Just came back from Japan last week. Went to Tokyo for conference and added side trip to Tateyama Alpine Route and Kanazawa. I must say that Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route was great. You can do the trip either from Nagano side or Toyama side. For us, we did it from the Nagano side. Took the Shinkansen to Nagano early morning. Then boarded the express bus to Ogizawa. From there, we boarded the tunnel electric bus to get to Kurobe Dam. From the dam, it was all the way up to the peak (almost). Murodo is the highlight of the route. This is the place where you get to see snow covered peak and lake. In spring, there's snow wall nearby Murodo station. From Murodo, we descended to Bijodaira and Tateyama Station to catch the local train back to Toyama. The fare for the entire route is not cheap, but it's worth it. A hike from Bijodaira to Murodo should be interesting, which can be considered in future. View from the tunnel electric bus, onward to Kurobe Dam Arrived at Kurobe Dam View of t...
From sleepy Surabaya, we headed to Probolinggo, which was about 3-hour journey, plus the slow traffic. Just imagine the highway is a 2-way single lane with lots of lorries in front of you. The scam happened, as reported in LP, that travelers are often being left at random travel agents which eventually are being charged for exorbitant fares for bus tickets or travel packages. So we had no choice but to take up this particular travel agent's service. Initially just wanted to take the bus ride to Bromo; ended up took a huge package covering Bromo, Kawah Ijen, Borobudur, Prambanan and accomodation in Yogya. The price: 1.8 millions rupiah for two. Could be a good deal but believe the price can go even lower. Never mind the price but we didn't get to stay at the preferred place on top of the mountain (Cemoro Lawang). Instead we settled at Ngadisari which was about 3km before reaching Cemoro Lawang. That was an overnight stay before we woke up the next morning for the sunrise view in Bromo.
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