol­ca­noes, tea plan­ta­ti­ons, city trips and adven­tures – here we come!

Here are the stops of our tour on Java:

Our flight takes us from Frank­furt via Sin­ga­po­re to Medan on Suma­tra. For the first part of our trip we made it easy for our­sel­ves and boo­ked a dri­ver and the hotels via a Ger­man tra­vel agen­cy.  Sin­ce we do not have so much time, we deci­de for a small round trip in the north of the island:

Day 1: Flight via Sin­ga­po­re to Medan and arri­val in the late evening

Day 2: Short sight­see­ing in Medan and on to Bukit Lawang in the jungle

Day 3–4: Jungle tre­king in Bukit Lawang

Day 5: Con­ti­nue from Bukit Lawang via Medan to Lake Toba and by fer­ry to Samo­sir Island.

Day 6–7: Adven­ture and rela­xa­ti­on on Samosir

Day 8: Con­ti­nue to Berastagi

Day 9: From Beras­ta­gi to Medan and flight to Java. The flight from Medan to Jakar­ta lea­ves around noon and only takes about an hour, so we have enough time to con­ti­nue from Jakar­ta to Bogor.

Here is our route on Java:

Day 9: Arri­val via Jakar­ta to Bogor

Day 10: Sight See­ing around Bogor

Day 11: Dri­ve over the Pun­cak Pass to Bandung. On the way the­re you can visit a tea plan­ta­ti­on and a quarry

Day 12: Visit of the white cra­ter just out­side Bandung

Day 13: Train ride from Bandung to Ban­jar. From the­re it goes by taxi about 90 kilo­me­ters south to the beach to Pandangaran

Days 14–15: Visit the Green Valey, Green Can­yon and Pandan­ga­ran Natio­nal Park

Day 16: From Sida­jera rail­way sta­ti­on to Yogyakarta

Day 17–18: Sight See­ing in Yog­ya­kar­ta and sur­roun­dings (Dieng Pla­teau, Param­ba­nan Temp­le and Borobodur)

Day 19: By train from Yog­ya­kar­ta to Sura­ba­ya in the east of Java and con­ti­nue by car to Bro­mo Volcano

Day 20: Sun­ri­se over Bro­mo and hike to the cra­ter rim in the ear­ly mor­ning, then on to Banyuwangy

Day 21: Sight see­ing in Bany­u­wan­gy and gathe­ring strength for the ascent of Ijen at midnight

Day 22: In the midd­le of the night we start the hike on and in the Ijen to the blue fire. In the mor­ning return to Surabaya

Day 23: Return flight from Sura­ba­ya via Sin­ga­po­re to Germany

How do you get from A to B and how does it work to travel by train on Java?

Sin­ce we real­ly want to explo­re Java on our own, but due to the rejec­tion of my 50-year holi­day appli­ca­ti­on by my employ­er we only have less than 2 weeks time, I would like to have ever­y­thing plan­ned exact­ly. After all, I don’t want to miss any sights and don’t want to worry about whe­re we’­re going. That’s why I orga­ni­zed a dri­ver via the Tri­p­Ad­vi­sor Forum to accom­pa­ny us from Jakar­ta via Bogor to Bandung. (You can find Adi here: www.bogorprivatetourguide.com)

Here you can read the tra­vel reports of Bogor and Bandung.

From Bandung we want to get to Pan­g­an­dar­an by train and bus. I am alre­a­dy curious how and abo­ve all whe­ther we can mana­ge this. As it turns out in retro­s­pect, tra­vel­ling by train in Indo­ne­sia is real­ly child’s play. Whoe­ver makes it with Deut­sche Bahn will defi­ni­te­ly make it in Indo­ne­sia. Here you can read the tra­vel report.

After 2 days of rela­xa­ti­on and adven­ture we also con­ti­nue by train to Yog­ya­kar­ta and ano­ther train ride brings us to Sura­ba­ya. Here we want to explo­re the two vol­ca­noes Bro­mo and Ijen and also for this I cont­ac­ted a local gui­de from Ger­ma­ny, who made us dif­fe­rent tour offers. Usual­ly you do the Bro­mo and Ijen tour in only three days. Howe­ver, we took 4 days, which pro­ved to be a good idea in retro­s­pect. In Bany­u­wa­ny, the place from whe­re you can visit the Ijen, you can spend at least one day with sight see­ing. From here you can also tra­vel on to Bali. In the port of Bany­u­wan­gy the­re is a fer­ry that will take you to the east of Bali wit­hout any pro­blems. Here you can find Alfan: www.blessingtransportbromoijen.com and here you can read the tra­vel reports from East Java.

Here is the complete route:

If you also pre­fer to plan your trip in advan­ce, I can warm­ly recom­mend the Tri­p­ad­vi­sor Forum. Here you will find many gre­at peo­p­le who orga­ni­ze tours for you for a good pri­ce and the advan­ta­ge is that your money goes to small, local com­pa­nies or pri­va­te people.

Click here for the tra­vel report