The reticent volcano keeps
His never slumbering plan
Confided are his projects pink
To no precarious man.

Admonished by her buckled lips
Let every babbler be
The only secret people keep
Is Immortality.
– Emily Dickinson

Mount Merapi, the most active volcano in Indonesia sits in Central Java on the border of Yogyakarta. It last erupted in late 2010, claiming more than 350 lives and displacing over 400,000 nearby residents.

One lucrative business that came from this tragedy was the Merapi 4×4 jeep tours. For a fee (we paid RP350,000, approx MYR 98 or USD32), a driver will take you on a jeep to certain spots around the base of Mount Merapi. As the tours are heavily centralised on the 2010 eruption, you will see (or be pointed to) many leftovers from the destruction.

First, a photo with Merapi in the background.

Why did we do this?

1) I wanted to be near Merapi. I LOVE mountains!
2) I had half-formed plans of a sunrise hike. Then my sprained ankle didn’t get better for a leisurely walk up a hill, let alone an arduous trek up a living volcano. Let’s conveniently ignore the fact that I am fat and unfit, THOUGH motivated.
3) Good reviews on TripAdvisor. Other people enjoyed it, why shouldn’t I?

Choose your tour.

If you’ve never been on the back of a 4×4 on a rocky road, this is a good opportunity for you to experience it. Wear a hat/cap, use sunblock and enjoy the bumpy ride. Note: this is not a fun ride if you’re allergic to dust.

If you tried it before, then this is what you will see for the entire trip:

This used to be a river. Then the volcano erupted and lahars flowed through it.

From time to time, the driver will point at abandoned/ demolished houses/ structures, with the information that they were all destroyed during the 2010 Merapi eruption. In my many musings about life, I sometimes wonder if it is necessary to point out the obvious. Perhaps in this case it was, else there’d be nothing to talk about whatsoever.

Plenty more like this, most with not much remaining.

We had a pit stop to a ‘museum’ housing items collected from the leftovers of the eruption. You’re looking at cutlery, personal items, toys, and what-not gathered in ash. A clock on the wall displayed the exact time of the night eruption, when villagers could not get to safety in time. There was a reconstructed skeletal remains of a cow. A couple of stalls sold souvenirs; T-shirts, photos and VCDs of the 2010 eruptions.

I didn’t know what to think. Of course I felt a wave of sadness because lives were lost, people displaced. But I’m not sure about taking their everyday personal items (combs?) and making it a local tourist attraction.

The driver sensed that we weren’t particularly interested in the ‘museum’. We left on the jeep and continued to see things like:

3.5 years after the eruption and piles of rocks spurted from the volcano was still smoking. I know you can’t see it in the photo, so I very kindly marked the area where smoke was coming out… just for you:

Miscommunication played a part in my disinterest. We spoke Bahasa Malaysia with the guide and he replied in Bahasa Indonesia (duh). Most parts, I could get him and what he was trying to say.

But when he started telling us about ‘dusun jambu’ and how the volcano eruption killed everything in it, I wondered in annoyance why was he telling us about hot lava destroying a guava fruit orchard?

Turns out, ‘dusun’ is ‘village’ in Indonesia, and not ‘orchard’ as how we know it in Malaysia. I must have seemed like a callous, indifferent, cold-hearted tourist.

Rewarded with occasional clear view of Merapi.

We got to Kaliadem, the highest point where the jeeps could reach. Before, it was a popular village with campsites for those wanting to catch Merapi sunrise from afar. Now it’s covered with rocks and ash, heavily damaged from lava and lahars.

A few people sought refuge in the bunker, only to die from the extreme heat. I found a site with photos of what the bunker looked like before the 2006 eruption *click*. This is what it looks like now:

I could only imagine what it was like before the eruptions.

Moving on to complete the 1.5 hour journey, we stopped by to see an ‘alien rock’. There are no surprises to this; it’s a huge rock that locals think look like an alien. Apparently they believe that it contains magical powers. I didn’t go look, so here’s a photo of Joyce at the remaining entrance to a demolished dusun (village).

One story about the 2010 eruption that moved me was the passing of the spiritual guardian of Merapi. Mbah Maridjan (or Grandfather Maridjan) replaced his father as the gatekeeper in 1982. Spiritual guardians of Merapi are believed to have the power to speak to the spirits of Merapi. He refused to evacuate before the 2010 eruption, telling friends that he had a responsibility to the people and mountain, and that it was soon his time to die.

Read more on Wikipedia: *click*

Not to romanticise death, but I felt that the story of the guardian, role and responsibility was very old world, from an era long gone. We don’t have much of that anymore.

Do I think that you should go on any Merapi 4×4 jeep tour? I don’t know, I’m a jaded old cow. But if you have RM100 to spare to support the locals (as most of the jeep operators are locals to the area), why not. Keep expectations low, enjoy the scenery and imagine the spirit of Mbah Maridjan still lingering, faithfully guarding the fiery mountain from the other side.

Follow the entire Yogyakarta trip here: Yogyakarta 2014