Cemoro Lawang sits on the rim of the Tengger caldera in East Java, and the view from the village edge is one of the strangest in the tropics. Below you lies a vast, flat sea of grey volcanic sand, and out of it rise the cones of Bromo, with its smoking crater, and Semeru beyond, the highest peak on Java. The village is high, cold at night and wrapped in mist at dawn, and everything about it feels a long way from the sweaty lowlands you left. Pasuruan and Lawang are the nearest big towns, around thirty kilometres away and a long climb below.
The Tengger people who live here are a Hindu community in a mostly Muslim island, and they hold the mountain sacred. Each year at the Yadnya Kasada festival, they climb to the crater and throw offerings, vegetables, flowers and livestock, into it. You will see small shrines and offerings on the slopes and men in sarongs against the cold. The caldera floor is called the Sea of Sand, and vehicles cross it in the dark so that visitors can reach the viewpoint for sunrise.
The ride up is the point. The road climbs steeply through market gardens where farmers grow cabbages, potatoes and onions on slopes that look too steep for anything, and the air cools with every bend. Expect tight hairpins, patchy tarmac, motorbikes loaded with sacks, minibuses taking corners wide, and plenty of morning mist. Ride slowly, because the fog comes quickly and the drops are real. Nights are cold enough for a proper jacket, which surprises people who packed for the tropics.
Bring fuel from the lowlands, as the village is small and roadside bottles of petrol are the usual fallback rather than a station. There are simple guesthouses and warung serving fried rice, noodles and strong coffee, and the ash dust gets into everything, so a buff or mask is wise. The best time is the dry season, from roughly May to September, when sunrises are clear. Set an alarm for the middle of the night, because the view is worth the dark start.