Jakarta to Bali by train, bus and boat — two of the greatest temple complexes on earth, three volcanoes, and the island most visitors fly over.
Jakarta
Kota Tua, the old Dutch town, and the National Museum, which is the best introduction to the archipelago you will get. One night is enough.
To Yogyakarta
Executive-class train across Java, about eight hours through rice terraces and volcanoes. Book on the KAI app days ahead.
Borobudur
First entry of the day. Nine stacked platforms, 2,672 relief panels, abandoned around the fourteenth century and rediscovered under volcanic ash and jungle in 1814.
Prambanan and the city
The Hindu counterpart, thirty kilometres away and built within a century of Borobudur — the two faiths were neighbours here. Then the kraton and a batik workshop.
Merapi and the south coast
The volcano that buried Borobudur is still the most active in Indonesia; a jeep tour goes up to the 2010 eruption line. Afternoon at Parangtritis, where nobody swims because of the current.
To Malang
East by train into the highlands. Malang is a university town with colonial streets, cool evenings and almost no foreign visitors.
Bromo
Up at two in the morning for sunrise over the Tengger caldera. Go to Bukit Kingkong or Seruni Point rather than Penanjakan, where four hundred people share one railing.
The sand sea
Walk across the caldera floor to the crater in daylight, when the crowd has gone back to bed. It is an hour on foot and nobody does it.
To Ijen
East to Banyuwangi. Sleep early; the Ijen hike starts around one in the morning.
Ijen
Two hours up, then down into the crater for the blue flames — burning sulphur gas, visible only in the dark. Gas masks are mandatory and the miners carrying 80 kg loads out on their shoulders are the real story.
Ferry to Bali
Ketapang to Gilimanuk, thirty-five minutes and about a euro. Then east across Bali to Munduk in the hills.
North Bali
Waterfalls, clove and coffee smallholdings, and the twin lakes. This is the Bali that existed before the south, and it is an hour from it.
To Sidemen
East to a rice-terrace valley under Agung. Sidemen is what Ubud was three decades ago, and it is quiet enough to hear the irrigation running.
Subak and temples
Walk the terraces with someone who can explain subak — the thousand-year-old water-temple system that allocates irrigation by consensus and is a UNESCO listing in its own right.
Amed
To the dry north-east coast for black sand and the Liberty wreck at Tulamben, which is a shore dive twenty metres off the beach.
Out
Across the island to Denpasar. Allow three hours for a distance that looks like one; Bali traffic is the reason.
Good to know
Dry season is roughly April to October; the wet season closes crater hikes and turns Bromo into cloud. Java trains are excellent — book through the KAI app, executive class is worth the small premium on long legs. Volcano status changes: check the national geological agency (PVMBG) before Bromo, Ijen or Merapi, and accept a closure rather than finding a guide who will ignore it. Ijen requires a gas mask, not a scarf, and the operators who provide proper ones charge more for a reason.
Shorter or longer?
Fly east from Bali for Komodo and the Kelimutu crater lakes. Ten more days and a different archipelago entirely.
Skip Bali and go west instead — Bandung, the Dieng plateau and Karimunjawa. Half the visitors and the same trains.