Flying in Indonesia, a brief story.
Domestic air travel in Indonesia can be exciting! There are quite a few announcements in Indonesian only
and what is in English is often hard to catch due to background noise and stron accents. I had purchased
a ticket with Lion Air from Medan to Palembang. The ticket clearly stated "Direct Flight", however, the flight
time made me suspect that we would have a stop along the way. We took off and I guesssed that our first stop
would be the islands called Batam, just next to Singapore. As we were about to land an announcement in English
explained that "continuing passengers" should remain in the aircraft during this stop. OK, so this is what
"direct" meant. After a short time on the ground, however, a new announcement informed that the airplane now
would proceed to Surabaya! WOW! This is a city on Java, not my destination. I hurried off the plane, while looking
for a plane to Palembang. YES! Such a plane existed and would depart very shortly from gate 8. I hurried along,
but somehow needed to pass through a new security check, it was unclear if one somehow could circumvent this.
Gate 8 was at the very end, a staff of 2 were there, immediately asking if my name was Peter? I nodded yes, and
one of the two said he would escort me to the plane. Nobody else around, they obviously had been waiting for me
to appear. Somehow, it now turned out that my airplane was near gate 1, at the opposite end of the long hallway
I just had traversed to get to the announced gate 8. I found my seat, everone else were seated. We took off and
arrived in Palembang. However, my checked bag was lost, not in Batam. They had simply failed to load it onto
my airplane back in Medan. Fortunately, it showed up the next morning and did not cause any disruption of
my schedule.
How to get there:
The most convenient access seems to be from the city Palembang, this is still a long way from the peak.
I rented a car with driver Willy
(whatsapp: +6281377723729). He speaks English and provides excellent service.
His driving is efficient but conservative, a safe driver. The drive from Palembang to the town Pagar Alam takes
about 7 hours. A convenient place to stay is Villa Besemah,
location: S4.03053, E103.18049, elevation near 1200 m.
The trailhead is a short drive from there, located at S4.04171, E103.15407, elevaation 1615 meter. The paved road ends
here.
Red Tape:
Climbing peaks in Indonesia used to be straightforward, but, unfortunately, it is getting more and more
troublesome, perhaps in particular, for people coming from abroad. Two different offices must now be visited
the day before you want to climb Dempo. The first, a government office, is located in Pagar Alam, location
S4.02628, E103.24079. Here you must provide a recent health certificate, your passport, etc. They will
issue a permit. Next, this document must be provided to a local office very near the trailhead. The distance from
the first office, is 17 km with an estimated (Google) driving time of 38 minutes. Here, you pay 100.000 IDR (2025)
One may drive a short distance beyond the registration office on the same paved road. The road continues
as a dirt road and most vehicles may be able to drive a short distance more, to the location where the
Dempo trail forks right and starts uphill from the road. However, the gain by driving all the way is quite small.
Route description:
Walk the rest of the road until the trail
forks right, directly up between tea plants,
starting with a staircase.
This is location S4.04328, E103.15352. The trail continues more or less
directly up to a ridge, then descends to
a flat area used for camping.
Continue across to the final slope,
gain the ridge and follow it (right) to the summit.
The summit has cameras
to monitor volcanic activity as well
as some solar panels to provide local energy.
The trail starts out fairly gently, but becomes increasingly steeper and somewhat more
challenging as you gain elevation.
The upper part has several short sections were one
must do some easy climbing (scramble).
Roots and branches are used for handholds.
The difficulty resembles (YDS) class 3. The surface gets slippery when exposed
to rain. Almost all "tricky sections" had an additional rope that could be used for additional help.
Comments/Trip report:
I arrived in Palembang on a Wednesday, Willy picked me up and drove me to my hotel, with a
stop along the way to do a medical and receive a health certificate that is now required.
On Thursday, we first needed to return to the airport and retrieve my bag, it was lost by the airline, but
fortunately arrived this morning. Next, we drove to Pagar Alam, with a stop at the government permit office.
Having this permit, our next stop was up at the registration office, to finalize the permit process. Finally,
back down to Villa Besemah for dinner and early bed.
We left Villa Besemah at 0430, I started hiking at 0455, having agreed that Willy should be back up
at the parking at 1400, to wait for my return. The ascent went ok, it was light at 0555, by then I was
a bit higher than 2000 m. I passed a single (pretty big) tent with people well before reaching the
local ridge after 4 hours. There seemed to be a single part camped on the flat area before the final slope to
the peak. The climb concluded with a short, scenic walk along the rim.
The summit was reached at 0945. I had brief sunshine and nice conditions.
Impressive views of the big crater with the small,
greenish crater lake at the bottom.
Returning
after a 15 minute break on the summit,
I overtook a party of 3 descending. Later, I met several people
ascending, they were obviously all planning to camp.
The weather kept changing while I descended, a drizzle/rain made me stop to put on a raincoat, shortly later
the rain ended and I stopped to take my raincoat off. Then this scenario repeated several cycles. I would have
made it back down by 1400 if all these stops, raincoat on/off had been avoided.
I was back at my car with Willy at 1410, pretty good timing.
