Finally we made it! We woke up early morning after several times pressing “snooze” button in mobile’s alarm. We dragged our body out of the cot, packed up everything we needed. Wallet –with money in it-, mineral water, jacket, and camera. No needed to wait, 7am sharp, the car I booked (included the driver) blew its horn, in front of hotel lobby. We were ready for Dieng!

Both of us, me and a friend, were busy fighting sleepy moment along the way to the highland. The driver said, from our starting point, center city of Yogyakarta, we’d need around two to three hours to reach Dieng. It’s like Jakarta – Bandung, but no highway. The car kept climbing, we kept sleeping. We chose Yogyakarta-Temanggung-Wonosobo route.

We woke up and it was a sunny day. Bright blue color coating the sky, green valleys covering the hills and black roofed small houses looked like ant colonies from the distance.  For some moments, I was stunned and fell into silent. I opened the car’s window and asked the driver to turn off aircon. I can’t even remember the last time I saw this scenery for real. Too much internet will kill you, said a friend once. He is a cynical technology phobia, but somehow those landscapes pushed me to give him some points. He was right, I should have given myself some times to indulge my exhausted robotic mind in the middle of my “real world”; mountains.

We entered the gate of Dieng plateau, stopped for couple minutes to buy tickets. Unfortunately, I don’t really remember how much I had to pay, but it was much more expensive than what I found on webs. Peak season rates, I guessed. If I’m not mistaken, each of us had to pay around Rp. 35.000. We didn’t have to pay anything anymore, tickets were valid for all tourism spots at Dieng area.

Fresh oxygen ran though car’s window to my whole body. Almost two hours since we started, we were still climbing, higher and higher. Uh, we rented the cheapest car available, Xenia, a family van. I thought the car would never make it, but it did. Rp. 250.000/24 hours included the driver wasn’t too expensive for this kind of trip (You can call Bayu, the car rental owner at 0817273088 if someday you need a car in Yogyakarta).

Weather started changing. The road was way far from wide, in our left side, calming green farms were accompanying our eyes. In right side, we can see those villages far away down the hills. White fog was layering, almost like surreal paintings. Camera started its actions. There we were, entering the second highest plateau in the world after Nepal at an altitude of above 2000 meters.

Our agenda:

1. Telaga Warna (Lake of Colors)
2. Arjuna Complex of temples
3. Sikidang Crater

Yes, we only had very short time. We needed to be at the city in the evening. [to be continued here]